Stuart Hall's cultural studies is "a neo-Marxist critique that sets forth the position that mass media manufacture consent for dominant ideologies." Our text book says that Hall joins a "group of critical scholars who attack mainstream communication...narrowly focused on discovering cause-and-effect relationships."
The book mentions that after 9/11, former president Bush somehow convinced Americans to show love and support for our country by essentially spending money. He made it clear that "this was an especially good time to buy a new car." As a result, "new car sales increased 31 percent in the first two months after the tragedy." How is it that patriotism and buying cars were put together in this equation? This was never answered but was clearly accepted by the population as the statistic above shows.
I came across the cover for the latest issue of Newsweek, and the similarity both in the visual given and the message was pretty interesting. The Newsweek cover also has Uncle Sam telling us to spend our money in order to find relief. This time, our relief from the recession. Both images are shaping our ideology (frameworks through which we interpret, understand, and make sense of social existence). So if the campaign to spend worked out before, can it work this time as well? Who is behind the campaign this time and why? Will people question why this is a good idea or will they just succumb to the media again? These are some questions that I don't have a clear idea on after reading this chapter...
I think the media realizes that the federal government can't do everything themselves. The media has the power to promote ideas that have outcomes desirable to the government. The cover of newsweek is a great example. The government got a free advertisement from newsweek. I think the spending campaign can work, but it takes everybody, and everybody is in save mode. So it is going to take some time. We just have to worry about AIG giving out more bonuses from our money....
ReplyDeleteI think it's interesting to look at these media texts as recurring. Do people actually learn from the past? It seems as though people are quick to forget about the recurrence of messages through media. Often times, similar headlines and stories make up most of the news we see. It would also be interesting to compare the news headlines, of major media networks and newspapers, after several different tragic events in the country's history. I would venture to guess that there would be many similarities in the ways in which media is portrayed in times of crisis. Because the Uncle Sam advert focuses on the current economic downturn by expressing the governments want for consumers to spend more money, it plays a part in supporting what we accept as the status quo. It seems as though people can easily interpret messages on this more basic level, but in reality the message has a bigger meaning. The magazine cover is only one aspect of the media's coverage of the economic downturn. Together these texts enable discursive formation. We accept the messages being portrayed because that is all we see. People are more influenced by media than they want to believe. By not having a skeptical approach to interpreting media, people are basically buying into the media's message. There seems to always be a hidden agenda in the media. By playing off of the emotions of consumers, concerning the economy, the media is attempting to convince people to spend more money.
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