How YouTube is Changing the World
McLuhan writes, “Subliminal and docile acceptance of media impact has made them prisons without walls for their human users” (McLuhan 208). Each of us knows that the twenty-first century is the age of information, and that information is the main weapon that influences people’s minds and opinions. Indeed, the news we are able to watch on TV is told from the perspective the government need us to know it, and this perspective is not always true. YouTube allows every user to upload and watch videos free. It provides a lot of opinions and lets people escape from the prison of limited information. Furthermore, YouTube is the fastest way to spread this information.
YouTube has not only political videos and news but also videos that aim to entertain their viewers. It shows us video blogs, celebrities, reviews on video games, advertising, and educational videos. YouTube changes traditional understandings of who celebrities are and gives everybody a chance to become famous. YouTube users can share their works and opinion with the world, and that is what makes YouTube really popular.
Structuralism and Semiotics
Let’s consider structuralism through the example of the movie Django Unchained directed by Quentin Tarantino (2012). Americans make a lot of films about slavery, and this tradition is definitely related to their history. The modern talks against racism and the times of slavery that are considered to be the “dark” times of the United States are reflected in the plots of such movies, and the same happens in Django Unchained, where the escaped slave Django revenges White people killing them. Despite the historical evidence that during the days of slavery, not all African-Americans had been oppressed or bad treated, the modern movies follow the pattern “slavery is evil.” In Django Unchained, Django kills a lot of people but remains justified by the viewers, as he is shown as a sufferer, while White slaveholders are pure villains.
Works Cited
McLuhan, M. “The Medium is the Massage.” Title of the textbook, ed. City: Publisher, Year. 203-209. Print.
Tarantino, Quentin. Django Unchained. The Weinstein Company, 2012. Film.
