1.1. It has to be reckoned that the media is aimed at promoting a single global commodity culture. In the age of globalization, the world is treading toward the dominance of monoculture that aims to undermine the cultural differences and community distinction so as to replace these with the notion of oneness all over the globe. In the modern era of cultural imperialism and globalization, media has emerged as the omnipotent tool to influence gazillion people all over the world society. Mass media is endowed with the power of affecting the mind and psyche of the people with its machinery and processes. As such, media can influence and channelize the thoughts and beliefs of an individual as well as societies. It would be correct to opine that media can be utilized as one of the most efficient and powerful propagandist machineries in the present era of communication and technological advancement.
Now, one has to understand that mass media can engage in propagating its ideological perspective to the people who constitute the audience. While aiming to promote a monoculture and globalized society strengthens the reach and appeal of media houses by enhancing the target audience, the media machinery also aims to carry out its propagandist ambitions with all the effective processes of mass communication. As such, one needs to take into reckoning that individual ownership of media can come to play the greatest role in ascertaining the content and presentation of the media house. Thus, the news that is disseminated to the public at large is imbibed with ideological messages that are encoded in the news so as to be decoded by the audience. The ideological stance of the media house depends on the ideological background of the owner of the media house. Hence, some information can very well be shunned in accordance to the ideology of the owner, and the presentation too can be influenced by the political stand of the owner of the media house.
2.1. Noam Chomsky goes on to opinionate that global media aims at the concentration of ownership of media houses all over the world. As per the Neo-Marxist view, the prime source of income of the media houses is advertisement. The advertisements aim at catapulting the global commodity culture. The very ideology and requirement of commodity culture is to stand in opposition to Marxist point of view. As such, the media houses work as machineries that propagate the anti-communist views among the people of the world. Gramsci went on to argue that one societal class exercised its dominance in the world by force as well as consent. The media houses come into play in this process so as to obtain the consent of the majority. Media plays the greatest role that develops the public compliance. (People.bath 2000)
In stark juxtaposition to the Neo-Marxist view, the Pluralist theory of mass media suggests that the media houses simply reflect the public opinion in the portraiture of the news rather than creating the public opinion through the presentation and content of the news. In terms of bias in media, the Pluralist theory goes on to opine that the public can very well recognize the matter and discount it. (Earlham Sociology Pages n.d.)As such, it is quite understandable that the Pluralist view stands in opposition to the Neo-Marxist theory of mass media. The private ownership of press or media houses is described to be a positive that lets the news to be free of any regulation or censorship of the government. Pluralists criticize media to some extent, but not fundamentally. (Revision World n.d.) Thus, this view of media is less negative in its approach and holds the media houses and its procedures in good light with less criticism. (UK Essays n.d.) In this context, one needs to critically analyze the effect of mass media so as to have a better comprehension of the matter in context.
3.1. One needs to remember the fact that the news that is shown or printed in the media is socially constructed. An occurrence is reported in the media with a specific type of interpretation and explication. As such, there is scope for a mesh of ideologically inclined explanation and the objective information about an occurrence. The audience or readers get to know the news that is processed with thee encoded message. In this context, one should reckon the scope of bias in the media. There are many ways in which the media can act in a biased manner so as to propagate a specific sort of outlook and influence the masses to think about and construe the news in a specific manner. It is the interpretation of the occurrence portrayed in the media that matters the most. The presentation and content come to cater the masses satiating the need of being informed about the happenings worldwide.
4.1. In this context, one has to consider the fact that media houses have a tendency to portray a stereotypical perspective of incidents or people. This stereotypical portrayal goes on to influence the minds of the audience and enhances the bias in their perspective and interpretation of similar things. As such, it is very well understandable that the power of the media to affect the minds of the people can have a negative effect on the psyche and perspective of the people of the world society. Also, this stereotyping plays a major role in catapulting the global commodity culture by opting for universality of portraiture and interpretations so as to enhance factors like ethnocentrism, monoculture and cultural imperialism.
Bibliography
Earlham Sociology Pages n.d., Pluralist and Marxist Theories of the Mass Media: An
Introduction, earlhamsociologypages.co.uk, viewed on 17 Jan. 2016, http://www.earlhamsociologypages.co.uk/massmplumarx.htm
People.bath 2000, Theoretical Approaches to the Mass Media, people.bath.ac.uk, viewed
on 17 Jan. 2016, http://people.bath.ac.uk/hssbpn/theories%20of%20media.htm
Revision World n.d., Ownership and control of the media, Revision World, viewed on 17
Jan. 2016, http://revisionworld.com/a2-level-level-revision/sociology/mass-media-0/ownership-and-control-media
UK Essays n.d., Pluralist Theories Of The Mass Media Media Essay, UK Essays, viewed
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