Analysis of "Persuasion in the Media Age" (part 7)

Media Defined

The product of the interaction between media sources, channels, content and audience is called media. The term refers to the web of sources, channels and content. It includes broadcast signals, media personalities and the words and images of media content. This definition is important. People make three mistakes in assessing media. First, they use the word media to refer to any or all of the dimensions just listed, obscuring exactly what it refers to. Second, they use the term to refer to a singular and monolithic set of people, channels and effects as in, "Media has an influence on how we relate to the world." Not only does this statement fail to designate one aspect of media, but it views media as one body acting alone. In fact, there are hundreds of media organizations which produce thousands of media messages transmitted through several media channels. To reinforce this idea, we use media in the plural. Third, people tend to view media organizations as nameless and faceless entities that create programming based solely on economic or political factors. We must keep in mind that it is individuals working within organizations and responding to corporate pressures - who make decisions concerning media content. We must also realize that there are artistic elements involved in the creation of media content and that individuals, not machines, create art.


Assumptions About Media

With this definition in mind, let us look at three assumptions about media:

1. Media persuade us.
2. Media sources, channels and content present us with mediated realities.
3. Media sources are profit making businesses.

First, media sources and content persuade us by creating knowledge about products and people and their place in our culture. We purchase cars, toasters cereals and other consumer goods and services based on the words and images selected for us by advertising professionals. We select political leaders based on the impression we get of them through various media channels. We learn what is important in our culture from media content.

Second, media sources, channels and content present us with mediated realities. The pictures we have in our heads of people, and of corporations are not usually based on our real experiences with them. Instead, these pictures are formed through our interaction with media images. Some theorists argue that the symbols we use create reality. You may never have been to Fargo North Dakota. However, you have probably heard about Fargo and the Upper Midwest in the media. You may have seen news reports of terrible snowstorms in the area, or you may have seen the film Fargo, which ironically was neither set nor filmed in Fargo. Some media images of Fargo are not that flattering. Yet people who visit Fargo usually remark that it is quite nice and not at all what they had pictured. It is a large city with warm summer weather. People who have never been to Fargo have in their minds a picture of Fargo that has been created through media.

Media are very powerful in shaping our responses to images of people places and things. Although it may be inconsequential that you will never visit Fargo because of what you think it is like, it is another matter when we elect our political leaders based on the same type of information. We may think we know something about a particular candidate, but we must keep in mind that we really have only an image of that person, an image that has been created and transmitted via media channels. The same holds true for the images we have of what the ideal marriage or friendship should be like. We form ideas about how we should relate to others based on how we see fictional characters relating to other fictional characters. Media provide a constant source of information about who we are and how we should act.

Third, it is important to observe that media sources are profit-making businesses. The function of media is to attract audiences for advertisers. It is impossible to separate media sources and content from the economic and political system in which they operate. The news we read and the television programs we watch are products designed to attract audiences, resulting in higher ratings that are used to sell advertising. As a result, we do not always achieve the most objective coverage of a particular issue. We may not even be exposed to the most important issues of the day. Instead we are held hostage to what media sources think will help them sell the most products.

The profit orientation of media sources affects virtually every decisions media companies make. Often we are unaware of these decisions and the powerful influence they have on how we see the world. The freedom of news media to pursue their own agenda does have its benefits. A privatized media industry ensures that the government cannot control what we see. However, with the merging of large media organizations it becomes difficult for us to determine whose interests are being served: the media source's or our own. 

End