Issue 1: Are American Values Shaped by Mass Media?
Engaging in the readings cited above is a lot like how I imagine a master’s program in Minority Studies. It’s difficult to consider the perspectives of an audience who may interpret and respond to messages differently than the hegemonic groups generating them and I assert with reasonable authority that this doesn’t happen very often in the entertainment industry, and when it does, it’s only in cases that are economically advantageous. I can’t help thinking that had early network television been less homogeneous, perhaps Jews, women, homosexuals and people of color would today have more solid footing in our so-called “melting pot” of a society.
Most concerning to me in the readings is the effect that the projection of an ideology can have on the general public, television watchers in particular. The words ‘reality’ and ‘world’ were italicized in a single sentence and prompted me to recall the first MTV’s Real World, ostensibly a reality show that like others of its ilk (as well as talk shows like Jerry Springer, Rikki Lake and Geraldo Rivera), set behavior standards for those who watch them. Equally as guilty are sit-coms, dramas and Dateline’s ‘Predator’ series, each of which plays a sizeable role in defining and redefining fashion trends, social structures and with the growth of product integration, influence on what cars people should drive, what music they should listen to and the importance of a Netfilx subscription. Hollywood has the power to single-handedly reshape American culture and unfortunately, the efforts of the puppet masters don’t seem to promote change for the better.
This is alarming because techniques of interpretation – narrative analysis, genre theory, semiotics, content analysis, the analysis of visual texts – while useful in the study of media, are lost with members of the larger society, most of whom only receive messages at face value because they lack the training and/or interest to actually deconstruct them. This is obvious in child versus adult interpretation of television shows like The Simpsons, Pee Wee’s Playhouse and all those wonderful old Warner Bros. cartoons but also present in experiences solely of adults, who are guilty of both over-simplifying and over-complicating messages.
A real threat is that a generation from now, there won’t be a need to make sense of the media. If it continues in its present state – at least where television is concerned – media will have succeeded in facilitating a process in which the American landscape is flat and homogenized but easy influenced by media messages.
References
Grossberg, et al., Media Making: Mass Media in a Popular Culture, 2nd Ed., chapters 5-7.
Dines, et al., Gender, Race & Class in Media, 2nd Ed., chapters 3, 5.