Monday, February 9, 2009
Kendall
Kendall is correct in asserting that the media shapes our society. As previous articles have suggested, our media is becoming increasingly important in our lives as the world becomes flatter and people rely more and more on the opinions of "experts" to define the world rather than to define it on their own. When we allow the media to tell us what our world looks like, we allow them to shape the world because our perception of the world around us defines what the world really is. The media is also definitely able to alter the way we see social inequality. The way the media portrays the lower class and the homeless is often unfavorable, showing them as crazy and responsible for the levels of crime and disaster that ravage large cities. Shows that portray all of the wonderful things rich people have and tell viewers to aspire to those goals also force individuals to hate the way they are and strive beyond their means. The combination of hatred towards lower classes and aspiration towards riches leaves people angry at themselves and poorer classes and reaching for things they cannot afford, leading them to debt when they buy houses and cars beyond their means.
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2 comments:
One point where I took issue with Kendall was in her arguments about how the media portrays people living in poverty. I don't believe we can say with any definitiveness how the "media" portrays a certain class of people for the simple reason that the media will cast any particular light on certain people in exchange for favorable ratings. Television news broadcasts are not any different than sitcoms or soap operas in that they exist mainly to secure ratings for a network. In this vein, the portrayal of the rich and the poor is rarely as one sided as Kendall makes it out to be. The upper class is often portrayed as corrupt and monopolistic, while the lower class are portrayed as the paragons of virtue. For example take a human interest story which focuses on a hard working waitress who has been fired from her job due to the money-grubbing policies of upper management. Why do we watch these programs? The main reason in my belief is the opposite of why we idolize the upper class, which Kendall discusses. As much as we may sympathize with the waitress on the human interest story, above all, we are glad we are not her. The aspiration to be wealthy works two ways: the want to be a member of the upper class, and the desire to avoid to the lower class. These portrayals found in human interest stories are hardly any more accurate than the ones Kendall points out, but they illustrate a point that I believe Kendall failed to acknowledge: the media does what it does for ratings, and when something doesn't work, they change it. The claim that "the media portrays all upper class people this way and all poor people this way" was rather idiotic. Certainly the media is guilty of these types of portrayal, but to suggest, as Kendall did, that this is the only, or even prevalent, message the media is sending out is folly. Watch a news broadcast, and you will not discover a single unified message or overarching theme. You will instead find a mix of messages and ideas, some of them even conflicting so the simple reason that the news was engineered to pander to extremely different demographics of people at the same time. For this reason, I found that portion of Kendall's argument not very solid.
Ian - good comment - 3 pts
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