Of the seven traditions of communication theory, the Critical Tradition had my mind going about something that frequently occurs. The Critical Tradition views "Communication as a Reflective Challange of Unjust Discourse." In all honesty, when I think of communication, politics isn't the first thing that comes to mind, yet when you really think about it, how could it not be? This theory is based on the historical principles of Karl Marx and the critique of society. In this modern day and age, especially with the elections coming up, you frequently hear about the unequal distribution of wealth and benefits and all those kinds of things... some people are aware of it, some are oblivious to it.
Griffin describes the critical theorists who recognized "the same pattern in modern Western democracies where the 'haves' continued to exploit the 'have nots.' " (p. 48) and analyzed the discrepancies of the claimed "liberal" (democratic) values that we supposedly had, when the system of power was clearly unbalanced. Upon reading that, and interpreting that the concept of Culture industries I feel that the two are inextricably linked. Culture industries are defined in the text as: "Entertainment businesses that reproduce the dominant ideology of a culture and distract people from recognizing unjust distribution of power within society; e.g. film, television, music, and advertising" (p. 49). And I recall always thinking about how much the mass media affects people, especially our youth. For those of us who follow People magazine, or any other celebrity crazed form of media, I think we are sometimes distracted by all the materialistic things some people strive to attain creating this "ideal" life they would love to have... Ah, the life of a celebrity.... :) In reality though, the entertainment industry does create a distraction, thus the point of entertainment. I just hope that it doesn't masquerade the facts and make people forget about the reality of unequality.
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6 years ago
1 comment:
This is an interesting concept in the fact that some forms of communication are used as a way to distract society from certain things. The only thing with entertainment is that, yes, some forms of entertainment serve as a distraction for society, but when you think about things like independent film, political magazines, educational television, and other things of that nature, I feel that they do not serve as a way to distract society, but serve as a tool of information. Their purpose is to educate society on certain things, or to get society to think about things they wouldn't normally think about. I guess it would have to depend on the context of the entertainment.
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