Understanding Key Terms 2

Karl Marx introduced the philosophy of Marxism. According to him, the mode of production determines social relations of production or its class structure. Social life is affected by the historical conditions and changes over time and must be viewed in historical context. Material things affect human thoughts and ideas. Marxism claims that social consciousness, which can be found in religion, education, politics, law, art and media, also known as superstructure, is reflected in society. For him, society is the base of economy; therefore, society’s economy relies on superstructure. Marx claims that society based on capitalism is exploitative, because it creates two classes, working class and ruling class. Ruling class is profit motivated.

Talking about media industry, as a part of superstructure, the ruling class, multinational media conglomerates, follow specific strategies to maximize profit. First of those is synergy. It stands for involvement of distribution, development and production being exploited for bigger profit. For example, AT&T published comic books, made multiple movies and shows, all based on once only comic book heroes such as Batman or Superman. Batman not only got more comic books, but the LEGO Batman movie, multiple Batman movies with corresponding soundtrack albums, a few video games and endless merchandise items. Second strategy is planned obsolescence, there to make sure consumers are constantly seeking more, while the third strategy is logic of safety, which relies on companies recycling profitable ideas, not risking with the new ones. That leads to the forth strategy, spectacle. This strategy focuses on bringing celebrities, well known people, into projects to make them more popular, because with popularity comes profit. When celebrities are unavailable, the media industry focuses on spectacle. Spectacle is shocking, scandalous, and sensational and grips audience’s attention. On some rare occasions both celebrities and spectacles collide, such as in OJ Simpson Trial. We can see multiple documentaries, series, reports, books… These rare moments are milked to filth exactly because they are so profitable and people cannot get enough of these hyperspectacles.

With media being used as a way to profit, most media lacks objectivity. Journalism, for example, used to be trustworthy and relevant. In 1920's journalism was reformed and professionalization was increased due to journalism schools and professional organizations. In 1947, social responsibility was a standard, standing for truthfulness and objectivity in journalism. Sadly, with the development of 24-hour news networks it got lost and forgotten. Reporting was relatively trusted and respected in 20th century, but in this new era of living, nobody is unbiased. One of many biases a reporter can have is political bias. It refers to pushing political ideas onto the audience by news organisations. One of the main reasons behind this is to appeal to certain group of audience. Big audience means more profit and capitalistic society is all about that. News are produced cheaply and efficiently, not focused on truthfulness or social needs, but rather on the spectacle factor. Disregard for newsworthy stories and focus on cheap and eye catching ones are known as information bias. There are four information biases: personalization (focused on individuals rather than institutions), dramatization (narrative presentation of information), and fragmentation (stories isolated, lack of context in which they occur) and authority-disorder (related to dramatization, there to create tension between authority, such as police or government and disorder, such as terrorism or natural disasters).