Critical media studies – understanding key terms 2: SPECTACLE, SUPERSTRUCTURE, SYNERGY, OBJECTIVITY, INFORMATION BIAS, POLITICAL BIAS

 

I have recently been rewatching with my roommate an old BBC show ’Merlin’ that I use to obsess over in my younger years. It’s interesting to look back at the time of its production and remember the sudden news of the cancellation, BBC declaring the fifth season to be its last even though the show was quite popular at the time. Many shows have met the same or similar fate, from being unfinished like the aforementioned ’Merlin’ and recently Netflix’s ’Anne with an E’  to the chaos that was the rushed ending of HBO’s ’Game of Thrones’. Some shows that bring in lots of money for the company that makes them can even dip in quality like CW’s ’Supernatural’, relying on the fanbase for constant engagement. Some are purposefully made to have a broad commercial appeal not paying any mind to the actual quality (see CW’s ’Riverdale’.) How does this relate to what I am going to talk about? It very much does. All of these mentioned shows and every piece of entertainment media we consume is influenced by corporations that stand to profit from them. We have to take a look at our culture through a Marxist lens to understand how everything connects at both a social and economic level. With Marxist theory we know the connection of our material status, the means of production known as the base, influencing our consciousness, not the other way around, that way shaping our social elements such as religion, politics, government, education, law, art, and media creating what is known as a cultural superstructure. With new media and companies becoming multinational maximizing profit has been taken to a new level. Using synergy the content becomes stretched out and watered down, creating multiple sequels, spin-offs, prequels, comic versions, live-actions, and so on. Companies to stay on the safe side using safety logic stick to an established formula. Also, do keep in mind that more than half the content we consume is made by a select few parent companies that function with multiple levels of different operations and subsidiaries (The list of the big six narrowing down even more when recently Walt Disney Company acquired 20th century Fox.) Using celebrities and spectacles they seek to bring focus on their product through the sheer individual power of big names or big and often controversial events. Touching often on the themes of violence and sex (we can see the prevalence of explicit and gruesome content in entertainment especially growing in the recent era of streaming because of the lack of rating restrictions like on TV or in theaters.) Some content and profit are purely manufactured out of spectacle itself, Kim Kardashian and other reality TV stars being a too obvious example. The spectacle in the same step fuels tabloid media that profits from it and in the end creating profit in completely different industries like book publishing or makeup manufacturing. At the mention of tabloids as news media, we also conclude that the main drive is profit, which after recent years is more than obvious, but the major consensus is that objectivity should prevail (objectivity being a fair and unbiased reporting of important information to the masses.) Reality compared to our hopes is much bleaker (always seems to have been) as information and political bias flood news that is increasingly sensationalized, pushing certain ideological slates, pseudo-news, and even fake news to line their pockets thanks to massive funding from invested doners.

This segment of information is frankly depressing as it reveals what is intrinsic to the current capitalist system we live in. From the products we consume, the ideas we have, to the opinions we form, they are all influenced by an inherent need of certain individuals to make a profit and we know some things had to be made with love at heart, but ignoring the cruel reality of how and what pushes art and information into the forefront of our daily lives would be to do a disservice to ourselves and the objectivity we need in order to live our lives more honestly and critically.