Understanding Key Terms 2

  I have never been big on politics, ideologies and other related concepts. I know enough to participate in conversations, but it never held my attention and interest for diving deeper into it. I was both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised to see Marxism and today's media mentioned in the same context. The idea that these two are connected and that capitalism is so present in the media wasn't a shock to me, rather a wake up call. 

  It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that any type of media is basically made by large corporations as a profitable source. This wasn't new information to me, however, to really think about particular aspects, that I am very fond of - such as Disney movies, as only a profit making project was a hard pill for me to swallow. It is rather fascinating how I and many more loved the movie Frozen, for example, and how for the corporations it was only a job that they pushed and manipulated enough to make a large sum of money. The synergy of it all is what struck me the most. Not only do they make money from the movie itself, what comes next ensures even more money - the Elsa, Anna, Olaf toys are being sold in every store possible, their faces are on T-shirts, hoodies, phone cases and so much more. The combination of all these sources guarantees larger profit. 

  What corporations and media usually use as a strategy to maximize profit is well known to all of us. When we see someone considered "famous" being promoted as a starring actor/actress in a movie, we are automatically drawn to the said movie. The use of celebrities is a way of luring the audience in. This, however, does not ensure that the audience will like it. I remember when the musical movie "Cats" was first introduced to the public, I was a big fan of the original musical (1982) myself. When the cast of well known celebrities was seen (Taylor Swift, James Corden, Jason Derulo...), everybody kind of immediately saw it as a success. Yet, it flopped. No matter the celebrities, the promoting that was done, the songs and artists it featured, the big Universal Pictures film studio miscalculated and did not get the profit they were aiming for. 

  To explain the next few terms, I will have to switch to news media and journalism to make it more cohesive and easier to understand. In today's society it is important to stay informed and we do this via news, whether it be newspapers or on television. The "news" we need are supposed to be reliable, accurate and important. However, I feel as if this isn't really what we get, the stories we are presented look exactly like that - stories. This can be attributed to the loss of objectivity of journalists and the information and political biases in journalism itself. 

  Objectivity, or lack of in this case, is tightly connected to information and political biases. When news outlets mainly use "sensational and scandalous" information from a story as a way of enhancing the audience's interest, the story is automatically not objective anymore since it was tampered with. 

The same goes with political bias. To target and report news that are specifically related to either just Republicans or just the Democrats is highly present in today's media, but that can also be dangerous. I don't see it as a one way street though. Saying that the media are trying to brainwash people by feeding the public only one side of every issue is not a true statement to me. The saying " Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" can also be said about political bias in media. People see bias in the stories that favor the other party, but they tend not to see bias in stories favoring their own party. The media present a variety of different perspectives, that’s the way free press works. I think it is up to us to decide which ones we want to read and look up. 

  In my opinion, we shouldn't focus on things we cannot control. No matter what the media do to profit, OUR "job" is only to be aware of these things so we can be in control of what we believe in and what we perceive as real.