Understanding Key Terms 2

 An important contribution to the study of media was made by Karl Marx’s social and political theory. He believed that “material world precedes human thought”. It is important to mentioned that, according to Karl Marx, material conditions change over time, thus, they must be viewed in historical context. In light of his theory, we can conclude that socials existence determines consciousness of people living in society. He referred to some of the most important institutions of civilization (family, religion, politics, government, law, education, art and media) as cultural superstructures and thought of them to be highly under influence of the material/economic base (subculture). In order to comprehend the ruling ideology in society, we must explore the substructure. It may seem depressive to realize that most of your actions are ruled by material conditions of the society you live in; however, it would be an oversimplification to claim that superstructure does not influence the base (although to a lesser degree). 

 When viewed in a historical context, we can state that our society is highly profit-driven, thus, all the components of the cultural superstructure possess a profit-motive as well, media included. Since profit is so significant, media uses many strategies of profit-maximization. Synergy and spectacle are one of them, other strategies being: planned obsolescence, logic of safety. Potential loss of profit for many organizations is too risky, so they tend to exploiting one product for all the profit possible. Horizontal integration is what makes the process of synergy possible. Synergy can be seen in the creation of many spin offs, OVAs, specials, videogames made from movies (or novels, or mangas) and other alternative versions of the original content. 

 Another strategy for profit maximization is called celebrity and spectacle. I do not think that these concepts are unique to our society only, since the enchantment violence, sex, mystery and trivia have been present since the beginnings of society, after all, ancient mythology is filled with spectacle (although, to a lesser extent than now). Human beings have always been captivated by celebrities, in this particular age, they are more present in the media than ever. Celebrities have become some type of modern gods (being both perfect and flawed at the same time). Many sources state that it all started with Paris Hilton, who is thought by many to be the first influencer (in the sense we know today). Hilton was the one who started the whole paparazzi craze, when she purposely arranged to be followed by them, changing the media game forever. The same thing was, later on, repeated by Kim Kardashian, whose life seemed so interesting that she started her own reality show. Their lives are filled with drama, mistakes, trivia, which allows for people to judge them intensively and feel as if they are more virtuous. I do not fully agree with authors of the book when they say that celebrities are talentless beings, only popular for being popular, since I think that knowing how to advertise your life and profit from it, as well as make it interesting to the masses is quite a talent. I would also like to state that I do not believe that celebrity culture is particularly good, in its core, but it would be also wrong to state that influencers are talentless. 

 Human beings are biased, a priori, and I believe it would be delusional to think that anything humans produce should be objective, let alone media. The bias of media, and deficiency of objectivity is no surprise, bearing in mind all the strategies they use to attract and preserve their audience. Like many other organizations, media is ruled by conventions as well, which contradicts with the possibility of free choice, since most mainstream media companies write about similar events or actors in a similar way. Politics play a big role both when it comes to news gathering and news-reporting. This influence can be seen in the fact that less powerful parties get little to no air time, especially during the pre-election period. I do not think that all media cannot be trusted, after all, we do need some source of information, but it is also important that we have a critical attitude towards everything we hear and/or read.