Understanding Key Terms 4

 Thinking about Aristotle's definition of early rhetoric, as he said "an ability, in each particular case, to see the available means of persuasion.", it isn't hard really hard to see how it relates to today's media and why we can say that it is also a form of rhetoric. One of the main features of media we have learned about is its purpose to spread a message. The message of the author, who is trying to persuade you, explain and impose his thoughts onto you. This message has its own form which by itself creates anticipation and expectations through its presentation. Form must deliver on its promise, just as I have done in my explanation why Aristotle's rhetoric relates to today's media, otherwise we are left unsatisfied and bitter. Closely related to form is genre, a combination of various signs and symbols into themes with their own expectations, and even tropes that a labeled text is expected to deliver. With this reliance on genres to motivate our choices, so does doxa emerge. As a society surrounded by media we have come to develop certain behaviour that we take at face value and do not challenge it. Some will buy the newspaper every morning, others will go watch every new Marvel Studios movie with their friends, and some will turn on the TV to watch the 9 o'clock news everyday. On a similar note, ideologies start to pop up and our need to belong somewhere leads to losing the ability to think for ourselves. We allow this hive mind mentality to take over, passively interpolates us and we become unable to think critically nor try to see outside of our little (or huge) culturally-influenced bubble. A very dangerous ideology that came to prominence, especially thanks to the media, is The American Dream. Even though this term once meant something, and could be take seriously, it is used by against the people it once gave hope. And they aren't even aware of it. The idea of being able to create something big in your life in the land of opportunity if you only work hard has for a long time been corrupted. And the fact that the billionaires people look up to as monuments to this dream, who have played the capitalism game and succeeded, are playing people for fools and further propagating this ideology as they end up with an endless supply of pawns for their further riches. Ironically, the media pushing this same ideology, how anyone in the land of the free can create something, has for years been excluding a number of people from this dream. And just to be clear, by people I mean a number of races. The term othering refers to the discrimination and marginalization of other races present, other than the white race which was actually referred to as a "non-race" to further themselves even more from other people of colour. It was a huge blow for Latino-American, African-American, Indians, Italians, and all other POC present during the majority of the 19th century who were forced into the background while the white man reaped all the media benefits, leaving only bread crumbs in the form of side roles for the rest. Ripping away the possibilities of the American Dream straight from their arms.