Television and the global village

Television and the global village

Marshall McLuhan was a famous thinker who set forth the ideas of a global village and even predicted a transformation in society based on changes in communication technology. He didn’t live to witness the rise of the dominance of technology but it is in the area of new media that his ideas have experienced a robust revival. Marshall McLuhan used the term “global village” to describe a new collective sense of intimacy and proximity created by our electronic communication technologies. Briefly, global village is the idea that people are connected through a collection of things such as mass media and electronic communications, and have become a single community. He argued that these technologies which network the world are causing the world to contract turning the experience of global space into something akin to the older experience of village life – a kind of anxiety of being under constant surveillance and with a suffocating lack of anonymity. For example, mass television ownership coupled with satellite communication makes it possible to see different images from different spaces almost simultaneously on the television screen. The whole world can watch the Olympic games live or a deadly tragedy few hours after it happened like the attack on the world trade center which happened on the 11^th of September.

McLuhan believed that the media tend to encourage one sense over the other, for example sight over hearing. For McLuhan, a specific medium of communication offers a person a particular way of knowing and understanding the world heavily influenced that mode of communication. For him, the television was a very complex medium. At that time, he saw television as the most dominant medium and this particular medium helped him share his ideas about the conflict of the oral and print cultures. He described this medium as being cool and used it to contrast its oral style with that of the hot style of a print culture. He also believed that the television was extremely engaging which is true. For him, rather than being simply visual, the television extended the eyes (further apart from our natural range of vision or hearing). McLuhan therefore considered the television as a unifying medium.

The elementary dictum of his view is that the promptness of communication through electric media booms the speed of senses. Through television, we can hear and see events that take place thousands of miles away in a few minutes or in a matter of seconds. Sometimes, we are not aware of occurrences in our family or even in our neighborhood but we are aware that the world trade center was bombarded resulting in several deaths like I mentioned I above. I still remember when I first watched this catastrophe. I was all over the news. Despite being at the other end of the world, Mauritius, I could see details such as; evacuation of the rescued workers, debris including an airplane fragment lying on the street right before the building collapsed, dust filling the air outside the Trinity Church making breathing barely possible. I was like seeing chaos being personified live and direct. A few movies were even made based on the facts that were acquired from witnesses. Based on the swiftness that information is delivered, McLuhan argues that it is the speed of these electronic media that allow us to react to global issues at the same speed we would have reacted for any simple face to face communication. From his perceptions, humans kind of forced to be aware of the global situation and take responsibilities and ponder about the whole universe instead of focusing on their smaller communities. 

Other examples else from the news are advertisement and movies. Advertisements being done about underdeveloped countries asking people to help the needy by sending food, clothes or money have become very common nowadays—the same concept is channeled all around the world in different languages in quest for global betterment. Even movies sometimes show us the plight of  other countries, for example; “Slumdog Millionaire”  but they also help us discover the splendor of different places; pyramids in Egypt, Champ Elysees in Paris, Taj Mahal in India, Wall of China, the European Castles…

The invention of the television brought the world closer together thus the word ‘global village’ because it broadcasts news from around the world into our homes and it maintains many hours of contact with its viewers. We can also travel any place of the world in very short period of time through movies and even know the condition of any place of the world just by sitting at a place with the help of television. Therefore, the television just like any other advances made in technology such as the internet contributes to make the world smaller; a global village. The television continues to be the dominant medium of our era but maybe in the long run, it may lose some of its shine because of the rising development of web-casting.

 

References:

Antecol, M.(1997). Understanding McLuhan: Television and the global village. A Review of General Semantics, Winter 97/98, Vol.54 Issue 4, pages 454-473

Fishman, D.A. (2006). Rethinking Marshall McLuhan: Reflections on a Media Theorist. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Vol.50 Issue 3, pages567-574

Rann: corrupted media

Many individuals trust the news and believe whatever the reporter says on air is expected to be correct. A news channel is one of the strongest media building peoples beliefs in society. Whatever they say we believe without knowing if it’s the truth. Most likely what the channel broadcasts on air is true, but some people report things just to get famous.

       In the Hindi movie Rann a man named Vijay Harshwardhan Malik uses moral methods to present news on the channel India 24. However they have competition, another news channel called Headlines 24/7 is managed by Amrish Kakkar a former minor from India 24. In order to gain a higher rating Vijay’s son Jai makes a deal with an unethical politician in framing the Prime minister for being part of a terrorist attack. In return the politician would become the next Prime Minister of the country.  A bomb blast was staged just so a news channel could build their ratings by being the first ones to cover the story. Jai then convinces Malik to present the story by showing him a false video tape indicating the Prime Minister was responsible for the attack. Mr. Malik airs the tape on his channel without doubting his son. Later another reporter finds out the truth behind the story and reveals his findings to Malik who later apologises for the accusations on the Prime Minister on air. Malik’s son jai in the end committed suicide because he was ashamed to face the world of his doings.

         News channels develop media forms that present different types of media content to the society. The film shows how broadcasting channels can easily take advantage of this content and establish into an effective way to transmit messages and manipulate an individual’s ideologies.  They use television as media interfaces to direct messages to a person from their very own homes. A TV is an excellent device and an effective transmission method to influence an individual’s behaviours and thoughts. The amount of media content on television can be discovered by a click of a button and one of the most popular channels is centred on the news. News channels are one media platform that covers many economic and political issues and we never question it to be unethical or false.

        The movie Rann shows a darker side of media and how corrupt it can get. We’ve been told that news is presented for the people and for them to find out what’s going on in the world. The news channel seems to be one of the most caring when it comes to society but at the end of the day it’s all about business. Killing people for the purpose of interesting news is cruel and corrupt. This just shows how easy it is to manipulate people into thinking a certain way and reveals the actions of a greedy person who can do anything to obtain fame and money.

Refrences

IMDb. (n.d).Rann (2010) - Plot Summanry. Retrieved from     
      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1451797/plotsummary

Television/Movies and Political Economy

Television/Movies and political economy

The political economy of media approach sees the profit motive that drives corporate media as being incompatible with a healthy democracy.  The media are extremely critical in the modern society because they are associated with power whether political or economic. The term media here does not only apply to news, broadcasting or entertainment on various platforms but to the entire industry. One such example of the dominant media is the television. 

The television does not simply act a tool to generate revenue by entertaining (movies) or informing (news) the public, but it is also a central player in strengthening the values of capitalism. It is unbelievable as to how advertisements, publicities or movies influence public opinion about certain aspects of routine life, highly contributing to the formation of beliefs. Being part of the media corporation, the television is often used as a pawn to shape public opinion in order to pursue political ends. The media industry did nothing but expand over large areas and it continues to grow and will continue to grow because money is involved; the primary goal of corporations is to generate profit for shareholders.

 The television industry plays a central role in the political economy of a country. By using tact of public visibility, the government tends to use a significant influence upon film-making by helping to establish the official and informal rubrics under which the cinema operates. Movies usually diversity the production of its television network and further propagates its concentration of power over the market showing the link between political and industrial elites. The cinema can be considered to be an economic/social institution and a tool for the government, leading to multiple dimensions. This was possible due to the advent of television. Movies have in a way become the property/object of the government. The growing attention to the cinema and the film and media industry is related to both the government and the private sector. In the end, both need to be winner. The political economy thus comes into action because quotas are often implemented to protect the national film cultures from international hits or producers who boom the box office with blockbusters. For example; the United Kingdom, for instance, attempted to protect British and British empire filmmakers from Hollywood with the Cinematograph Films Acts of 1927, 1938, and 1948. Hollywood can be said to be a major component of most national film cultures where audience expectations molded largely by Hollywood are misused by domestic producers.

Movies are a form of communication and media that influence the society are used are used as a gauge of where the mindset of the population is at. Shortly after USA goes to war with Afghanistan, war movies came out about fights in Afghanistan and Iraq. After the Americans killed Gaddafi, videos about making making fun of the dictator came out. When Americans went into Somalia and “Black hawk” was released and when they bombarded Serbia, “Dogma” was released. Are these coincidence or simply a method to control and gauge public support aka propaganda? Movies are sometimes purely political. The film industry provides cultural fuel and shapes the way morals and ideals are seen to the general public. It either reinforces stereotypes or completely shreds them. So many movies have been produced on political economy amongst which; MALCOLM X, The American President and The Manchurian Candidate (2004). The television is used in all its aspects to influence voters directly and indirectly through: movies, advertisements, news(News coverage debate), publicity(Election campaigns), Also, when the economic situation is bad, politics play the game carefully; there are practically no or less movies about wealthy people and spending big. Music videos also show less gold chain music, for example, little Wayne throwing money around would just piss people off. The television as a whole or even part of it such as movies are used as a means by major players who battle over influence and access to resources to increase the political economy.

 

Media as A Tool of Propaganda

My particular passion, television and music, is of particular interest to the theory of media as propaganda. In particular, both in Western countries, television and music tends to be particularly liberal and anti-conservative. For example, most recently the election of Obama demonstrated this viewpoint particularly prominently; the vast, vast majority of Hollywood, the center of television and music in the USA, was voting democratic, and the influence of liberal leanings was evident everywhere. For example, Katy Perry, a famous singer, held several concerts directly before the November 6th vote in the USA advertising Obama’s candidacy.

In particular, I agree with Chomsky, Herman and others that state that media is predominantly politicized and used as a tool of propaganda. There is a hard divide between conservative and liberal media outlets in the USA, along with the shows they tend to popularize and the commentary on their opinion shows and newscasts. For example, FOX News is a notorious Republican, right-wing news station, and frequently uses its popularity and audience to attack gay marriage, illegal immigration and other right-wing focused topics. For example, news media, including television stations, are owned by billionaire owners, who typically polarize themselves quite strongly to a particular political spectrum. For example, Robert Murdoch, the billionaire Australian-American media titan, owner of various newspapers and media outlets such as FOX News, is a well-known conservative. More liberal media sponsors are also prominent, such as New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and proprietor of Bloomberg LP, the premier supplier of financial news and terminals on Wall St and other financial centers around the world. Bloomberg has a noticeable left-leaning bias in terms of political and geo-political articles. Anyways, my point is that the United States is rather extreme in its politicization of media outlets; it is commonly known, accepted and not only widely acknowledged, but at times even bragged out. Virtually all media outlets in most democratic countries in the world tend to take a neutral or non-politicized tone when it comes to political rhetoric. Not so in the USA. Television presenters, politicians, and singers commonly come out with strong political viewpoints and overtones.

Certain songs are written, broadcasted and popularized with an ultimate political objective in mind. The USA seems to be rather extreme in the viewpoints it takes. In particular, we can see the vast divide between Republicans and Democrats, or Conservatives and Liberals as they are known in Canada. Yet in Canada, even the Conservatives are Left of what the Democrats preach.

In Canada, we have the CBC; a tradition from the BBC, the public broadcaster in Britain. The CBC does a relative good job of producing relatively-politically neutral shows. The CBC is primarily a rebellious news broadcaster, not an overly politicized one, as we see in the states. The CBC airs Canadian music videos and artists, regardless of political affiliation. The Conservative Government tends to be a bit more careless in their choices of public funding and politicization, with a recent snafu of having funded a rapper who advocated killing Canadian soldiers.

Politicization is always a by-product of media, regardless of intent.