The Power of Mass Media

 

In today’s world, people around the globe rely on the productions of mass media to inform, entertain, and expose them to news and events occurring in both local and distant regions. Around this information, people form opinions on the content that they are receiving. These opinions, however, are very heavily dependent on the way in which the information is presented. Most mass media conglomerates put some sort of bias on the information that they produce, not blatantly telling the audience how to interpret the information but instead using certain words, phrases, and selected imagery to lead the audience into thinking one way or the other. The use of this selected imagery and vocabulary gives the presentation of information a certain tone that the audience, whether consciously or subconsciously, picks up on and uses in formulating their opinions. Once the opinions have been formed, people spread their opinions on the matter as fact, whether through dialogue, Facebook, Twitter, etc. further expanding the mass media’s reach on civil mindsets. The scale on which mass media is spread gives media companies an immense control in formulating both public opinion and action. Through this control, the mass media companies create a self-propagating constituency that further encourage and expand the companies’ underlying messages or beliefs.

 

In swaying public opinion, the medium through which the messages are portrayed has a very important role in determining its effectiveness. Marshall McLuhan’s most prominent theory was that “the medium is the message”, lending power to the medium itself as a force of change and influence. McLuhan states “the personal and social consequences of any medium…result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs” (McLuhan, 100-101). Because mass media is able to be spread on a global scale, anyone with access to a TV or the internet is able to receive this content. This is much different from older forms of communication such as newspapers and magazines, because print media has a much more limited audience. Only those within the newspapers’ area of circulation are able to receive the messages printed in that newspaper. With digital media, it only takes the click of a button to be informed about events around the world. As more people become exposed to the content being produced, there is a greater chance that more people will also agree with the biases that are subtly, or not so subtly, portrayed. These biases are not always blatantly obvious to the casual viewer; the media will not usually say outright “We support the police” or “Down with the protesters”, but instead will use language such as “Demon” or “thug” to describe an individual. This language dehumanizes the individual, making it easier for the audience to side with those not being described as demons and thugs. This intention may not even be apparent to the audience, but the producers of this content are very aware of the impact that this language has on its reception.

 

With digital media, the audience is also able to see and hear much more than they would be able to through just print media. Digital media enables the audience to see video footage of events, hear the tone in broadcasters’ voices as they report; this visibility engages the audience in the content that they are consuming allowing for a multi-sensory exposure. To read that an unarmed African American teenager was shot dead is one thing, but to see images of his body in the street, to see footage of the protesters assembling en masse pulls the audience into the situation, giving them a sense of involvement even if they are just sitting on the couch. However, with this availability of digital media comes the danger of chopping and editing clips to show the viewer only what the media company wants the viewer to see. In showing videos of a protest, a clip of people peacefully chanting is going to have a much different impact on the audience than a clip of someone throwing a Molotov cocktail into a store. The choice of a media outlet to present one clip or the other shows the power that the company has over public opinion; people who only see a clip of peaceful chanting will think that all is well and that the protesters are doing nothing wrong while people who only see a clip of destruction amidst the protests will think that they are all criminals and that they are not achieving anything but chaos. This divide in opinion stems from the information that the media companies’ choose to present, and the manner in which the information is presented.

 

While attempting to sway public opinion in one direction or another, mass media outlets also attempt to reach as large an audience as possible. As Pierre Bourdieu argues, “It must attempt to be inoffensive, not to ‘offend anyone’, and it must never bring up problems” (Bourdieu, 254). Because of this ideology, media companies have created various news channels that appeal to different political groups; Fox News for conservatives, MSNBC for liberals. This creation of politic-based news allows people to watch news and information that they agree with, and avoid information that they don’t. The information presented on these channels is not just the facts; each bit is spun with a presentation of opinion and personal belief creating sensationalized news. People watching these programs aren’t receiving the information, they are receiving the opinions put forth by the people presenting the information. They aren’t saying “Oh I agree with those facts”, they are saying “Oh I agree with what that guy is saying about the facts”. Understanding information and agreeing with opinion are two very different things that have become muddled together in the politically polarized 24 hour news cycle. Because people are able to watch only news that they agree with, they aren’t exposed to opposing sides of an issue. Rather than understand both sides and make an opinion based on the facts, most people will simply watch their preferred polarized news outlet and blindly agree with what is said. This further indoctrinates people and their political beliefs into the formulation of public opinion, diminishing fact and promoting opinion and bias. The desire to appeal to as many viewers as possible has created news outlets that present unwavering political positions under the guise of facts and information. People consuming these ‘facts’ are impacted in the sense that they think they are formulating their own opinions, but they are actually just reiterating the opinions they heard from the 24 hour news cycles. When they discuss this with other people, they are not spreading reputable facts, but rather they are spreading the biases and opinions that are produced by the media companies.

 

The formulation of public opinion based on what is consumed by the audience creates what Jürgen Habermas refers to as the Public Sphere. Habermas states that the public sphere is “a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed” (Habermas, 75). The public sphere is not a physical object, although it can occur in physical places. The public sphere is more of a consensus or idea; it is the discussion of events, people, objects, etc. amongst others interested in similar topics. The public sphere encapsulates public opinion, but public opinion is not the entirety of the public sphere. The public sphere includes not only the audience but also the producers of the content that the audience is consuming. Without the producers, the audience would not have nearly enough material to form a public opinion. Subsequently, the creation of a public sphere is very dependent upon the productions of mass media. As was stated earlier, the content that mass media produces is often heavily biased and made to sway opinion in one direction or another, not leaving it up to the viewer to decide how they want to interpret the information. The discussions that people have with one another regarding the content that they consume creates a public sphere. Because of this, the public sphere is, in a way, a manifestation of the impact that mass media has on society. People consume content and then discuss with each other how they agree or disagree with what they have consumed. However, by discussing the content produced by the companies, they are further expanding and promoting the biases, even if they do it without knowing. When people reiterate the language that they hear on various news outlets, language such as “demonic”, “thug”, and “strong arm robbery”, they are promoting the dehumanization of other people. They are reinforcing the ideas that media companies want you to grasp and hold on to, but they do it in a manner that doesn’t make it so obvious.

           

The mass media has a tremendous impact on the thoughts and actions of people around the globe. By presenting information saturated with personal and corporate ideas, beliefs, and biases, media companies are able to sway public opinion on various issues towards one direction or another. Often times people don’t realize that they are consuming biased information because they are too preoccupied with the distractions put in place such as word streamers at the bottom of a television screen. People are distracted from the facts, and become more worried about the opinions formed from those facts. This results in a spread not of information, but a spread of opinion, a spread of biases. While some see no problem with it, there certainly are dangers in this sort of presentation of news. When people become more concerned about opinions than they are with the facts, the importance of an issue is diminished. The focus of the coverage on an issue no longer concerns the issue itself, but rather what people are saying about that issue, what people are thinking about it. This is why when the channel is changed to the 24 hour news cycle, footage of the event or incident being covered is not the main focus. The main focus is a panel of ‘analysts’ who give their two cents on the topic. Footage of what they are covering is played intermittently, but it is played along with the continued speeches of the analysts. This makes it hard for viewers to focus on the actual issue at hand because they are being constantly bombarded with rhetoric from people who are only voicing their opinions, not stating facts.