media

In today’s world we are surrounded by media everywhere we go. Media has made life easy for some, complicated for other, and yet distracting for others as well. Media can reach back to the stone ages when cave men used to draw pictures on the caves, and in today’s digital world we see those images in a different medium. The biggest contributor to media in my opinion is the television and radio. Due to the invention of television and radio, there began a media boom, a new era of media no one would imagine how it was going to affect our everyday lives. For the first time we could get entertained by sitting on our sofa, rather than going to a Broadway show or a football game. We have now taken media for granted in our everyday life, because we have made an emotional connection with it. For instance if we are bored, lonely or sad, we can simply watch a funny movie, and listen to some music which will make us feel better. Media has made everything on the go, now everything can be done from the palm of a hand, such as you can control your whole business from your blackberry. Media also gives us good source of information, ideas, creativity, inspiration, and most of all it keep everyone connected to each other. My definition for media in today’s world would be, “everything is one click away”, meaning you want to watch a show you just click your remote and watch it, or if you want to read the news you simply go online and click Cnn and you are there.

"Characteristics of Propaganda"

From Ellul’s “The Characteristics of Propaganda” it made me realized how deep we the “masses” are flowing along with the media torrent. We are taking media as granted for the only real truth amongst us. The tactics of Propaganda have been used throughout History. Ellul’s talks about how these tactics of Propaganda have been used by the Nazis, the soviets to convey their message of unity, patriotism, freedom, and other messages to get the masses together as one. The way Hitler gave his speeches to the masses, with his loud voice to persuade the masses that whatever he said there was a true meaning behind it. And then followed media through which they spread the messages of patriotism. In a way these masses where completely brain washed from reality, as there was one body, one soul, and one brain. Unfortunately even today in the present in a democratic country such as the USA day we all also led to believe whatever the government or the media wants us to believe. We can see that now even the media is much stronger than before, it reaches to all the corners of the world. This media torrent is so massive, so vast that we are surrounded by a tornado, and it’s now become impossible to come out of it. We see this when the US Government told the masses that there are weapons of mass destruction, and the white house representatives told the media ”do you believe us, or Sadaam Hussein”. From this we can get clear understanding how US media stood firm with the government , and made people actually believe that there might be in fact weapons of mass destruction. American Media in particular was very efficient in portraying the government’s message. They are the major reasons why these tactics of propaganda have reached us with such a force through internet, TV, and other sources of the media. As Ellul says that “successful propaganda will occupy every moment of the individual’s life: through posters and loudspeakers when he is out walking, through radio and newspapers at home, through meetings and movies in the evening. The individual must not be allowed to recover, to collect himself, to remain untouched by propaganda during any relatively long period”