Media Theory in Modern Lives - Essay Example

?Media Theory New Ways to Think of Grief The media has assumed a pivotal role in shaping modern beliefs, values and norms. The various direct and indirect consequences of the media on modern living are undeniable. The manner in which media is construed is of the utmost importance to shaping modern attitudes and lifestyles. It has often been related that the media is an extremely powerful tool that is used by various groups to further their own agendas. Various groups in an attempt to construct media elements in their various forms have used a number of different approaches and styles. A number of interpretations for these methodologies and styles are possible based on various lenses used to analyze the creation of different media elements. Contemporary media studies consist of various analytical elements and styles. These could depend on semiotics, ideological analysis, psychoanalytical approaches, formalist approaches, feminist approaches, modern approaches, post modern approaches, post structuralist approaches as well as post colonial approaches. However, there is a certain fluidity present between these differing approaches so no one piece of media can be termed as relying on one of these approaches alone. Instead, it is common for more than one device to be used to create media elements (Berger, 2011). This ensures that a singular piece of media will appeal to as many audiences as possible at the same time. In order to satisfy the needs of various subcultures it is necessary to construe a piece of media from as many differing perspectives as possible without spoiling its overall composure. While some pieces of media might contain this contention through the process of directed creation, other pieces of media might contain such influences involuntarily. It is highly obvious that a number of sub cultures also influences the creator of a piece of media. Hence, it is natural to expect a piece of media to be composed of various forms and methods of thinking and style. This is all the more obvious for textual pieces of media more than other kinds of media. It might be argued that other media such as movies for example are far richer in terms of content than textual pieces. However, movies are the joint collaboration of a number of people working together while textual content is often the creation of one individual alone. The depth contained within textual materials is arguably far richer than other pieces or elements of media. This paper will focus on the media analysis of a piece of text contained in the January 2011 edition of Time Magazine titled New Ways to Think of Grief by Ruth Davis Konigsberg. A number of different media analysis approaches will be used in order to decipher the creation and composure of the said piece of media. These will involve a combination of theoretical as well as practical media analysis tools and theories. These tools will be applied to the subject text sequentially to bring out the various influences as they compose the text. The article by Konigsberg tends to look at grief, one of the most basic of all human emotional expressions. Certain human experiences such as happiness, grief, surprise and the like are such basic blocks of the human being that they are seldom revisited for consideration. It is common for an average person to never look into these nooks and crannies and to forge ahead in life using conceptions gathered from society. However, the article penned by Konigsberg forces one to “revisit the basics” to see how one’s conception of grief is fashioned by the people and social values around a person. This method of looking at grief or this method of looking at anything else is purely post modernist without argument. The post modernist approach relies on “revisiting the basics” to look for continual and dynamic evolution of issues that fashion human life. The basic tenet of post modernism is the belief that human issues are continually evolving and will continue to behave as such without any stoppage. These ideas are supported by the fact that society is under constant evolution and a look into social norms and values over the last few decades will reveal as such (Dines & Humez, 2010). Overall, the manner in which Konigsberg’s arguments and subject matter is composed reveals that she is by most definitions a post modernist. Grief has not just been evolving in the recent contemporary social scenario but has been under constant evolution for time immemorial. It was typical for pagans to keep mourning their deceased ancestors for months after their death. Even after such a large amount of mourning, certain groups mourned their ancestors continuously by worshipping them or their wax models. The Mexicans still have a day of the dead where the ancestors are dug up, their catacombs are cleaned up and they are reinserted into their final resting places. The introduction of organized religions such as the Egyptian religion, Judaism, Christianity and Islam only added to the long list of rituals. It is arguable that these rituals symbolized nothing other than grief. However, the creation of grief and its observance did not end here. In the wake of the Industrial Revolution, the time available for grief decreased as life became more mechanized. Hence, the styles adopted for grief changed once more. The arguably greater mechanization of life following the Second World War reduced the time available for grief all the more. It is not uncommon to notice funeral processions that number only a few individuals while it was common for much larger funeral processions only at the start of the twentieth century. Konigsberg has also indicated this change dating it around to the First World War by referring to the work of Kubler-Ross (1969). This is however purely an ideological stand point since there is no research or any other such matter presented to back up this idea. The method to date the time of change is also approximate and crude when compared to the more structuralism based reporting methods (Durham & Kellner, 2005). This in turn implies that Konigsberg’s text is actually fabricated using certain ideological assumptions as well though it has been construed to remove similar beliefs. The ideological media analysis perspective also reveals that Konigsberg has taken the five popular stages of grief and has assumed that everyone proceeds accordingly by default. These stages have been expressed as “denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance” and the authoress levels them onto every person in society reacting to any form of grief whether personal or social. While this stance aids in furthering the idea presented by Konigsberg but this is nonetheless an ideological standpoint. In order to show the pervasiveness of grief, Konigsberg has applied her formula to everyone in society though practically this is not possible. Instead, it can be seen as exaggeration of a concept in order to make it more appealing to the audience. It is simple to identify that Konigsberg could have used the words “majority of” instead of “our” to express the pervasive of belief in the five stages of grief but she has chosen not to do so. In itself, this is an indicator to the inclusion of ideological beliefs in the subject text. This stream of ideas is complemented by the presence of psychoanalytic movements in the text that are both visible and latent. Visibly, Konigsberg indicates that grief has been turned into a “process” that has been exploited by consultants to make money from unsuspecting sufferers. Another thought provoking idea presented by Konigsberg is that such a pattern of grief coping mechanisms is unique to the United States alone. This idea is soon presented through a rather orthodox explanation of such a grief coping mechanism – godlessness. One would not expect a progressive author such as Konigsberg to include the ideas of religion and a God and their absence from the lives of modern human beings to deal with the subject of grief. However, there is the visible presence of these ideas in the text as Konigsberg explains (Konisberg, 2011): “Our modern, atomized society had been stripped of religious faith and ritual and no longer provided adequate support for the bereaved.” With reference to the progressive and post modernist ideas and approaches presented before, it is surprising that Konigsberg would introduce religion as an argument. She contends that the absence of religion in the life of the modern human being has left him to the mercy of other mechanisms of coping. These mechanisms of course are composed of the numerous grief counselors that she speaks of earlier. The very reason that Konigsberg includes religion and God in her arguments is rather simple – the audience is likely to be composed of regular Churchgoers who would like to see something from the religious facet. It is however arguable whether Konigsberg included religion and God on purpose (to satisfy an audience) or due to personal influences (being a practicing religious person). It could be argued that the latter argument shows a latent psychoanalytic movement in the text that tends to include religion. However such an argument would not only be weak but it would also require an investigation into Konigsberg’s religious ideas and influences. Since the religious affiliations and practices of Konigsberg are beyond the scope of this analysis, so it only makes sense if the former argument is chosen over the later. Progressing through the article, one finds a certain hint of structuralism in the overall composition of the work. Konigsberg is quick to embark on demystifying certain myths related to grief. An introduction that dispels the contemporary approach to grief and mourning followed by a neatly sectioned article and a conclusion inherently point to a structural composition (Deleuze, 2004). This would tend to indicate that the authoress has been influenced by structuralist ideologies whether through education or through professional practice. The idea of structuralism is also reinforced through a close observance of the first myth being dispelled by Konigsberg. The authoress has taken the support of research undertaken by researchers at Yale in 2001 to check for the Kubler-Ross grief model (Kubler-Ross, 1997). The article explicitly mentions that 233 people were recruited in order to check for their progression on the grief cycle. However, any other technical details of the research such as the cohort’s mean age or their socio economic backgrounds have not been related. The desired audiences for a magazine such as “Time” are common people who have little technical knowledge or know how. For this reason, technical jargon and details have specifically been left out while the number 233 has been included prominently. The inclusion of the number of recruiters tends to enhance the credibility of the authoress since it offers the audience a large number that enhances the reputation of the research. Additionally the use of keywords such as “Yale University” and “Journal of the American Medical Association” tend to increase the overall credibility of the subject text. Again, this is a structural method that has been employed time and again in order to enhance the overall standing of an opinion presented in a media piece. Providing the audience with research is a common technique that is employed across the board in media elements and pieces in order to distinguish a piece. Perhaps the most common usage of such research findings is done in documentaries where researchers are quoted widely in order to support the argument or side being presented. However, as any scientific evaluator would know, it is not possible to use research as evidence unless the very specifics of the research are not known. For example, the research undertaken at Yale would most probably be restricted to people hailing from the Connecticut region. Other people living in other geographic regions such as the Mid West would have different reactions since they have other support mechanisms such as large family structures. Ironically, the authoress is utilizing the same methods that she is speaking out against. She argues that the Kubler-Ross model has been used without enough explanation or investigation to cope with grief. This would tend to indicate that the Kubler-Ross model has been adopted into clinical settings and practice without much thought being given to its actual applicability to patients and their circumstances. In order to support her argument, the authoress is presenting feeble evidence and credibility enhancing mechanisms in order to lend greater weigh to her argument. She argues that the Kubler-Ross model has not been tested out in enough detail before its adoption to common clinical and consultancy practice. If looked at closely, the argument presented by the author has not been tested in enough detail either. One piece of research at Yale University is not enough to invalidate the scientific findings that have been adopted after rigorous examination of hundreds of thousands of patients. With respect to the current textual piece, what seems to be structurally created is actually post structural in character. The authoress has utilized a structural approach to espouse an argument that is more or less post structural in design. On the one hand, this could signal that the authoress is utilizing both structural and post structural methods and on the other hand, this could indicate that the authoress is in a process of moving over from structural methods to post structural methods. There has been a long standing practice to use structural methods and evidence in order to enhance of the media piece no matter what its composition may be. This practice has remained relevant to textual pieces, broadcast media and recently social media. However, typically there is little real effort undertaken to verify the actual research and to see if it can actually be superimposed on the situation at hand. This move to a more “factual” account can be traced to the sixties and seventies and has since given birth to the post structural regime in media. The current piece is a clear reminder that contemporary media practices are in the process of moving from structural to post structuralist systems and methods. Based on the arguments presented above, it can be said that the article presented by Konigsberg tends to talk about reexamining the beliefs and practices regarding grief. The authoress has employed a number of theoretical and practical perspectives in order to enhance the overall quality of her work. These practices include (but are not limited to) ideological methods, psychoanalytical methods, post modern methods, post structural methods and others. The basic ideas of the article have been delivered by the authoress using a combination of the above mentioned techniques with an overarching structural methodology to compose the piece. However, the evidence presented by the authoress is a post structural approach employed to boost the credibility of the piece and provides a distinct flavor to the article as a whole. References Berger, A.A., 2011. Media Analysis Techniques. 4th ed. London: Sage. Deleuze, G., 2004. How Do We Recognise Structuralism. In D. Lapoujade & M. Taormina, eds. Desert Islands and Other Texts 1953-1974. New York: Semiotext(e), 2004. pp.170-92. Dines, G. & Humez, J.M., 2010. Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Critical Reader. 3rd ed. New York: Sage. Durham, M.G. & Kellner, D.M., 2005. Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks (KeyWorks in Cultural Studies). 1st ed. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. Konisberg, R.D., 2011. New Ways to Think About Grief. Time, (January). Kubler-Ross, E., 1997. On Death and Dying. 1st ed. Chicago: Scribner. Read More

 

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