Media, Information and Societal Problems - Essay Example

They manipulate the sources of information in a manner that suits their purpose. This way, only ideas that are allowed to prosper are the ones that the ruling class wants the masses to have. Amongst them one is the concept that social classes are natural and cannot be changed. The main cause of most social problems arises when people are led to act in a manner that is against their will, just so they can conform to the societal standards. Classes and Societal Problems Firstly, this concept of the lower-class cannot reach beyond their material means can actually have dramatic impact on their performance due to self-fulfilling prophecy.

This also means if people belonging to lower stratum of the society are led to believe that they cannot achieve more actually may not achieve more if the concept is forced onto them (Ornstein & Levine 11). This I believe is very detrimental to growth of the society. Secondly the damage to intellectual thought and idea generation I believe, is the main problem caused by the “hegemony” proposed by Gramsci: if thought and ideas are trapped and left to conform to societal standards that serve only the affluent, there would not be any progress. . This way we end up incurring a great deal of cost which then appears to be necessary.

It is hegemony because the producers would not just let us buy the product we actually need. This blind following of the popular opinion leads the masses to do acts that are against their will. Practically the proletariat follows the ideology propagated by the bourgeois; they incur unnecessary expenses push themselves into debt just to meet the social pretences that have been laid out by the prevalent ideology. So in an attempt to serve societal interests the masses are actually damaging their own interests.

An example would be that it was perceived that masses should have significant cash in deposits for their future needs, perhaps investments were high risk. So the US banks had a huge influx of deposits. On the surface it appears that banks would be happy with the investments, but managing such huge deposits also means they would be required to pay interests on them. So eventually some banks chose to charge fees on accounts that had large deposits. This way it was the end-consumer who had to pay the price.

Role of Media One of the key distinctions of mass media from other forms of media is its ability to address a large number of people at the same time. Media is the mouth piece of the society; it is supposed to express popular public opinion. However in light of Marxist Capitalist economy, the media is controlled by the upper classes that use it to serve their interests. Media play a key role in shaping the perceptions of the society; they do this by means of advertising and programming. Both advertising and programming serve as a means of creating hegemony. This is