All forms of media clog our mental atmosphere.

Newspapers, Television shows, Magazines and several other forms of mass media have become common to the everyday man, and it doesn’t take long to find a type of mass media. In the most simple of terms: mass media is everywhere.

This being taken into consideration, we realize six billion people can’t be wrong about mass media having it’s effect on every single one of us. Our list of preferences may be so because they are similar to the preferences of some person we idolize– or because we see an interesting combination of these that we believe these preferences make up our personality. Even our ideologies can be affected by mass media. We are presented with a family living happily in a well-built, well-furnished, and white picket-fenced house with a driveway and a Chevy Cruze to match. Seeing this may affect our views on the standards of living. Seeing this picture-perfect, apple pie life may lead us to think that living like this really is the way to live.

Admit it, Mass Media is a brilliant tool for manipulation, hitting us in ways that we can’t even detect until it has fully sinked into our heads.

These instances and the fact stated above is precisely the idea that revolves around the Marxist Media Theory.

Back in the late ’60′s and all the way onto the early ’80′s, having a neo-Marxist approach towards media used by media theorists was no longer uncommon, despite the fact that somewhere around Britain and the rest of Europe, Marxism was not a very dominant theory.

Marxism by nature, as applied whether it be in literature or other forms of media, tackles a wide range of analysis of any piece to be critiqued. This theory prefers pieces that are under a more realistic light, but does not necessarily limit itself to realism. There have been several books in literature to display a Marxist thought, even though it was set in a fantastical view (e.g., The Animal Farm by George Orwell, The Lord of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien).

We may need to take note that during the 60′s up to the 80′s in Britain and Europe, the issue of the Cold War was a lingering tension tight in the air. The war began somewhere in the 1940′s as a dispute between the US and the Soviet Union. It was one of the most important diplomatic and political issues during the last half of the 20th century. It was not until the 80′s that we saw the end of traditional communism which eventually ended the Cold War. With circumstances like this, it would be natural for for people to start turning to a way to properly scrutinize whatever forms of media and propaganda were being fed to them. Questioning things and being curious in the midst of chaos is a normal human instinct.

And when we start to question, we need answers. To where do we run for answers again?

Right. To Media.

See how the vicious cycle goes?

Advertisement