What Do the Media Do to Us? Media and Society
O’Shaughnessy, Michael and Jane Stadler. “Media and Society” Media and Society: An Introduction, Third Edition. South Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press, 2005, 31-58.
The excerpt ‘What Do the Media Do to Us? Media and Society’ from O’Shaughnessy, Michael and Jane Stadlers’ “Media and Society” Media and Society: An Introduction, Third Edition. 2005, seeks to provide us with an understanding of contemporary society and the issues faced in it. It outlines the ways in which media is used as a tool for explaining society and how it influences and affects our views on contemporary issues.
Two central arguments are brought to the fore: are the media essentially a reflection of our society and its values, norms and beliefs, or does media actually shape these values and influence our actions and society as a whole. It seems that in order to fully understand media and its function or role in society we need to look at the interplay between these ideas. In seeking to represent society and provide us with a way in which to view the world, media becomes a central, pivotal point for socialisation itself, in turn shaping and affecting individuals, society and major events.
The reading also assesses who the driving forces behind the media are and whether media are mainly a reflection of the social categories of those in control of media production or if the audience and what is seen as popular culture predominantly govern it. Essentially, the basic content provided through various types of media is drawn from the interests and ideologies of society. The way in which it is shaped and moulded to appeal to the masses is at the discretion of the media producers.
Media, in essence provides society with a platform for understanding and assessing social norms and aggregates. We are presented with the CRASH acronym (class, race, age, sex, handicap), which demonstrates social categorisation of people within our societies. Various subgroups within these categories can be either advantaged or disadvantaged depending on the exposure given and the perspective used to portray them, in media. ‘How we are seen determines in part how we are treated, how we treat others is based on how we see them; such seeing comes from representation’ Dyer (1993, p.1, as cited in O’Shaughnessy and Stadlers, 2005, p.35).
The reading allows us to understand the intertwined relationship between media and the public, and the interplay involved in shaping these two entities in a straightforward and precise way. It portrays the positives and negatives of media affect on our social viewpoints and also the role we as a public have in shaping the media.
Kate Blundell z3256624
W09A Chemscience M14
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