Ideology and Mass Media: Lack of Diversity?

The media industry. Everyone cares about it nowadays. The rise of Netflix and other online offerings such as YouTube and the Huffington Post has resulted in significant transformation of the industry, including the ongoing "death of the newspaper", ongoing declining ratings of TV networks as people look elsewhere for stuff to watch, and most notably, mergers. In both the U.S. and Canada, merger activity related to media is at all-time highs thanks to relaxed regulations in the wake of fragmentation that resulted from the Internet.

Yet, it's important to know that despite all of this madness and uncertainty, the main goal of mass media hasn't changed at all. It still is to entertain, educate, and inform. But perhaps the biggest impact of media is on cultural diffusion and as a result, the spread of certain ideologies. This has led to some significant consequences on society, but let me begin by explaining the concept of ideologies.

An ideology is basically a belief. And a belief that can be debated. To one, it's 100 percent true, and to others, it's arbitrary, or in other words, complete bulls**t. As a result, both sides can claim theirs is the truth.

Ideologies are with us all the time. Whatever is valued in our society we ourselves value. We often see them, ore are presented to them, as natural, obvious, and common sense. Ideologies can change our mindset too. That is the case of a conservative teen taking a liberal arts course at university. Even education isn't safe from ideologies. What we learn may depend on the beliefs of others.

Of course, ideologies vary by place and can change over time. Be very careful when showing the peace gesture in the U.K., as it may resemble a rude and explicit gesture of same meaning to flipping the bird! In the past, the Catholic church did all of its service, an all texts were to be kept in, Latin, with required interpretation from an educated clergy. Today in Canada, Mass is celebrated in English.

Ideologies play a huge role in politics. This is the case when an ideology becomes a hegemony. A hegemony is when a certain ideology is dominant throughout a certain population, often thanks to diffusion through a medium. From here, we have the rise of political parties, ruling on the fact their ideologies will improve their state.

And this is where the media industry comes in. Although politics is shaped by media and vice versa, media also hits culture, and perhaps this is where the most profound effects occur. This industry essentially makes its cash off of selling culture, or for the purposes of this post, the hegemonic ideal.

This is called cultural hegemony, which is when a higher class spreads its culture onto other, lower classes, therefore forcing an acceptance of the status quo. This is how the culture industry, which includes mass media companies, helps to reinforce cultural norms. Let me tell you how using a recent viewing.

I remember watching a PBS documentary from media critic Douglas Rushkoff on how we teens are sold brands. Essentially, media companies and advertisers are on the lookout for new trends and they send these "cool hunters" out onto the street to search for new trends in teenage lifestyle. They then adopt these trends, or use them for their marketing purposes, such as Sprite and hip-hop as well as the world's most famous midriff, Britney Spears. This is bound to drive some people into resistance, or the underground of pop culture. Any resistance is eventually sold back to them as the hunt for cool rolls on, such as heavily profane rap metal, a genre I actually like.

Essentially culture, a major ideology, is being sold back to us by multinational corporations. Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, Twenty-First Century Fox, Comcast, and Sony among others all make money by reinforcing our cultural norms, and in many cases, spreading them in corporate cultural imperialism.

Because of this, big media can block out many independent, less dominant cultural acts. Usually smaller musical artists are often drowned out by major media's acceptance of big names. I found plenty of outstanding musicians performing at a local music festival in my area. None of them are affiliated with the big three record companies, instead opting for local independents. As a result, we don't see them appear on national TV or in a big-box music store. Only they could hope a major label discovers them and picks them up like Shawn Mendes or The Weeknd. And until recently, Canadian artists also had little success worldwide, due to American and British music. Only until Alanis Morissette and Celine Dion first come out that Canada would become hot mining grounds for musical talent, and even so only a lucky few get the international treatment. The same could be said for TV, since CTV predominantly airs U.S.-produced shows, although its owners, Bell Media, prides on its productions, including Orphan Black on Space, a massive American cable-TV hit airing on AMC's BBC America.

However, with so much cultural imperialism today, one must ask, how new talent will be found, and if that talent will be good. Since the media industry essentially is a never-ending cycle of cultural hegemony, diversity is a huge issue for the entire world to consider. But with the rise of YouTube, and issues arising from differences (i.e. Islamophobia), that could all change with many cultures rising up to express themselves. Let's hope there is change.

Is History Biased?

History is something we don't usually care about, especially to those in middle school who detest such a subject. However, to those who study it, it's quite an engaging topic. Yet, it seems, history could mean, well, "his story." We may be getting only one single viewpoint in the context of our studies, that of the victor. Let me explain.

In recent years, critical historians have risen in importance. These people have taken an approach called problematization which essentially finds new ways to criticize views. From this critical thought, we get new viewpoints on certain events.

Now, history is defined as simply a record of what happened in the past. The key word here is "record." Someone had to record it, and therefore, it will be in his or her viewpoint and opinion. This can, of course, be shaped by the context of events. Usually, the recorder is on the victor's side, and henceforth, that is the dominant history. For example, in communist China, the events of 1949 are strongly emphasized.

And sometimes, it isn't necessarily true either. Some individuals opt to cover up their views or make blatant lies, making history even less credible.

The issue of untold history happened here in Canada. The residential schools problem from the last century remained unknown until recent years, and not until an inquiry into the residential school system was conducted this year were their true horrors revealed. Among some of the casualties included families being broken apart, serialization, abuse and thousands of deaths. The worst part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's findings is that the main goal of the schools was to "kill the Indian in the child." And yes, they're appaling for a democracy.

Now, ethnocide is a serious concern for many. The residential schools were an excellent example of this. But colonialism always wins over the others, since Canada has a predominately Euro-Caucasian population, and only a teensy-weensy part of the circle graph are Canada's Aboriginals.

Fortunately, as in the case of the recent native issues, the traditional discourse of scholars has led to new views on history. Many will investigate the untold stories of the Holocaust, or seek to discover the cultures that many native people are trying to reconnect with.

Essentially, critical history is the history of those who have not been exposed in the wake of the dominant voice.

Many of the events that happened in the past still take a serious toll on people today. Aboriginal youth suicide rates are unusually high in Canada. In Quebec, there's an anti-British separatist organization who takes advantage of the formal Canadian head of state, the British monarch, as proof of a need to move on with separation from the rest of this country. If so, if we want a better future for everyone, we need to understand our past and try to avoid our mistakes, rather than let the "glorious past" cloud up our mind.

So the next time you open up a history textbook, please keep this in mind: they might be all LIES, LIES, LIES!

Student Spending, What's Up?

This post concerns the issue of student spending. It's up. And not everyone is happy about it. Of course, in the wake of such a concern, we must ask if we are spending too much on anything else. That is the point of two magazine articles, one in general Canadian newsmagazine Maclean's; the other in the Briarpatch, an independent magazine. Generation Spend discusses how youth spend their disposable income, and how it puts parents in serious debt. Generation Debt discusses how students must apply for financial assistance when heading off for university, and are burdened with debt from their educational expenses, which prohibit them from taking graduate programs.

The first article also discusses how students are actually pressured to spend with covert advertising and are fighting back (with the help of others, of course). Meanwhile, the second one focuses on students rallying for lower student expenses in the wake of rising tuition fees. Essentially, Maclean's here is focusing on impulsive spending, and Briarpatch is dealing with rising student expenses and their toll on education.

As the interesting thing here is that both deal with one thing, and that's spending, one must ask, what are Canadian students doing to save for post-secondary education. Why are youth spending like mad, while university expenses are going up? I do believe that teaching young people like me on saving is quite important, especially while tuition is high. But yes, tuition has to go down, and NOW! Hey, I'm in strong favour of lower tuition, so let's just hope the new Prime Minister, as someone who quite recently came out university, knows exactly what our problems are.

What Do We Know? Universities and The Sharing Of Knowledge

Many of us are all smart. We can claim that we know many things, especially those who know trivia. I do, mostly on railroading and computers. Everyone is strong and weak on certain facts and skills and that's OK, since we need diverse minds in order to run the world we live in today. Yet, it's possible to run into arguments over what is right or what is wrong. One part of this problem lies in the fact that "knowledge" is different in each and every person, based on their ideologies and the entire concept of "truth."

First, the basics. Knowledge is any information that is processed by the human mind. This means that we, the people, create knowledge.

The whole idea of knowledge is studied in "epistemology," or the study of knowledge (of course). Epistemologists have found that "knowledge" is not uniform. Our understanding is based on our experiences. We have different experiences, so each one of us will interpret things differently each way.

For example, in a dictatorship, they could make 2+2=Fish. I'm not giving any specifics here, but here, it's 2+2=4. But think about this: what if the people living under this regime are brainwashed? I remember watching

This is why the university exists. We need to discover and spread information known by intellectuals. Here, critical thinking that can shape how we view our world can occur. This makes us aware of limits to our claims and gives us a sense of what is known by humans. With this, we can evaluate our knowledge and rectify any errors and prejudices made in the course of gaining knowledge.

We used to believe that the world was flat, and that was accepted as the truth, so much so that anyone who objected was executed! Today, we know our planet Earth is round. But if it weren't for academic discourse, I could still believe Earth is flat too!

Without the university, we would probably live without the things we take for granted, such as computers, and governments would be allowed to run amok, destroying its own state. Progress of humankind has been made possible by research and discussion, or, the thought exchange. Knowledge, as a result, always changes.

Benefits of Medical Weed

In the normal discourse studied in humanities, it's often asked: "What is truth?" It's based on our ideologies. For example, one might state marijuana is bad because it indirectly drives society into chaos. Others may argue that there are plenty of health benefits, such as a relaxed state of mind. Discussing our ideologies is the point of essay writing. We're trying to prove a point here, and backing them up with legit proof. Here's an introduction to an essay on my thoughts on the issue of banning marijuana...

Mention marijuana to anyone and they think of being stoned on the street thanks to the often-illegally-sourced drug. They often view marijuana as a lethal and deadly substance that should not be consumed for the sake of their lives. Some say that the effects of marijuana are worse than tobacco. However, not everyone that smokes marijuana does so for the sake of being high (some people do needles and sniff glue, but the latter is rare). Some take marijuana as a medical prescription. (Anyone hear of prescription drug abuse?) On the contrary, those who smoke it tend to have relaxed minds. The truth is, many of those who want to smoke marijuana (outside of the addicted) do so because they may have issues regarding the mind (i.e., mental illness). Clinical studies have proven that marijuana can reduce stress and "rebalance" the brain. The government apparently recognizes this: they began to issue medical marijuana licences. We can see that although it has harmful effects on the human and society, it also can be helpful as a medical treatment. This essay will go over how marijuana benefits those with mental illness or disease of the nervous system and see that pot does in fact, when taken correctly, improve life.

Did university cheating lead to the 2008 meltdown? Possibly so.

This is a discussion of the Robert Sternberg essay, Slip-Sliding Away, Down the Ethical Slope, a critique of ethics in education. Here, Sternberg discusses the issue of cheating in university and the consequences it has on society. He states cheating isn't the only issue that universities need to face. How those who cheat act outside of the academic realm is also an important point.

Sternberg warns that if educational ethics aren't addressed in university, students who get into high jobs will have their careers marred by scandal. Their willingness to cheat could translate into significant consequences, including mismanagement and potential criminal action. Furthermore, we're setting ourselves up for many issues in society in the future. The current economic crisis that began in 2008 was cited as an example of the issues of ethics by educated people. In this case, investment bankers evaded securities laws in order

According to Sternberg, the issue for universities isn't plagiarism and exam snooping; it's student behaviour itself. Sternberg concludes that schools should not evaluate students solely on test scores. They should take a holistic approach to a student's behaviour. He suggests students should conduct a self-evaluation of their ethics. The current evaluation system for students in place isn't adequate as well. Determining a certain individual's intelligence on just their GPA isn't going to cut it, since it doesn't tell us how they will act, or if they even cheated. I agree, since some are going to be either devoted to or very lazy on their essays.

The University of Toronto has stated in its mission statement that it is devoted to challenging current viewpoints on issues and society. Maybe it should also start challenging its own evaluation of students. Rather than just put controls during exams, it should also inform students on ethics outside of academia and that unethical acts could bruise the university's international reputation.

Welcome!

Hi. My name is Kevin Diep, and I'm a first-year Humanities student (at the time of this posting) at the University of Toronto (Scarborough Campus) and in this blog, you will see my thoughts about the course content, some assignments, and other tidbits about the course. It's hoped that I will present an excellent renewed view on the society we believe in.

This blog is intended for viewing by my professor and teaching assistants as well as my fellow ACMA01 students. However, I also welcome all other academia and social thinkers to pop by and offer their thoughts.

I wish to apologize in advance for any errors made here; this is the first time I've ever used Blogger!

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me at my Blogger profile.