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.
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