Producers Against the World

...And if it's not producers, it probably is time itself. To begin with, I do apologise for abandoning this sector of my blog for a week, but it's only a week, so I will assume all is forgiven. On that note, I have much to get through the past two weeks so please down close the page down yet.

In the wisdom of the 'prosumer', you do have the power to close this page down with a click of the mouse. So strange how roles reverse between producer and consumer in the new media age...

To begin with, there is little point in explaining the biographies and backgrounds of the Murdoch/Berlusconi empires, for indeed there is little that the Western media do not know of these figures. However what is important to bear in mind when thinking of this situation, it's good to look at:

1. HARD Power: Control of capital, legal system, military etc. This is equal to state TV basically and will use full perception management to use propaganda and blatant exercises to make sure audiences agree with them.
2. SOFT Power: Probably like our systems which use sociological signs and mild persuasive techniques to ensure an understanding is reached with the audience. Tabloids could be the best example of this.

Example 1
Regal Duchess of Cambridge attends her first Remembrance Sunday ceremony as a member of the monarchy

The Duchess of Cambridge attended her first Remembrance Sunday ceremony at the Cenotaph today - giving an almost faultless performance.

The occasion dictated that all royal women from the Queen down wore black - a sombre colour for a sombre occasion.

But there was still plenty of scope for making a fashion statement despite the solemn nature of the annual event which is a public tribute to all Britain's war dead.
Source: Daily Mail, 13.11.11 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2060993/Kate-Middleton-Duchess-Cambridge-attends-Remembrance-Sunday-ceremony.html

On this particular article itself, there is a brash image of the Duchess herself, proving that even for this particularly centre-right newspaper, she is a symbolic sign of sycophantic praise to our monarchy, which give a sense of the agenda setting of importance she apparently is to an occasion like Remembrance itself. The Duchess takes greater precedence than the millions that have died in war! I imagine The Observer wasn't so praiseworthy...

This is what is most interesting about people like Murdoch and Berlusconi. Both have been left battered and bruised as characters and reputations as media moguls...Murdoch with his apparent ignorance over the phone-hacking scandal and Berlusconi being jeered as he left the Italian presidential palace for the last time. Yet their newspapers, their TV channels and any sort of acquisition thrive more than ever. Why?

The Left-Wing Theories

• Gramsci
• Chomsky
• Herman

Firstly, what might be drawn from Hall's argument is that:

 

1. Dominant Reading: Reader accepts the text as it is and is reluctant to question it.
2. Negotiated Reading: Shares partially (peripheral persuasion) which te reader can either agree or disagree with a fact, depending on their cultural status.
3. Oppositional Reading: Reader understands something, but may have differnt solitions to how the programme presents it.*

*I do think this is an understatemennt, as you can see here. See information about News Corp's attempted complete takeover of Sky:

Gramsci came up with the idea that in Hemogony theory that populaism or pre-set agendas remain in the mass media. This is supported by Chomsky and Herman, as they go on to say that methods such as ownership, disciplining the media and advertising as a commercial basis is what keeps capitalist ideology in media alive today.

 

Example 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFOcrZeMRUU

 

The next URL perhaps depicts one of the strongest, if difficult to watch, advert for Barnardo's charity which I can still remember after this time due to its nature of using dysphemisms in hard persuasion of media techniques. Audiences are getting wiser to the soppy, stereotypical material seen nowadays and greater emphasis id being put in the fact people use and gratify themselves through the less conventional in the media. Just look at my notes on HBO about this. I would not watch this advert if you're under a sensitive nature.

 

Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects we're manipulated by the media is through Framing ("...select some aspects of a perceived reality and made them more salient in a communicating text..."pp. 67) and Priming ("...behavioural change by altering the relative weight people give to various considerations." pp 67) as producers encode messages and we, as audiences, are responsible for decoding them. The most subtle methods in the media of persuasion, such as putting inverted commas into a text or just hyperbole and modifying words alone can alter the way audiences see texts. During the newspaper strike in 1945, it was said that people had been "handicapped in some way" because they no longer had access to information. This is inconceivable to the catastrophic consequences if access to the Internet/social media itself was closed down for 24 hours, let alone 17 days!

 

Example 3

 

 

Hint: It's a liberal newspaper, in relation to the faults of a highly questioned home secretary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will leave you with this. There are degrees of propaganda: this is Black, White & Grey propaganda. Black is the most severe, whilst white is only the 'white lie' style of propaganda. I will leave you to make your own decisions about which one producers use during war:
It looks a bit like this...
Recommended Reading: Media Theories and Approaches: A Global Perspective. Balnaves, Hemelryk, Shoesmith (pp.127-138)