Week 22 - Power in the Media Essay

Grace Watson

20 August 2021

Media Studies 

Week 22 - Power in the Media Essay

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Question being answered:

"To what extent do people today have the power to represent themselves?"

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In today’s day and age, “he who controls the narrative, holds the power”, which basically means that whoever creates the media ultimately has the power to influence audience ideologies in creating the basis of policies. According to Stuart Hall’s Representation Theory, the media is what gives meaning to reality, and so the producers of the media are able to shape the opinions of audiences through giving “meaning” to reality. That’s how much power these media producers truly hold.

Gerbner’s Cultivation theory describes how when people are constantly bombarded with certain content, it becomes “engraved into your brain”, and therefore becomes their perception of the world as well. One kind of story blends into another to reinforce a distinct view of the world under the Mean World Syndrome Theory, also by Gerber, and has lead to the fear of violence within audiences who watch television. Essentially, the media has grand power of audiences.

However, one could say that as time has progressed, the influence of the media has, in one way, become less dominant as audiences have progressed from being passive to more active participants in what they’re consuming. Unlike in years gone by where they’d accept whatever they saw on television as being fact, they now question and think about what they’re consuming, establishing fan pages to comment on what they’re seeing. Web 2.0 and the proliferation of the internet to being less static and more interactive has enabled these audiences to actually have an increased input on what is created. In this sense, audiences now have increased power in representing themselves. “95% of teens have access to a smartphone, and 45% say they’re online ‘almost constantly’” - they’re able to vocalise their opinions on a public level with ease - portraying their beliefs and motivations publicly.

An example of this is in the Fandom culture. Fans today hold more power than ever. According to Jenkins’ Fandom Theory, there’s this “participatory culture” in which fans create communities to collaborate and “solve problems” based on the media they’ve consumed and become so passionate about, and like never before, they’re able to take their opinions very seriously and again, to a public level. The fans of the series ‘Stranger Things’ did just that, creating fansites “built around creative but unlicensed reuse of copyrighted material”, hyping each other up. In fact, their support of the series became so intense that an article - Article 13 - was established stating the rights of authorities to “block anything that appears to infringe on copyright”. Fans are able to publish their own thoughts even on how they think actors should look! An example of this being in the case of the Mandalorian where Shamook “was hired by Lucasfilm after he created his own take on a scene from The Mandalorian”. The advancement of technology which enables audiences to even make these technological edits, as well as the means for them to now share them online, have together increased the power of audiences to represent themselves.

Secondly, audiences now also have the ability to create their own media. Regular, everyday people are able to release their own Indi films, and in this sense the dominance of the conglomerates such as Disney and the rest of the Big 5 (Warner Bros., Columbia, Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures), which own many subsidiaries such as Fox, ESPN, Disney + etc, is not as severe as it used to be. While these production studios do still take up the majority of ticket sales on Box Office because of their money and advertising power, with films such as Jurassic World grossing over $500million USD on opening weekend alone, Indie films are also receiving substantial support. In this sense, audiences are able to actually carve entire films around their own personal perceptions of reality like never before.

As worldwide movements, such as the Black Lives Matter and the MeToo, have begun to soar, women have increased in their ability to represent themselves fairly. In years gone by, women were represented in both music videos and films in a way described by Lauren Mulvey’s Male Gaze Theory - only ever a man’s accessory, looking beautiful but having nothing wise or of value to add other than their looks. Women were often portrayed as being the “backdrop to the more important storyline” usually of a white male. Nowadays though, platforms such as The Hollywood Diversity Report have begun to show up “for diverse films in theatres” for the sake of both women and non-white ethnicities who have experienced such unfair representations in years past. In 2020, 28.8% of films had the highest level of diversity, a 50% increase from 2011. This goes to show that although films are nowhere near where they need to be, they definitely are improving, and over time women and individuals of various cultures are having an improved sense of fairness and ability to be represented and represent themselves justly.

This is similar in music videos as well. In genres such as rap music, women have always historically been “sexualised” and “objectified” - portrayed in very seductive manners, wearing barely any clothing. Nowadays though, some of the most successful rappers and hip hop artists are women, such as Cardi B, who have paved the way for other women and are no longer just the backdrop but rather the main act. A rapper was quoted describing how one shouldn’t feel “like there’s no such thing as gender”.

The fact that some of the movies with the best portrayal of women are those directed by women - such as Ladybird which was “directed and scripted by women” goes to show what a need there is for more equality in all industries because women directors are able to represent women in a manner that is more realistic and healthy for current and future generations to see. Although we’re not 100% there yet, improvement is taking place.

An area where people don’t really have so much power to represent themselves as they wish is in the case of Globalisation and the censorship of the Chinese Government. With a population of roughly 1.4 billion, China is an excellent country for film producers to release their films - massive opportunity for success when it comes to ticket sales. For this reason, most filmmakers are bowing to the Chinese censorship and trying their best to please the Chinese government so their films will be allowed in. An example of where a film did not do this is ‘The Interview’ released in 2014. Contents of the film upset the North Korean government (which has a similar system to China) so much so that they threatened to take action against the United States if the film was released, with a group known as the “Guardians of the Peace” hacking Sony’s computer systems soon after. Now although the film still grossed $40 million on Box Office, it’s numbers could’ve been WAY higher had it pleased the governments of countries such as North Korea and China.

By forming alternate endings in their films to impress China, filmmakers are actually loosing power to represent themselves. They’re representing themselves in such a way that will be pleasing to China, but perhaps not true of them.

People with certain beliefs are being silenced. According to the Agenda-Setting Theory of 1968, "mass media determine the issues that concern the public rather than the public's views". On platform such as Facebook and Instagram with around 2 billion and 1 billion monthly users  respectively, people with opinions that may not fit the most common idea are being blocked or shadowbanned, raising the question of whether free speech is being maintained or not. Explained by the Spiral of Silence Theory, people who hold a minority opinion remain silent to avoid social isolation and the CANCEL culture where people are disregarded on these social media platforms which essentially have “control over what news and information we see” leading to a majorly “polarised society, with extreme viewpoints becoming the norm”. People with differing opinions are being silenced, and so their power to represent and express themselves is being infringed upon. The debate remains: are these social media sites transitions from being platforms for being to express themselves to rather being publications with hidden agendas?

Overall, people have a lot more power today to represent themselves than what they ever had before. This is mainly thanks to Web 2.0 and the proliferation of the Internet where people all over the world have access to the news, to coverage of protests against inequality etc and the means to publicly convey their beliefs and opinions as well.