The mass media
Introduction
The Frankfurt School was created in 1923 composed of a group of researchers who attached to the theories of Marx, Hegel and Freud, who worked on a study project that built a critical theory of society, its objective was to relate the theory withThe practice, and through ideas they would help change, in a way the submission with which people were, to get the freedom of their lives.
The Birmingham school was born in 1964 with the creation of the Center for the Study of Contemporary Cultures is a field of different studies, which are based on understanding and explaining the situation of social classes and cultural practice. They study how the media, try to reproduce the current state.
This essay will be studied through these schools, from a critical and reflective way, the different theories and contrasts of what the media can generate in society, to thereby reach the conclusion of which of them are right. The critical theory of the Frankfurt School is oriented towards social change and historical changes, analyze the one who, to understand the origin and framework of the communicative process. Its purpose was to change the conditions of oppression in which most humans lived and achieve their emancipation.
Developing.
According to their approach, the mass media have a numb and alienating effect that translates into the passivity of public opinion, these are cohesive devices, which are part of capitalist society. Two central concepts entered within the critical theory, the alienation that they defined how to stop thinking for itself, and the manipulation that controls the will through the use of certain instruments such as the media, in the manipulator is the issuer andThe alienated is the receiver.
Adorno and Horkheimer Representatives of this school, create the concept of cultural industry, here the differentiation between culture of the masses and mass culture arises, the first is what makes man, true culture, and the second is that produced by thesystem to manipulate people, that is a cultural industry.
Another criticism of this theory is that the cultural industry invades leisure time (space where it could be exercised in solid and best age, creativity and freedom, reflection and criticism, dissolve in a disparaging entertainment) of recreation of the individualAnd assimilates it to the ways of the world of work, that is, they have no time for their own thinking, they only adhere to these means that do not allow them to have total freedom and contact with nature.
Cultural industry is one of the expressions of the development of capital configuration and techno-bourocratic domain of the various cultural production systems. It generates a process of conformism and subordination of the masses towards the established regime, example;A means of communication reports that the government stops investing resources to Social Security and therefore social security is closed, this creates a mass manipulation and alignment of thoughts since people do not have their own thinking, autonomous about that news.
This school also known as the school of critical thinking, focuses on a reflexive thought, which refers to the consequences that normally brings the presence of the media, that is, unlike other groups do not focus on the functioning ofthe media such as the Birmingham school;In Frankfurt they wanted to do a critical analysis or a strong Marxist orientation to a capitalist world that generated the product of that well -being and that massive reproduction certain consequences in the audiences.
A man focuses on an area of what would have to be his personal development, this area is close to consumption, a consumption that causes this person to stop thinking, then it remains in what is a dimension, so there is talkof a one -dimensional society. When talking about cultural industry, it is pointed out as this capitalist society produces massive cultural assets and therefore these generate certain social changes, such as: cultural products are basically manufactured to avoid thinking so that the person does not reason, another ismake the audience see as one thing, consider a person as an object, as something not thinking, as a alienated person, as an ornament pointed out.
Basically it has lost that possibility of being sensible, so a reconciliation between man and his nature is demanded, because this man is upset, product of these cultural goods that have a goal. According to Frankfurt school, the cultural industry has two aspects, one that has to do with the industrial, technical part to reproduce massively, and on the other it has the content part, that is, there is one that prevails and that somehow isaccepted by the person, with a manipulation objective.
In some cases the creation of groups within the cultural industries for young people to somehow manage them, but with a content that apparently offers them a freedom is evident. For example: the cultural industry proposes a product called and this product evidently promises a freedom that behind certain products that they will sell, to be like this product, this is where it is evidenced that they do not differentiate between entertainment and become an object, such asIf I did not have your own thinking, to follow fashion, and follow others.
Walter Benjamín One of the school representatives, with his proposal the aura (essence of the work of art) speaks of the fact that on the one hand the massive reproduction of goods allows a democratization of access to what culture is, but also produces whatThat becomes the loss of the essence of the work of art, that is, it makes a differentiation in what very few people do, including identifying that the media are an entry to culture, and lose the essence of the work, which, whichis to let and manipulate, that is where the human being loses something that looks very little in the new society, which is the criteria of its own.
On the other hand, there is the theory of cultural studies, which is presented as a contrast to critical theory, proposes to rethink the relationship between communication and society giving a much more active role to audiences. Hoggart One of the authors representing this approach says that the mass media are used to feed everyday life, such as generating new knowledge, so it is necessary to know what people do with these media, so it generated research on paper and useof TV inside households.
Within these cultural studies, Birmingham’s school emerged, which was created with the aim of exploring young cultures, contents and reception of the media. This, talks about the fact that a means of communication is limited only to a transmission, and that therefore we must analyze what presides to the production of the message and culture of the person who receives it.
Through a decoding they see that people have a culture and their own thoughts to be influenced and do what they see through the media, they contribute that the fact that the media have generated possible acculturations and contradictory responses notremoves that collective mentality, new expectations and growing frustrations have been created.
The big difference between Frankfurt School and Birmingham is that Frankfurt towards a theoretical reflection, while Birmingham towards the study of specific aspects. It could be said that at the beginning of cultural industries its objective in terms of mass media was to generate communication, allow to know other cultures, inform about what was happening in countries around the world, but little by little it became ameans to manage people and make them stop thinking and have their own criteria.
This is why Frankfort’s school within these years is right, people have become consumerist beings, almost empty by being aware of what they say in the media, they no longer see it as a means of entertainment, but asIf that were really happening within society, and in terms of information, the media since they began to be handled by politics, made people not have their own criteria and have always manipulated people through every mediumpossible not to let them see reality.
In Ralph’s film the devastating Wifi, it is evidenced how the Internet and social networks are already much of life, this new era of technology that couldEntertainment, among other services that they offer, but that, although it is a new world, is very dangerous and that without realizing it begins to bring out people to know what the world, nature and true essence really is.
Conclusions.
Although everything that is in the cultural industry has its good things, such as maintain And allowing to know the different cultures around the world, has its disadvantages, since it is not used correctly, but is provided for misuse, such as giving false information, it does not allow to have a private life because everything is already published , makes people become impatient since you do not get what is sought or simply because it becomes necessary day by day, does not allow people to be critical, lend itself to harassment, cyberbullying and even to put into danger life, for having so much information in what social networks are, and what is most important and sad of everything, is that because of this new era of the cultural industry, the Communication with the closest.
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