Smiley Face - 4/12

This week's class (only having one due to Fox Day) looked at the growing phenomenon of leading media figures in our culture. These figures act as the bridge between the public and the real world. Becoming a leading media figure-head in society is not that hard to achieve, particularly since Bourdieu states the formula for finding this success. He analyzes the pre-requisites to becoming the next leading media figure-head: to become technologically updated with the latest trends of communication (twitter, facebook, blogging etc), tell people what they already know (something first stated by Marx to make ideologies universally accepted) and then instruct the people with what they should think about the social problems of the day. With the right software this is very easy to achieve, especially in a world where everyone has access to these tools for success.
In our culture where technology is accessible to all and therefore can be controlled by the viewer - why is it that we still rely on these media figure-heads to determine our actions and beliefs? To answer this question I looked back at my notes on Jenkins and 'participatory culture,' and then compared them to my Zizek notes on the 'framing of the shot.' The cult of participatory culture thrives off of the input of the masses to function - therefore the people control the information in media and do not need a leading media face to determine their beliefs or actions. On the other hand, Zizek's notion of the 'framing of the shot' applies to news and journalism in that the framing of a news story consequently frames the audience's approach to the story. As a result, audiences rely on the journalist's writing to determine their beliefs on a certain topic.
Boudrieu objectively states the formula for famous journalists in society; Jenkins recognizes the people's control over media resulting in the lack of need for one, while Zizek recognizes the need for a leading media figure to 'frame' the news for the audience.