Capri Sun, Herman and Chomsky

Throughout reading the Herman and Chomsky article, many of their ideas reminded me of previous theorists we have talked about in class. The article talks about how the media is constructed and who is constructing it. I think the most important part of understanding media and its influence on society is realizing who is controlling it. Because it is only a small minority of wealthy individuals everything the public views is being filtered through their eyes. We assume that the various forms of media, especially the news, are unbiased however this is impossible. Marx talks about how the dominating class is created through money therefore money controls the media. The media provides the mass public with images of what life is supposed to be like and what is “normal.” What the average American does not realize is that what we see on television or listen to on the radio are actually hegemonic ideologies that are produced to advance the people in the ruling class. Last semester, I wrote my CMC200 paper on advertisements and the effect is has on its viewers. After researching I learned that the more an advertisement has to do with ones lifestyle or if it succeeds the image one is looking for the more effective the advertisement has on production sales. This made me realize, that we are living in an on going cycle. People buy what they see on advertisements because of the pre-existing ideologies that Americans believe and trust. So, when a man sees an ad regarding Nike running shoes, where the male in the image looks strong and masculine they will be more likely to buy the shoes because society has told him his whole life that in order to be a man one must be strong. Advertisements sell products because they are selling the images we see in the media. And because the media is controlled by an elite group of people these images are only ideologies not reality. If you turn to someone and ask them if they think advertisements work most likely the person will say no but they also most likely will be wearing Nikes. Benjamin would agree with Herman and Chomsky by explaining that the American public is absent-minded viewers, even when we do not think its effecting us, it actually is and in order to stop this cycle we must start questioning and challenging where our media comes from and what are its motives.