Mongoose, 10/29

This week’s classes focused on the concept ideology and particularly the ways in which we see the media manipulating their viewers or listeners through ideological influences. The ideology and other ideas that we see through the media are no accident, it is a conscious effort to influence the viewers and in many ways turn them into passive viewers rather than allowing for active participation and rhetoric. Adorno and Horkmeier had an interesting quote on this behalf: “[The radio] democratically makes everyone equally into listeners. 42” by this they mean that there is no way for the listener to dispute anything that they may hear and disagree with on the radio; the audience is turned into passive listeners and spectators with no way to discuss their views with the show host. This allows the media to enforce ideological views on their spectators because they have no way to challenge the authority. The interesting part of this quote is the word ‘democratically’, which means that we subject ourselves to this one way communication street, no one is forcing us to listen or in today’s day in age, view, yet we continue to follow and be spectators of ideology perpetuated. I think this idea is not as big of a problem today because of our new technological capabilities; now when we listen to a radio show, and even some television talk show, we have the ability to call in or e-mail the show or host and discuss our take on whatever the situation may be. They did not have this capability in the day of this essay which made it impossible to get your view across to the show host or hosts. I also believe that we have advanced our critical thinking as time has gone on, the idea of challenging authority and being your own person seems to have increased with each generation and allowed individuals the opportunity and capability to express your own views and opinions without the fear of backlash by those who you are challenging.