Neil Postman Michel Foucault Paul Lazarsfeld Michel Foucault
- Slides: 13
Neil Postman, Michel Foucault & Paul Lazarsfeld
Michel Foucault • “Things themselves become so burdened with attributes, signs, allusions that they finally lose their own form. Meaning is no longer read in an immediate perception. ”
• “So many diverse meanings are established beneath the surface of the image”
Power • If you have knowledge/power you control the “truth”, which in actually is a “regime of truth” • Media plays a key role in disseminating truth
Or…as Steven Colbert called it…
• So, if you control the discourse (media) you control the power.
However… • We have the power to resist. • Foucault argues that any powerful discourse can be undermined by another more-powerful discourse. • Are we more powerful than the mass media?
Neil Postman • Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985) • He criticized the television industry for confounding serious issues with entertainment, demeaning politics by making it less about ideologies and more about image.
• In watering down news to entertainment we, as a society, cease to care about the real important issues that alter our day to day existence. • By keeping the people uninformed, the masses do notice that they are losing their freedom.
Paul Lazarsfeld • Sociologist put in charge of The Radio Project • to look into the effects of mass media on society • Little Annie Project (CBS)
The Two Step Flow of Communication • communication from the mass media first reaches "opinion leaders" • They filter the information to their associates
