Disclaimer: Anything that doesn’t appear as an original thought is taken directly from our textbook Chapter 21, unless otherwise noted. And blame my computer for spelling errors. Stuart Hall’s “Cultural Studies” is a broad group of discourses that focus on how the use of Media to oppress the poor and the working class. These studies take the ‘critical approach’ in their analysis of the dynamics of culture. Therefore, Hall relies heavily upon Marxist philosophy for terminology and definition. The main premise of Cultural Studies is that the ruling class controls information in order to remain dominate in society. (duas tantum res anxius optat, panem et circenses) This belief expanded from Frankfort School theorists (pg.363). But where Frankfort targeted media as a tool of the bourgeois used against the proletariat, Hall sees the media encompassing all segments of the disenfranchised and even included its impact on leisure activities and daily routines. This expansion upon the Frankfort thought has been classified as neo-Marxist. (pg.364) The Media is entertainment, it’s the circus that filters and disguises the truth. Its inherent commercialism keeps the lower classes forever in debt to the corporate elite. The message is subterfuge. An agenda of promoting discordance between the middle and lower economic society, thereby ensuring the survival of oligarchy’s police state. The ideologies of “democracy” and “capitalism” are lies preached to the mob in order to steer them away from the guillotines. The Net is today’s false consciousness, it is the technological/artificial replacement of thinking. Every key stroke is recorded then analyzed and packaged to be re-consumed by the user. Ego becomes nothing more than the desire for the latest iPhone. We’re all doomed. I’ve personally seen a CEO, a CFO, and 47 vice-presidents take a horrific event of American history (one that involved the blood of their own employees) and exploit it for self-gain. And I’ve seen the Halliburton Wars cause misery and loss to hundreds of innocent lives. Greed is the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. Left un-checked, eventually it will destroy this planet. My only hope is that all of those evil bastards choke on their caviar.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 20:29:06 +0000
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