Media

Hollywood/television has one purpose... to make money. There are of course agendas and clear bias expressed in movies and the news, as these industries are owned by other corporations, each with their own corporate interests. What we discussed in class from the news only reporting certain things and clear racial connotations of Hollywood are due to both the need to make money as well as protect the interest of corporations who own news stations and studios. These corporations that own various news stations and papers also have interests in the automobile industry as well as political interests. This is why come news stations have fairly clear slants one way or another. Some thinkers would argue that there is a collaboration with the government and these consolidated corporations with far reaching interests to control the information we as citizens receive in order to sway public opinion. Our own form of manipulative censor ship. I wouldn’t necessarily agree with this however it can be seen that there are about 6 blanket corporations that own a majority of the media outlets, all with other far reaching interests...

Another thing is that yet Hollywood portrays the Arabic world as one of conflict, violence and ignorance. I don’t think this creates our ignorance but is merely a refection of it. Movies really haven’t historically been meant to educate the masses and give them worldly perspective. They are meant to make money, and the way to do that is not to insult their ignorance but to play it up and perpetuate it

An interesting example comes to mind with all of this. In old movies people were always shown as smoking and it being suave and cool. Now in movies its generally the bad guys, the Russians, the criminals who are the ones smoking in the movies, no longer the protagonist as it used to be. This is not some campaign to take down the cigarette companies but a reflection of popular opinion today, now that our awareness of smoking and its ill effects.