Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Media Globalization


1.) Consumerism: One main theme of media globalization is the promotion of consumerism, which closely links, if not directly to capitalism. Media globalization allows people around the world to be exposed to myriad advertisements, marketing campaigns, products, commercials, and brands sometimes without even leaving their home. Capitalism has fueled the idea of consumerism because some large multi-national corporations like MacDonald's, Coke, Apple and Nike create ad campaigns geared toward media globalization that target a wide range of people who then contribute to capitalism. The media constantly portrays what is deemed to be an appealing lifestyle through consumerism. As technology continues to grow and more and more products are introduced into society, we should ask ourselves as what point must we stop? Or better yet, will consumerism ever stop? We have become so overloaded with superfluous junk in our lives because we are convinced that the things we own are necessities thanks to some powerful advertising corporations.
Ideally, we should be able to look at information we are being fed by the media and determine what is a positive influence and what we can do without. Unfortunately, these companies did not get as big as they because of there lack of understanding the human psyche. They have mastered what will market or promote a product or idea to a central or global setting.
2.) Information and communication products within the global system have spidered quickly throughout the world due to ongoing changes and developments. The Internet alone allows us to communicate with other around the world as well as have an array of information at our fingertips in seconds. When the computer was first introduced it society it was an anomaly to the world of technology. Looking back on that development, the now seems obsolete since we can do more things on some phones than we can do on computers. The word phone itself has become a misnomer based on all that can be done with a hand held device that used to be reserved the highly affluent and were hard to attain.
We should be more attentive to what is being broadcasted to us and have the ability to critically assess if it is a helpful or hindering approach to technology and growth as a society as well as individually.
3.) So we all know that there are a select number of organizations that dominate the industry. To name a few of these conglomerates, VIACOM, Disney, Time Warner, and the all too synonymous news corporations, we should ask ourselves who regulates these giants? The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) plays its role in preventing crude language and inappropriate images from leaking onto the airwaves but who regulates what these corporations do? These companies operate in a highly unregulated environments and since they own the information, they can bend it all they want.
It should be concerning to us as citizens that there is not much control over what is distributed by these media powerhouses. Without someone to say what is and is not okay, we have opened ourselves up to the idea that every image and idea that is portrayed to us is appropriate and condoned.

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