JOURNAL 2

Re: MEDIA & SOCIETY CH. 3

1. Your text explains, on pp. 31-34, how Western democratic societies have generally found ways to maintain social stability while at the same time maintaining social inqualities. They maintain consent through a) voting; b) an ideology of individualism that stresses personal rights, freedoms, and equality;
c) a basic social network (such as welfare), and through a number of social institutions such as the MEDIA. Please explain in one paragraph how the Media is a mechanism for the ruling classes (see p. 36) for maintaining domination over subordinate classes.

2. Take a TV show you know well and apply the SEARCH acronym (see pp. 38-9) to the show's main characters. As your textbook states on p. 39, "we use SEARCH as a tool to search for the assumptions underpnning many conventional views of the world, to wake us up to social inequality, and to the ecological problems that we must search for ways to resolve." To what extent does your TV show reflect society... or affect society?

MAKE SURE YOU ARE COMFORTABLE WITH THE FOLLOWING TERMS:

• the media
• digital divide
• media studies
• subculture
• documentary
• ideology
• identity
• embedded journalism