MacGuyver

So I just wrote this for one of my classes. Thought I'd share, so feel free to criticize, although I'd prefer technical criticism on the structure on my paper and such, as opposed to the criticism of my opinions. Because you're not going to change my opinions, they are the basis of my paper.

2/29/05
CM 100
Position Paper 1
Conscious Manipulation and Critical Thinking
An Analysis of Society and Mass Media

In a media-savvy society such as todays, one must be aware of the pop culture around them in order to get on with a ‘normal’ life. Yet, awareness and conformity are two completely different forms of societal life. In her video ‘Cultural Criticism and Transformation’, Bell Hooks stresses the importance of critical thinking when it comes to the media that is surrounding our lives. As a viewer, I strongly agreed with Hooks’ three key concepts of conscious manipulation, critical thinking, and motivated representation directly influencing the minds of society.

In the first few scenes of her video, Hooks describe how she feels that society gets much of their cultural education and opinions from pop culture. I feel this is an accurate statement, putting aside the obvious ‘formal’ education of the school systems. This is where I feel that critical thinking plays a large role in how media affects us. Many people take much of what pop culture is to be established truths. However, maintaining a critical viewpoint will help a person come to a greater understanding of what is really going on around them. For example, many news sources tell of the U.S. government invasion of Iraq. However, depending on the news source that you are reading from, each one will have a different political slant on the article. Some may show the invasion as morally right and justified, while others disagree, and feel that the United States should not be so intruding.

Another one of Bell Hooks main ideas was ‘conscious manipulation’. Conscious manipulation is when someone is intentionally using pop culture to drive their ideas into the minds of others. Often times, television networks hire people with very strong, one-sided opinions to have their own shows, hoping that the audience that watches the network will sway towards the opinion that they are trying to portray as fact. My example of conscious manipulation is the FOX News Program, ‘The O’Reilly Factor’. Many Democrats despise this man, this program, and this network, mostly because of its strongly republican agenda. Like it or not, FOX News effectively puts a man with extremely strong opinions on live television, and he influences thousands upon thousands of viewers with every one of his shows.

Motivated representation is a device very similar to that of conscious manipulation. Motivated representation is when something is stereotypically portrayed in a way that is helpful to the creator’s main determinant. Bell Hooks used the example of how often filmmakers portray a thief as a black man, having a stereotypical racial bias. I agree that there is much motivated representation in today’s mass media. Many television advertisements show utopian ideas of how life should be with their product in them. Skincare product makers use exceptionally beautiful women in their commercials to make women want to buy the product so they can achieve the beauty of the women shown in the advertisements. Very seldom do advertisers use a harder, more realistic approach on their advertisements.

As critical thinkers and ‘enlightened witnesses,’ as Hooks says, we need to see how these representations of society directly affect our choices in everyday life. There is a definite link between pop culture and our decisions, but if we have a keener, more observant view of mass media, then we will have more control over our own lives, instead of being so easily influenced by the many various opinions around us. Hopefully, with a critical outlook, more people will be able to weigh their options on modern culture and make decisions for themselves, instead of being told what to think.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.
---Aristotle

Deeds, not words, shall speak [for] me.
---John Fletcher