How The Media Work?

Here are Five starting point positions:

 1. The media show us what the world is like; they make sense of the world for us

The Processes of representation, interpretation, and evalution are absolutely central to the media.

 Re-Presentation 

       The press media, radio, and so on - has become a place where we receive most of the entertainment and Information about the world, so they are the main source for how we see the world. For example, most of us have some idea of ​​what the Himalayas and even what they look like, but this knowledge is likely to be gained not from actual experience we went there, but through reading about them, listen and watch media stories tell me about them. And see a picture of them.

interpretation

       in their representation, the media gave us the information and explanations, how to understand the world we live in, they take on the role of interpretive, teach us how to understand the world, others, and ourselves.

Evaluation

       In so doing, they consistently privileged few issues and identities while devaluing others, thus giving us an evaluative framework, jugmental view information about the world that we receive.

we can understand the three processes in relation to gender and ethnicity / race. media 'teach' us about masculinity and femininity. what it means to be a 'normal' man or woman, they teach 'us about race relations, about the non-European culture and Europeans, should the characteristics typical of this group. the social role they assign to men and women, and people from different ethnic stereotypes in the desirable and undesirable that they are constantly present, they gave us a structure, frameworks, and patterns to understand the issues ethnicity and gender. we are not saying that the media set the agenda of education-teaching-in the mind, or that they would even realize what they are doing, but their influence on us as we grow up, read and consume media, is to give us the patterns that explain how we will see ourselves and others, how we are going to the understanding of gender, race, and identitis ourselves as male or female with a national identity, culture, and religion. This is politics repretentions. as Richard Dyer said, 'how do we look at the part to determine how we are treated, how we treat others based on how we see them, as seen from the representation' (Dyer, 1993, p.1). 

      

         of course it is possible for the media to give manny different explanations of the world, many contrasting ways of making sense of masculinity / femininity, and other aspects of identity, but this book argues that across the major media outlets there is a tendency to give broadly similar views of the world, what we will call later a shared or dominant 'discourse' on the masculinity / femininity that outweighs other viewpoins and which sets up a view of what 'normal' gendered behavious is

2. Media Products do not show or present the real world; they construct and re-present reality

        Many media products re-present the real-world media but these media poduct are not the real world itself, they are re-presentation or construction of the world. media studies examines how the media construct reality, and then explore the values, beliefs, and feelings that come to our construction. 

3. the media are just one the ways by which we and society make sense of the world and society, or construct the world. 

        The media are not the only social force to 'make sense of the world' for us, not do they have total control over how we see and think about the world. they combine with other forces of socialization. most significant for children will be the socialization they receive through the family, religious, and education system, which 'teach' them how to understand and act in the world. as we grow up, other views about how to behave, social morality, are disseminated through a whole set of legal, cultural, and political forces. the media provide just one arena in which these views presented and popularized. the media generally act to reinforce the values ​​that are part of the whole society.

 4. the media are owned, controlled and created by certain groups who makes sense of society on behalf of others

        those people who own, control, and create the media are media producers. they are not totally separate social groups, since they are also part of the audience and society as a whole, but they are a small group of elites. they are a complex group of people including: 

- owners and business, who are concerned prmarily with the need for the media to make profits. 

- creative personnel: writers, directors, camera-people, webmasters, and so on 

- technician who runs the equipment and machinery. 

           Even these categories overlap in several ways: for example, many technical job are also creative, some managers have creative interests, and most creators are aware of financial needs and constraints. but note that: 

- Despite the fact that there are a small, limited number of media producers, they speak to, and on behalf of the whole society (addressing broad cross-section of the public) 

- people with the most media power-particularly financial and creative power. 

- There is limited access to resources required for media production 

- those Groups who make sense of society on behalf of others who are predominantly white, middle class and male. without sugesting conspiracy here, it seems obvious that they prioritise white, middle-class, masculine values as the norm sinc such values are natural to this group. Consequently. the media have a tendenc to make sense of the world from this particular point of view.