What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream

What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream

           Mainstream media is considered to be a propaganda tool. It works to affect on society’s opinion in general. Historical analysis and interpretations reveal how during the world war 1, Britain used propaganda to affect the united states and entice them to enter the war to save herself from the destruction and dominance that time. Hitler also used his ideology, which in progress, changed Germany to a Nazi state. It is a big evidence to show the power of mainstream media. According to Chomsky, he thinks that media is oppressive, and it distributes the aim of corporations and American government. Some people think it is intemperate, but I totally agree with him.

              He says that there is “elite” media, which set a framework within which others operate. It is a huge thing that may have political aspects, academic or business interests, but their main goal is to control what audience is receiving, and the type of people they are capturing due to this media. Chomsky says that it is oppressive because it serves the government aims and companies, and in order for them to work, they have to be financially helped by those companies, so they satisfy their desires. Also, media is often owned by huge known companies like Westinghouse, that sometimes produces propagandas that are nothing but shame, but people watch it just because they are well-known company.

                  He also mentioned in his article, how war propaganda plays a huge role in world war 1. Britain that time, needed the united states to incorporate. However, their seclusion didn’t make the function easier. When the ministry of information was set up, their main goal was to control the naïve people and attract them, because obviously they are going to believe their propagandas and read them, and their strategy worked in fact. Wilson, who was elected as an anti-war president, kept on persuading the Americans to participate in the war, and insisted that going there is essential. Then, they created the first propaganda agency, and they invited Creel Committee, which their main task is to influence the audience opinion to encourage US to participate in the war. It worked incredibly good, and couple of months later, US managed to go to the war.

                 One of the members in Creel Committee, was Walter Lippmann. He created a new way for democracy, which he called a new art, named “manufacturing consent”. With this concept, we can get over the fact that all kind of people, starting from the lower class up to the upper class, has their own right in participating in voting. So with manufacturing consent we can make sure that they can vote, but at the same time, their choices will be elevated in a way that they’ll do what we tell them to. Therefore, we will have something called real democracy, and it will work incredibly good as well.