In the middle of mediated lives?

Media has the power to change the whole world. It does even influence the life of a common person, particularly in developed countries. Sociologists term it as a ‘mediated culture’ where media reflects and creates the culture.

Audiences are constantly bombarded with content and thoughts through various sources, including social media, e-mails, websites, TV, cinema, movies, web series, advertisements, magazines, etc. The media promotes not only products but moods, attitudes, behaviors, and surreal emotions to a large extent, but it also has a negative social impact which is evident from the research works of several sociologists, doctors, and mental health experts.

It is through media, the concept of celebrity came into being. Without media, it seems unimaginable to reach millions of people and influence millions in one way or another.  With the advent of social media and high-speed internet, content consumption seems to have increased exponentially during the last two decades or so. Unsurprisingly, with an information overflow, misinformation and sensationalism plunged.

The race for online presence has been intensifying to extent that even common people are hell-bent on recognition. In this race for popularity, even a common person feels an urge to gain an online audience anyhow.

Many have started dubbing themselves vloggers, content creators, and even artists to make their online presence and influence. The least number of such content creators realize the social and moral responsibility towards the audience and at the same time, most of them drive the public according to their benefit, desire, etc. in vogue. It is noteworthy that the internet is filled with diverse ideas and content, thereby being instrumental in giving the audience freedom to choose, see, etc., unlike the traditional media.

What remains to be a fact is that earlier media would unilaterally decide, produce, control, feed, disseminate content to a heterogeneous audience, with no or very limited control of the receivers.  However, with the advent of social media, things have changed to the extent that it is now audiences who decide the fate of particular media content.

Though contested at some point in time, the three main sociological perspectives on the role of media – the limited effects theory, the class dominant theory, and the culturalist theory – deal with the subject in great detail.

In the context of the aforementioned significant questions, the theoretical underpinnings are instrumental in bringing to fore the issues. To start with, the limited effects theory suggests that media exerts a negligible influence which is contrary to the class dominant theory.

The dominant theory, on the other hand, puts forward that the media reflects and projects the view of a minority elite, which controls it. It is noteworthy that the people who own and control corporations that produce media fall in the group of these elites. It is this group that sets standards for the public. 

With the premise that audiences are active rather than passive, the culturalist theory – combines both the contrasting opinions, as mentioned above, to posit that it is actually people who interact with media to create their own meanings from the images and messages they receive.

On the contrary, the focus is on two aspects:  audiences and their interaction with media, and the producers of the media, particularly the news. Culturalist theorists claim that while a few elites in large corporations may exert significant control over what information media produces and distributes, however, personal perspective plays a more powerful role in how the audience interprets those messages?

In the midst of this debate of who’s who, the fundamental question regarding the responsibility of influencers, and the issues about the production, dissemination, etc. mostly remain unaddressed.

The main hypothesis seeking testification in the essay is also about who decides what to watch, and what to show, and the responsibilities, thereupon. Since media or content creators have a great responsibility owing to their role in society, therefore onus lies on them.

In light of the diversity in the number and types of content creators, the problem now is that it is difficult to draw a line between journalists with more responsibility, and content creators with limited moral obligations.   As everyone is a content creator in one way or the other, and the internet has further empowered the right to express oneself and at the same time has given an equal opportunity and power to dominate and influence the public.

There has been a structural, theoretical, and technological shift in the production and consumption processes of media with the advent of technology. With an increased flow of content creators, things have been more challenging. New cultural devices in newer ways have come up.  

It is in this context that this power can be seen as misused more than being used for the constructive progress of society. It is evident that people mostly prefer to follow the trend, and thus culture is formed out of a trend of just being different irrespective of having a good or bad meaning. Pertinent to mention that media create culture, and culture, in turn, feeds media. Therefore, these two variables exist to co-exist.