Today’s society is ruled by the media
and creates a subservient culture of unintellectual individuals. Every where I
look there is a story being portrayed; cops killing blacks, email scandals, or
even movie stars getting divorced. All the while we take in these messages,
never to ask questions about who formed it or why. Habermas himself saw this
issue, claiming that the liberal public sphere based on enlightenment was gone
and replaced by a media dominated sphere. Unlike the previous sphere that brought
about thought, this new sphere is constrained by expert opinion. The problem
with this new sphere is that we never stop to question the things we are told.
Looking back throughout history anyone can see the repercussions of not
appraising manufactured opinions. The holocaust and the 2008 housing crisis are
just two examples of horrific events that could have been avoided if people had
stopped to think.
The
idea of thinking deeper and analyzing the texts, videos, and other forms of
media is directly correlated to post-structuralism. As Barthe believed,
post-structuralism focuses on not only delineating the multiple meanings within
a text, but also understanding that the author isn’t always the primary source
of the semantic content. Media today relies on us being servants to the
message. People here a story about a black man being shot in the street and
instead of doing their homework they jump to arms. There is no self-investigation,
no questions being asked, just action. Instead of letting the experts dictate
our thoughts and actions, we need to do our homework and form our own opinions.
If we continue let ourselves be controlled like puppets, we will be unable to
bring about change. So instead of dancing around on strings, take a note or two
from Barthe and Habermas, cut those chords that bind us and THINK.
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