This Is How the Media Controls the World (Part Two)

The role and function of media is nothing more than a tool or means for conveying messages, information, and entertainment to the public. For further clarification, consider the statements of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky:

"The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general population. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into institutional structures of the larger of society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda.”

However, considering that this theory of media function is not in line with what happens in reality, that there is propaganda that involves the spread of false information and there are goals of helping individual social privacy cases or harming an individual or other social group, then, Herman and Chomsky assert:

"The media serve, and propagandize on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them. The representatives of this interest have important agendas and principles that they want to advance, and they are well positioned to shape and constrain media policy."

With this conclusion, the presence of media in people's lives is not just a means diversion, stress relief or entertainment, but the content and information presented have a significant role in the process of socio-cultural change.

When the media offers global entertainment, then At that time, the media offered lifestyle, culture and values to young people who were restlessly searching for their identity.a. Mass media is the brain of the audience, so what is presented in the media will influence the subjective reality of social interaction actors. As stated by Wood and Smith:

“People's perception of telepresence in a given medium suggests that they are likely to consider how the message they style through media are reflections on them"

It is this reflection or depiction of reality "shaped" by media content that ultimately underlies audience responses and attitudes toward various social objects. Misinformation from the mass media will create misperceptions in the audience, which will then lead to erroneous responses and attitudes toward social objects.

Therefore, why is mass media required to deliver information and entertainment accurately and with quality? Because this quality is the ethical and moral requirement for presenting media content.

Without realizing it, the role of secular media has brought society into a new cultural pattern and begun to determine people's thought patterns and behavior.. As Turkle views that media is not just tool merely, but also part of social and psychological life that influences the subconscious and catalyzes the way of life.

So that the role of The impact of secular media is not only shifting social, cultural and religious values, but more than that, it is forming a new culture (trend) in community lifeThis culture is known as popular culture (popular culture)   which is the result of the destructive-constructive role of secular media and the promotion of Post-Modern Western ideology. The ideology is as follows.

Hedonism

Hedonism is a view of life that considers pleasure and enjoyment as the goal of life. Hedonism is considered a lifestyle in which pleasure and happiness are the ultimate goals in life.  This is in accordance with the philosophy of hedonism which states that pleasure or enjoyment is a reality of life that cannot be avoided and everyone likes to feel it.

The hedonistic lifestyle is a culture created by secular media through events. entertainment which is destructive. In this case, secular media contributes to creating false and instant needs that justify pleasure.

Consumerism

If consumption is an action (an act), then consumerism is a way of life (a way of life) or a cultural expression and manifestation of the act of consumption. Consumerism is a cultural expression and manifestation of the apparently ubiquitous act of consumption.

Consumerism is an ideology that makes someone carry out the process of using goods excessively in a conscious and sustainable manner.  

This makes people addicted to a product, making it impossible or difficult to break the dependency. The resulting consumerist nature will cause mental illness that will unconsciously infect humans in their lives..

This consumerist ideology operates in a similar way to the “ideology of romance.” Or the endless pursuit and endless movement of metonymic desires, as in using goods according to current trends.

This is the result of secular media presentations in the form of advertisements on various media pages, both print, electronic and online media.

Continued to Part 3 (three)

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