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Coleman Nicholls
Art Kanehara
Comm 1500-003
October 31st, 2012
Managing Meaning of the Masses:
The Link Between Mass Media and Cultural Ideology
The art of making meaning through language and symbols in society is derived through
discourse. We associate the color green on a stoplight with the word “Go”, the sight of a puppy
with the thought of “cuddly”, the left ring finger is a symbol for “marriage”, as well as most of
our other cultural norms that are instilled in us from a young age through the conversation of
language and symbols. Most simply stated by the semiologist Stuart Hall, “Words don’t mean;
people mean.” If we are to analyze which groups have the most influence on our interpretation of
meaning, we discover, families and schools play a large role in teaching meaning to children as
the grow up, and that that meaning is further defined by experiences and media throughout life.
This discussion of the most influential outlets of ideology has kept many social scientists busy
for a lifetime distinguishing how our behavior is most affected; therefore, being aware that
multiple factors are shaping our very definitions of ideology on a day-to-day basis, this research
paper will focus on the exploitation of meaning for profit through mass communications of
media industries disguised as nonpartisan or neutral.
With the Industrial Revolution came many beneficial perks for the United States,
a boom in the economy, communication means became more affordable, and the value of
individualism became prevalent. Americans now relied less on religious, political, and
commercial institutions for guidance or news, and instead, sought answers through now
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affordable media platforms. In attempt to maintain social order, media became the bought means
to advertise people, products, or ideas from commercial and political organizations (Campbell et
al 26). Presently, in the digital era, information is on a constant stream from many different
outlets, and cultural industries have an even greater clout on modern day influence. The media
business model of Retention-Motivation-Exposure towards the persuasion of the majority is done
so in a shroud of camouflage named democratic pluralism and First Amendment rights.
With the Telecommunications Act of 1996, mass media companies were granted
allowance of competition in other media industries (Campbell et al 168). The purchase of
struggling companies and expansion of competitive companies into new fields of media, allowed
for an overall stagnant media industry to insure stability in a rapidly evolving economy
emphasizing technological advances. The long-term result was an oligarchy of handful of
thriving corporations owning 90% of the mass media (Deetz 33). Objectively analyzing a
culture’s use of communication leads to the conclusion that the messages shape what people
think and do (Griffin 46-49), our ideology.
Communication, the social construct of how a given culture perceives right and wrong, is
unjustly manipulated by the cultural industries of Internet, film, television, music, and
advertising. The democratic pluralistic ethos of the majority is circulated under the claim “Free
Speech”, by a minority, with the irony lost on the majority. Ambiguity serves these small groups
of elite better than clarity; on the surface these companies appear to be responsible capitalists to
consumers, by offering more entertainment options and keeping rates low enough for continued
enjoyment, but in reality, the consumers’ ideological standpoints are subject to rhetoric of the
viewpoint of the owners whose product(s) they consume.
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For example, imagine yourself catching up on current affairs while you watch your
favorite television news source CNN. Your partner walks into the room, hands you the newest
issue of Sports Illustrated Magazine, and changes the channel to the premium movie channel
HBO while you read. Within a few minutes, you have received exposure to 3 different
entertainment products owned by Time Warner Inc. This imagined example of one occurrence, is
not culturally abnormal or pose a threat to overall ideological sway, but further exposure to same
company’s perspectives can lead to selective retention of these views.
The strategy of selective retention is the move of self-concept slowly over time through
freedom of choice (Sherif et al 222). The hypothetical example of Time Warner Inc.’s influence
in a home is an epitome of this premise. CNN engages in a false dichotomy fallacy by shrinking
the world of possibilities down to two choices (usually liberal or conservative, neither are
negative of Time Warner), offering experts from each choice to over-simplify a solution on a
complex issue, and then insisting that everyone must choose between them (Hubert 12). This
fallacious style of journalism hurts reasonable alternatives to issues by distorting reality, and
causes people to stampede into black/white-right/wrong thinking without fully comprehending
the range of possibilities. The magazine issue of Sports Illustrated is further reinforcement of
gender roles and ethnicity roles in popular culture. Male minority athletes are portrayed to be
grateful or humble, while white males shown as tough or rugged, and women are objectified in
bathing suits to the point of obscenity. This appeal to majority further shows us the “norm” on
how to treat these groups. This is wrong, the popularity of an idea says nothing about its validity;
otherwise we might still believe the earth is the center of the solar system (Ibid. 11). Lastly we
discuss the film from the example on HBO, while the other two examples are relevant to current
events, a film is intended to be viewed repeatedly over time, making it a much more effective
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platform for the company’s use of the aforementioned retention strategy. If an individual
conceives they are making a free choice, the choice will stick, but if the choice seems too good to
be true or biased, it has less of a chance of sticking (Aronson 22). As the media lays it out for the
consumers, opposition is a nonoption.
There are many ways selective motivation can change an individual’s definition of
meaning, but they all fall under three categories, personal responsibility for an outcome, selfaffirmation, and self-consistency. Self-affirmation suggests that individual’s behaviors are
motivated by his or her self-image to those who see them (Steele XXXX). Considering this
approach to motivation requires a person with a positive self-image or high self-esteem. At the
start of his campaign for the White House, Senator Obama told David Letterman on The Late
Show that he would quit smoking cigarettes. When he later relapsed, Senator Obama appeared to
be motivated by positive reinforcement to continue as the underdog of the primary campaign
race from the media, rather than the negative response of failure from the opposition. The media
portrayal of Obama as an award winning author and gifted orator, made the smoking relapse
appear as a minor blip rather than campaign failure (Griffin 212). In the 1999 film 10 Things I
Hate About You, Heath Ledger’s character is offered monetary incentive to date Julia Stiles’
character without her knowledge. Although Ledger’s dissonance is leads him to initially decline,
the right amount of incentive is given to encourage a behavior not characteristic of his perception
of what is right (10 Things I Hate About You). The personal responsibility of a negative
consequence the main character has is offset by a minimum justification that causes a change in
what he values ideologically. This is motivation is effective and widely used by media promoting
politicians, charities, or products. A small shift in attitude yields a change in behavior; a small
shift in behavior, yields a change in attitude (Aronson 27). This selective motivation tactic is
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especially favorable can convince the individual that the act can be reversed. Ledger’s character
was ultimately not held accountable for the abuse of trust with Stiles’ character by buying her
presents (10 Things I Hate About You). In this Dilbert comic (below) an example of self-concept
DILBERT © 1992
is drawn out. Fearing he will have to admit his job atmosphere is grim, the office worker quickly
adjusts to the notion that he loves his job (CARTOON). This motivation is most commonly seen
in partisan political media. Instead of admitting a hiccup the party may have encountered, the
party will continue to hold to the original claim without admitting fault or weakness.
Perhaps the best modern example of selective exposure is President Bush and the media’s
response following the 9/11 terrorism attacks on the World Trade Center. By avoiding the ethical
issues of retaliating to terrorist acts with military force, the frame for war was built from a
simplistic “heroes and villains” agenda. The country’s media became engaged propagandists for
military interference, instead of offering objective descriptions of the extremist groups from
countries living in intense poverty, who had only seen the United States’ wealth, power, and
egotism. President Bush equated love of country with spending money, and maintained that
ordinary people should not pretend to have the intellectual resources necessary to weigh in on
matters of state (Kumar 48-69). This shun of collaborative, collective, and democratic decision-
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making from the general public was supported by the
media of a country in crisis; and reduced citizenship to
that of a regime before democratic institutions (Allen
53-59). [The War on Terror] became a lucrative
commodity of the cultural industries broadcasting
news updates, and t-shirts, buttons, bumper stickers,
yellow ribbons, automobile purchases, and other
products became the patriotic advertising of the “Free
© The New Yorker Collection 2001
Speech” media (Kellner 198-228), thus constraining the public into the ideological discourse of
selective exposure. To be a “good American” was to support the troops and buy the products
chosen for us; while to be a “bad American” was to not offer support, or question motives. The
applied effect of selective exposure is to restrict the range of alternatives and make the limited
choices seem like that’s all there ever could be (Hall 31-33).
The population deceives themselves into believing they are interacting freely, while in
reality only certain options are available (Deetz 50-51). These options are selected and exposed
by an oligarchy of sources to the public. With a controlling market influence and a heavily
emphasized cultural value of First Amendment rights, the cultural industries are essentially
oppressing the majority, and calling it freedom. The ideological fight is a struggle to capture
meaning, and the American public’s suppression of conflict toward these industries is a vote of
complicity of their own censorship.
The use of language to stop discussions rather than start them is not democracy. This
research paper was not a cynic’s attempt to make everyday information from the media political,
but rather show that it already is. The politicized meaning doesn’t necessarily hint at good or
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bad. It only shows that all meaning is ideologically sponsored, is value-heavy, and thus powerful.
We need to stop thinking what information we are shown, and start thinking whose information
we are shown.
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Works Cited
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Junger, Gil, dir. 10 Things I Hate About You. 1999. Film. 2012.
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