MEGATRENDS AND MEDIA

MEGATRENDS AND MEDIA
THE MEDIA AS A „RELIGION“ OF THE WEST:
ELEMENTS FOR A POSSIBLE CRITICAL THEORY
OF MEDIA
Denko Skalovski
A B ST R ACT:
The text tries to outline some aspects of the complex and contradictory process
of the transformation of the media garden of (post)modern era: the notion and
“etymology” of media (McLuhan, Habermas); ontological status of the media
(Anders); the media as a phenomenon of the mass industrial society (Morin,
Zinoviev); media as a product of the Western culture and democracy: a means of
political and (over)ideological propaganda; (Arendt, Chomsky, Zinoviev, Said);
digital media as a political project of globalization (Beck); media as a “religion” of
the West (Zinoviev); media in the defence of the “threatened” national interest
and producer of the “enemy”; (Chomsky, Morelli, Skalovski); media as a producer
of fear and mass anxiety of the Other/Others (Todorov, Said); media from gender
aspect (Jordan/Weedom, Marcuse). Conclusion: instrumentalization of the
mass media for the purpose and function of a socio-political system and system
of material and spiritual values (Fromm): construction of reality; production,
standardization, control, and manipulation of the notions, emotions, thoughts,
and consciousness, but also the behaviors and procedures. (Chomsky, Marcuse,
Foucault, Zinoviev, Miloš, Kosik)
KEY WORDS:
media, propaganda, globalization, manipulation, instrumentalization, religion,
property, gender, West
1 Introduction
One’s own death is not a media event.
(Hans Magnus Enzensberger)
The philosophy of the media is considered one of the most important
areas of modern philosophy. The transformations of the media garden
are permanent, dynamic, contradictory, and multilayered processes,
which have been ongoing intensely in the past several centuries and
especially with the emergence of modern industrial societies in the West
and worldwide. These processes are so numerous, multidimensional,
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