MEGATRENDS AND MEDIA

MEDIA AND MARKETING GAMES OF THE OLIGARCHS
remained a long forgotten ideal, and the principle of subjectivity
became the basis of the (post) modern life, knowledge, industrial
techniques and science, and art is its main determinant. 22
Depending on the current proit interest and conjuncture, as well as of
many other “uncultured” factors, the media adopt even the right of ‘public
judge’ of what is being created in the culture, ranging from themes and
ideological orientations, and ending with the creation and construction
of the mass aesthetic taste. Great art is often ignored and marginalized,
and out of the petty and banal pulp iction. The media produce hits,
bestsellers and “most watched shows and TV series”. They do not meet
people’s higher aesthetic needs, but just the need of fun and relaxation
(with a lot of sex and violence), and their perception does not require
much mental effort and spiritual involvement. The so called take-it easy
culture expresses all the “unbearable lightness of being” (Kundera) of the
modern human being (man and woman) and all of its ordinarity. 23
The entertainment industry becomes the most developed branch of
industry, which produces a whole range of mass “cultural” goods: from
TV series and soap operas, through luxury monographs on the life and
work of famous actors, politicians, athletes, and other public igures, to
commercial advertisements and lyers. In a word, fun (entertainment
industry) becomes the “active” factor in the spare time of the man of
the Western civilization, and an effective way of “consumption” 24 and
the passivization of a vast numbers of people and disabling any of their
actions and feedback reactions. Hence, Noam Chomsky gives the most
concise and aphoristic conclusion: Anything, as long as it is not serious. 25
With “leisurely”, fun and cool means, the mass media succeed in
defocusing the attention of people from the important problems of
their daily economic, political, and cultural reality, and to preoccupy
them with the “serious” problems, frustrations, “accidents” and “heavy
torments” which the rich elites face, for example professional athletes,
movie stars, and popular celebrities from the world of business and
politics, in their emotional and especially sexual lives (sex scandals). In
22 SLOTERDIJK, P.: Mislilac na pozornici. Sarajevo : Veselin Masleša, 1990.
23 SLOTERDIJK, P.: Tetovirani život. Gornji Milanovac : Dečje novine, 1991.
24 BAUDRILLARD, J.: La société de consommation, ses mythes, ses structures.
Paris : Ếdition Denoël, 1970.
25 CHOMSKY, N.: Mediji, propaganda i sistem. Zagreb : Društvo za promicanje
književnosti na novim medijima, 2002.
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