MEGATRENDS AND MEDIA

MEGATRENDS AND MEDIA
8 Instrumentalization of mass media
(instead of a conclusion)
Panem et circenses
(Bread and games)
(Iunius Iuvenalis)
The media are formed and function exactly in a way as needed and as
it is possible in one society. They perform their functions better and
more successfully than the political, legal, cultural, and many other
social institutions. If the material basis for the reproduction of a society
and the reproduction of its social status, relationships, and symbols is
based on the laws of capital and the logic of proit and loss, i.e. if that
particular society is a society of “possession” (having), 40 then the media
are proprietors and masters of the truth - as truth for the society itself,
and truth for other societies. As for the higher and deeper philosophical,
anthropological, namely ethical, aesthetic and “religious” dimensions of
the media – most “ordinary people” in the West seem not very concerned
or interested. Inaction, inertness, and conformism are common and usual
“state of mind” of the masses. “Revolutionary” calls, especially today,
are no longer able to move them toward something freer, better, more
democratic, and more humane. The media most successfully control the
rule over people, effectively implementing the “legendary” strategy of
Panem et circenses.
Our inal conclusion (and every conclusion is unavoidably a
simpliication!) could be: Today, the media, especially the mass media
are an instrument of a certain socio-political system; they are used to
construct reality, to produce standardization of the human needs, wishes,
and desires. They control and manipulate images, emotions, thoughts,
and conscience and also behaviors and actions of the people. Long time
ago they have lost their original and authentic teleology, ethics and
sense; they no longer meet the elementary, democratic human right
for objective informing; their task has long been producing false
images and “necessary illusions” (Chomsky), in order to control and
manipulate the thought in the democratic societies, where the very
notion of democracy is compromised to its maximum extent and is
twisted into a ordinary ideological term. The media are in function
of a conservative reproduction and prolongation of the “eternal” and
40 FROMM, E.: To Have or to Be. New York : Open Road Media, 2013.
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