MEGATRENDS AND MEDIA

MEGATRENDS AND MEDIA
of the global order and its constituent systems, as well as, the behavior of
the actors that interact on behalf of us all.
Nevertheless, the environment in which the media function today is under
a huge inluence of political and economic factors or the market. As a
result of this and related pressures, several corporate media prevalently
relect their lust for proit. As a result, the relevant tasks indicated above
remain blurred, while generating enormous unwanted outcomes. Since
media are stakeholders similar to national and global actors, their critics
towards the mainstream political apparatus in general and against
oneself in particular are very unlikely. The media is also an intermediary
in forming an important public opinion. This critical ability of the media
is often manipulated and is misused in favor of exercising the interests of
the media owners. Editorial ofices do not have the ability to deform the
minds of the masses one hundred percent, but they can mediate selected
information, to the receiving end, which has an obvious effect of slightly
modifying their opinion. As reported by Denis McQuail, 53 media are a
potential means of inluence, control and promotion of innovation in the
company, a source of information vital to the functioning of most social
institutions and basic instrument of transmission.
The media nexus in condoning hegemony today is beyond doubt. Here,
for example, Gramsci’s view point becomes relevant. He understands
hegemony as a process by which dominant classes or class fractions
through their privileged access to social institutions such as or mainly
the media propagate values that reinforce their control over politics
and the economy. These values form a dominant ideology such as
neoliberalism. The ideology in each society is a common sense that
legitimates the existing distribution of power or the system. Ideology
makes the structure of power seem inevitable, and thus, as though
beyond challenge. 54
In fact, the mass media are apparently acting as protectors of the public,
but the fact that current recipient of the media is dependent on passive
reception of messages; he has no way of verifying the authenticity
and assessment veracity of mediated messages is one of the issues to
be weighed. Everything that seems resolved in the media is not really
53 See McQUAIL, D.: Úvod do teorie masové komunikace. Praha : Portál, 2007,
p. 21.
54 GRIFFITHS, M. (Ed): Encyclopedia of International Relations and Global
Politics. NY : Routledge, 2005, p. 364.
328