The Subject and the State's Media Control

Abstract

The fact that media discourse is an outlet of quasi-interaction between producers and audiences refers, in all probability, to the engagement of people in a virtual environment that operates through managing the necessary information needed to communicate the minds of people. This mental control, so to speak, is exercised by its manipulator, especially labeled as the state, through entertaining discourses and other forms of communication. The state, which represents the official power, depends mainly on such outlet to control, what Lippmann termed, “the bewildered herd”. This act of control, however, has taken different forms and has produced different ways for monitoring the individual. In fact, the major objective of media in any society is to “restrict the public arena and transfer decisions to the hands of uncountable private tyrannies,” [1] this, in turn, plays an important role in, “removing the public from potential influence on policy” [1]. That is, people should remain out of the realm of politics and simply keeps themselves away from integrating within the elites’ matters. People, in the ‘sham democracy’, are gentle citizen when they are pampering themselves with what the state provides them, yelling patriotic mottos, and believing what is circulated in their media institution. This media propaganda relies on certain models to convincingly market its products to a wider range of people, be they Europeans or non-Europeans. That is, the individuals and the masses remain the main targets of this propaganda that aims at unifying their belief of what is normal and what should be acceptable. This fact is achieved through creating the image of perfect society that could not exist without adopting the way of everyday life casted on the system’s screens. To make this point clear, Douglas Kellner provides an example of the role of American television that he perceives, like many other critics, as “instrumental in selling American values, commodities, and ways of life to other countries, and is thus a major force of culture hegemony” [2]. In the same manner, media propaganda in every society tries to redefine the meaning of life, be happiness, love, hate, modernity, terrorism and anything that the system want to implant in people’s mindsets. As a result, under the influence of this propaganda, vague notions about anything and everything lead to what Ellul terms “psychological crystallization”, thereby becoming powerful, direct and precise. “Propaganda furnishes objectives, organizes the traits of an individual’s personality into a system, and freezes them into a mold” [3]. Indeed, media has the greatest potential to influence the masses since they uncompromisingly offer: A deeper level of identification with the characters and action on the screen more than found elsewhere in popular culture... movies do, in fact, succeed at propaganda by presenting one set of values as the only viable set. Over a period of years, these values can both reflect and shape society’s norms [4]. Additionally, media narratives are unavoidably tied into ideology and politics. The latter is what monitors these narratives, and ideology, as Pentti Haddington avers, “enters the people’s lives as part of their everyday conduct” [5]. In this regard, media narratives remain an essential institution through which these ideology and politics may operate more effectively. Often, those who control the production and dissemination of these narratives struggle over how a certain scripts will fit into the prevailing political atmosphere. This is quite clear in *Corresponding author: Mounir Sanhaji, Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University, Morocco, Tel: 212 5 35 60 96 60/61; E-mail: mounirsan@hotmail.com