The Power Of Mass Media

The power of mass media

The concept of culture throughout history changed utterly since the Greeks invented its first concept. According to the Oxford Dictionary, culture is “The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively”. But, for the Greeks, culture was the secondary nature of the polis citizens. With the rise of the industrial capitalism in the 18th century, the concept of culture began to change. It started to define the civilized from the uncivilized, who transformed nature from who did not transform nature, who manufactured things and who did not.

The origin of mass media comes from the whole mass consumption system, which was created in the 50’s, as a new form of capitalism. In that time, both Hollywood and the phonographic industry perceived that, with the help from rising publicity industry, they could earn a large amount of money, selling already made culture.

This “alliance” between the media industry and the publicity industry, created a snowball effect that helped both reach progressively wider audiences. The effects of this “alliance” are becoming increasingly noticeable, as people are already unfamiliar with some forms of human expression like poetry or composing a song.

Regardless of the growing power of mass media over ordinary people, there still are people who create their own artistic forms of expression. This can be seen on poetry clubs, garage bands and independent artists. There is also the “indie” culture, which is not attached to the big media conglomerates. It can be found in all forms of expression, like “indie” bands, artists, singers, game developers, movie makers and etc..