Media Effect
One advantage (or maybe disadvantage) of our summer housing here in LA is that we have access to cable TV (at our real home, we never pay for TV). So I can catch up with a few shows that people have watched long time ago:
Sex and the city is an interesting show that I watched two of its episodes over the past two weeks. The docu-drama style of the show with the fine performance of Sarah Jessica Parker is quite attractive. The show touches interesting spots about some of the dilemas of the women in the developed countries that with some local differences can be mapped to similar dilemas for people in developing countries. Of course the show is mainly about the emotional and sexual aspects which is a slice of the problem space, but at least has a pretty creative look into those problems. The show is sucessful to picture the busy and complexities of life of the upper class in the 21st century NYC. The main characters of the show are people who have sucessful career in the media, publishing and other industries. While watching the show, the interaction of these ordinary characters with the current social trends (that we usually look at them as the trends that media feeds into the society) is very interesting. In some ways, these people are the ones who create the media content and at the same time we see a picture that is the feedback of that media content on their personal life.
While observing a different picture of life in a large metropolitan like LA, I keep thinking about the ways that politicians and media can touch people's mind in these huge places. The diversity of ideas and reactions to social and political issues are much larger in these types of places and media definitely has a tough time to get people's attention. Just imagine that many people in these types of places are in some way the contributors media and economic and political entities (stock market, Thinktanks, etc). One question that keeps blinking in my mind: In a place like New York, LA, Chicago, London, Paris, etc. are the politicians and the media real rulers of the people? Does the classic view that media is running a country like US, really work in these places? How the same news stories, the same rehetoric, the same logic can be effective for people of a small town in Nebraska and downton Manhatan?
I doubt that I'm clear on these thoughts, just wanted to keep them recorded.
Sex and the city is an interesting show that I watched two of its episodes over the past two weeks. The docu-drama style of the show with the fine performance of Sarah Jessica Parker is quite attractive. The show touches interesting spots about some of the dilemas of the women in the developed countries that with some local differences can be mapped to similar dilemas for people in developing countries. Of course the show is mainly about the emotional and sexual aspects which is a slice of the problem space, but at least has a pretty creative look into those problems. The show is sucessful to picture the busy and complexities of life of the upper class in the 21st century NYC. The main characters of the show are people who have sucessful career in the media, publishing and other industries. While watching the show, the interaction of these ordinary characters with the current social trends (that we usually look at them as the trends that media feeds into the society) is very interesting. In some ways, these people are the ones who create the media content and at the same time we see a picture that is the feedback of that media content on their personal life.
While observing a different picture of life in a large metropolitan like LA, I keep thinking about the ways that politicians and media can touch people's mind in these huge places. The diversity of ideas and reactions to social and political issues are much larger in these types of places and media definitely has a tough time to get people's attention. Just imagine that many people in these types of places are in some way the contributors media and economic and political entities (stock market, Thinktanks, etc). One question that keeps blinking in my mind: In a place like New York, LA, Chicago, London, Paris, etc. are the politicians and the media real rulers of the people? Does the classic view that media is running a country like US, really work in these places? How the same news stories, the same rehetoric, the same logic can be effective for people of a small town in Nebraska and downton Manhatan?
I doubt that I'm clear on these thoughts, just wanted to keep them recorded.
posted by Mahaan @ 2:44 AM
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