Davis 6 (Sam Lindsey)

Date:4/10/2018
Author: Sam Lindsey
Assignment: Post #6, Davis Chapter 6

I would like to briefly discuss one quote that Davis brings up that makes me think of this text as now historic in nature... The problem is that much of this chapter didn't realize what was to come and just how radically technology would change literally everything in the years to come. Davis is talking about the "mass media" and how they influence our lives. He gives an example of Hitler using "Olympian electric spectacles, occult symbols, sophisticated propaganda, and what McLuhan called "the tribal drum of radio".... This was maybe one of the first times that technology would be used very effectively in the wrong hands and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

He goes on to say that, "While our current media climate seems far too open and tumultuous for such totalitarian horrors to arise, any visions of the inherently liberating and democratic power of the information age must wrestle with the fact that only a small handful of gargantuan corporations now dominate the bulk of media traffic across the planet." (Pg 185) It is deeply troubling to me that within the span of 20 years (or how ever long it has been since this book was written) that this quote seems to echo much more loudly in our current state of affairs.

Media now isn't so "open" and "tumultuous" rather, it has become leashed by a government that can't tell heads from tails. Now, when our media is the most important, is when it has failed us. Who can tell anymore the difference between real and "fake" news? So often people seem to take what's thrown at them for face value and not think to stop and question.... Take for example this video which I saw a couple of weeks ago....

It's sad when even the local media seems to have caught the "fake" news bug. What are we to do while these few corporations control so much of what we see, what we hear, and who we hear it from? Will money ever stop being the driving factor in our world? I believe the answer is no...