Post Two: Another Spoonful Please!

The creators and owners of the media use hegemony advantageously in order to control exactly what the audience sees and to influence how the audience reacts to what it is seeing. According to James Lull, “hegemony is the power or dominance that one social group holds over others” and a “method of gaining and maintaining power” (Lull 62). According to Stuart Hall, it is a “framing [of] all competing definitions of reality within [the dominant class’s] range […]” (Lull 62). In other words, through the process of hegemony, the media insists on its power in order to influence subordinate parties in accepting their definition of what is normal and acceptable.

As the gatekeepers of media use agenda setting to advocate what issues are most important and relevant to the audience members’ lives, it also uses framing to influence how the audience should react to such pertinent issues. Framing is how the owners of media decide how and under what settings a story or issue should be presented. Media has the power, the resources, and reasons to take an event or subject matter and distort or skew it in its favor. And when the audience recieves what the media tells it based only on face-value, the media can and has gotten away with quite a bit!

Take for example of the recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and its effects on the locals and the workers. News companies reported that many clean-up workers directly in contact with the oil spill had become ill and had to be hospitalized. However, according to this article, CEO Tony Hayward and his public representatives responded to such reports by shrugging it off, saying that it was probably “food poisoning.” It was also reported that the workers did not receive gas masks because the company did not feel as though they were necessary; the company tried to make the oil spill look less harmful than it actually is. In addition, according to this video on the BP YouTube channel, the company is currently taking the effort and time to take care of the workers and locals. BP tries to frame the oil spill incident as a tragic event but an opportunity for them to come together as a community. BP tries to make it look as though they are taking the steps to approach the oil spill in the most acceptable and productive way by spinning the situation with a positive light.

Sadly, it is a very cynical yet true view of the media as a conglomeration of elitist companies sitting on their high-horses spoon-feeding the audience whatever it takes to keep them under their control. Framing is a very prominent technique and used quite frequently by media companies. Because of this, I personally have to make sure I do a double-take and re-evaluate what I had just read or viewed. Understandably, everything in media has a certain perspective behind it and so framing is just a part of the process. However, when it is done maliciously or with certain intent behind it, the exchange between the producers and the audience becomes more complicated and sometimes more so than necessary. In the aforementioned example of BP, I am not easily persuaded by its attempt to make it look as if the workers’ health is not jeopardy nor does its “attempts” to alleviate those who are affected.