Radio.

We are taught in school that inventors are the innovators within our society. They think of things that make people’s lives a little easier. The problem nowadays is that everything seems to have already been invented. We have light bulbs, cooking stoves, and pretty much everything we might need to survive in an urbanized city. There are the occasional hot holiday items that everyone desperately needs, even if they really are just a blankets with sleeves. There are multiple factors that can affect a product’s success, and the radio is no different. Technological change was the driving force behind the innovations that shaped the radio industry because it initiated the mass production of radio.

Technological change is merely the innovation and creation of new technologies. Companies and scientists are constantly in competition with other companies in the same market. This forces them to try and develop technologies that are distinguishable from the competition in order to stay relevant. This may lead to the creation of new technologies that are in the same market. For instance, many companies are now introducing televisions with integrated 3-Dimensional capabilities. This is an extension of a market but has never been implemented before, and it could have never been achieved without the proper technological advancements in television technology.

Modern day radio was also an extension of a previously created technology. It was originally created to carry messages in Morse code over radio waves, and it was eventually developed to carry sound in the early 20^th century. These advancements made it possible for companies in the United States to take notice of the potential in commercial radio and were the basis for mass market production. After World War I, stores and companies began to sell radios to the general public in order to take advantage of daily broadcasts. This initiated the exposure of the new medium and was successful because more uses were being discovered for the newly broadened technology. Technological change was the main force behind the radio industry because without it mass broadcasting would have never spurred the investment in mass production of radio.

Social Learning and Experimental Research.

Monkey see, monkey do. You have probably heard the proverb a million times and would not have guessed it could be applied to modern day media studies. What seems to be the simple truth behind a four-word proverb is actually a topic area for experimental research on the impacts of media content on children. The concept of studying media impacts, through isolated experimental research, helps me understand why people believe children imitate certain aspects of the media they are introduced to.

Social learning focuses around the mime-like reactions individuals have to media exposure. Critics believe that the media may have a direct correlation with the progressive changes in society. Some argue that it reflects the current moral system in society and others argue it has the ability to alter the way our entire society thinks about certain issues. There are various types of approaches to these concepts, but experimental research specifically intrigued me. It takes the overall idea of social learning and applies it to a controlled micro-level experiment. The basic process is to take an isolated group of subjects and show them one type of media emphasized in the subject area of interest. For example, showing a clip with large amounts of cursing and seeing if the subjects respond by imitating the clip. To help increase the validity of the experiment, groups should be picked randomly. This helps diversify the subject pool but does not eliminate the fact that other variables will be present in real social situations.

The smaller application of experimental research helps me understand the macro-level of social learning. For instance, the following political cartoon shows the general idea quite well.

The cartoonist is showing the mime-like reactions associated with social learning. The cartoon highlights certain social effects by showing a deranged person directly imitating the ridiculous actions being shown on the television set and alluding to violence by having the character hold a gun and a knife. The cartoon shows the power the media and has over an individual’s attitude and behavior. Variations of these effects have already been tested through experimental research by Bandura and his colleagues at Stanford University.

- E. Camacho

Image Source: http://www.pediatricbehavior.com/Articles/EffectsTVViolence.htm

Hegemony.

I have heard the term ‘hegemony’ tossed around a couple of times, but I could never really grasp the concept completely. I mean it is essentially a form of coercive brainwash, which is pretty heavy stuff. So, after sitting in this cold library for half an hour I have realized that the concept of hegemony helps me understand the capitalistic nature of the United States by learning about the power structures in society.

Hegemony has many forms and is present in all societies across the world. The conceptual idea is that the ruling class within a society or country homogenizes certain ideas that benefit their interests so they can maintain their dominance within that society or country. There are variations within the general concept of hegemony.  American Imperialism is a good example of specific types of hegemony – hard power and soft power. Hard power involves spreading a country’s ideals through the use of coercive military force. Soft power, on the other hand, involves spreading a country’s ideals through non-violent diplomacy. Hegemony in military dominance differs a bit from hegemony in mass media and the economy, but I hope you are able to follow my thought process for understanding the concept.

Although American Imperialism is on a larger scale, the theory behind it helps me understand this interesting political cartoon I found. 

I have always thought about political cartoons as fancy ink blots. Probably because it always takes me a while to really understand what’s going on with either of them… I digress. The cartoon depicts a tall Uncle Same who’s whipping small faceless people and bulls that are dragging along major U.S. corporations.

The first thing I would like to focus on is Uncle Same himself. The cartoonist depicts him as tall and White to portray his superiority over the smaller workers below him. Typically, the ruling class within our society that sets the ideals we conform to, have been powerful White men within our government. This is a visual example of hegemony because he is depicted with a bloody whip, which symbolizes his control over the minorities within the society through forceful means.

Next is the group supporting our economy, the small faceless people and the bulls. The small people are the minorities within our society who are grouped together with the animals because our capitalist system portrays them as merely laborers. This is a depiction of a certain ideology that hegemony enforces in society: minorities will never be able to reach the high social status of White businessmen because they are merely slaves to our economic system.

- E. Camacho

Image Source: http://www.11th-hour.info/images/US_hegemony.JPG