Objectives and Assignments for Part 6

In this module, we think critically about media.

When you finish this module, you should be able to do all the following:

Describe and explain the pressures on commercial media to entertain.
Describe and explain the pressures on commercial news media to oversimplify issues and reassure viewers.
Explain why political reporting on commercial television tends to underreport domestic labor news.
Explain why political reporting on commercial television tends to underreport all foreign news.
Give examples of ways in which commercial television tends to reinforce and justify the aims of global capitalism.
Give examples of ways in which commercial television tends to marginalize opposition to the aims of corporate sponsors.
Give examples of the use of fallacies in advertising.
Describe the symptoms of "affluenza"; and explain why affluenza alarms Marxists, Christians, mental-health workers, environmentalists, and moral philosophers.
Critically analyze arguments for and against "consumer culture."

REQUIRED VIDEO

REQUIRED READINGS

OPTIONAL READINGS

For further reading: resources on advertising, media manipulation of news, global capitalism, affluenza

Google "Media manipulation and politics in America". Many scholarly artices on this.
American Women and the Making of Modern Consumer Culture
"Mass media" article by Agner Fog
Noam Chomsky discusses the question "How Free is the Free Market?"
A scholarly article in Communications Theory: "How Mass Media Simulate Political Transparency" by J. M. Balkin
Douglass Rushkoff (maker of The Persuaders and The Merchants of Cool) on Advertising
Ruth Shalit's articles "The Inner Doughboy" and "The Mr. Peanut chronicles". These are hilarious and eye-opening accounts of advertisers' attitudes towards imaginary corporate spokes-creatures such as Mr. Peanut, the M&M's, Ronald McDonald, and the Pillsbury Doughboy.

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