Mass Media, Power and Discourse

There are three major theories of power.

Domination theories of power claim that power comes from one major force.  For example, many religions claim that the ultimate power over people and society is God.  Some conspiracy theorists may believe that the government holds ultimate power over everything people do.  At certain times in human history, small groups of people have held dominant power over others. 

Hegemonic theories of power claim that power comes from lots of different places at one time.  Cultural hegemony (a theory pioneered by Antonio Gramsci) occurs when the values of the ruling/controlling/powerful class become de facto values for all people.  At any given time, a person may be constrained by any number of hegemonic constructs that attempt to define her reality.

Both of these theories are deterministic.  The power in these constructs requires human agency to escape from.  Many educators who subscribe to these theories believe that the goal of education should be to empower students with such agency to escape the powerful forces that might control them.  Paulo Friere comes to mind here.

Some philosophers, such as Foucault, question both of these theories of power.  For them, the difference between power structures and human agency are too convoluted.  They suggest a third theory of power: governmentality.  Governmentality theories of power claim that not only does power come from all over, but it doesn't just come at people.  People are inherently active in the creation and reproduction of power relationships.  According to this theory, there is no need for humans to claim agency or have someone (a teacher) give them agency or facilitate their agency in order to defy power.  All people are born with the ability to both claim and resist power.  And they use discourse to do so. 

Mass media studies is a particularly helpful way to understand the governmentality theory of power.  There is no doubt that mass media can exert power over people.  But it is also true that people have power over mass media.  Like any part of popular culture, mass media reflect the values and beliefs of society because people choose to consume them.  The more people consume, the more media just like it will be produced.  Of course this reflect/affect process is complex and rarely evenly balanced.  This is where the discourse of critical media literacy comes in. 

Discourse includes anything that is 'sayable' - usually expressing the ideas, attitudes and beliefs that people use to construct and define reality.  Different mass media have their own discourses (television communicates in a very distinct way, for example, than do film and radio...etc.) in addition to reflecting the discourses of society.  The more people create discourse around and unpack the discourses of mass media, the more power people exert and the less they can be controlled.

I believe this is where education can play a vital role.  Schools can provide safe and communal spaces where students can experiment with lots of different discourses around a media text.  Mass media are typically viewed by both parents and students as simply entertainment and young people are not often encouraged to critically engage with mass media at home or with friends.  Mass media can exert a tremendous amount of power over young people (and all people) when their discourse is the only one speaking.  But when people create thoughtful and critical discourse around and about mass media, they hold the power.  Educators play an important role in encouraging and providing space for that discourse to occur.

Educators and parents tend to understand media literacy in a few basic ways, as illustrated by these graphics below.  The first graphic displays what is commonly called 'the protectionist approach.'  This approach to media literacy gives mass media discourse all the power.  The role of media literacy in the protectionist approach is to help children resist the negative messages that mass media send them.  Media literacy is thought to provide a kind of barrier, protecting children from mass media influence.  While there are certainly negative influences of mass media that children ought to be protected from, this approach offers much too narrow a view of media literacy.  It assumes no power on behalf of the student.

This second image displays what might be called 'the reader response approach.'  This approach to media literacy gives the student's discourse about mass media all the power.  The role of media literacy in the reader response approach is simply to analyze and discuss mass media messages and ascribe meaning to them.  While this approach certainly gives power to students to define the role of mass media in society, it admits no power to the media itself.  In this way, it fails to fully understand mass media's role in society and the power they exert over it.

This final image displays the ideal way to understand critical media literacy as discourse.  It admits the reality that mass media both reflect and affect society and individuals, while admitting power belongs to both the viewer and the medium itself.

This is the governmentality theory of power at work.  People use discourse to unpack power relationships and situate themselves in positions of power over their own reality.  Schools practicing critical media literacy allow students to both understand and critique mass media as well as take an active role in participating and creating it. 

Mass Media Orbits

Jacques Ranciere suggests that emancipated human beings are each in their own orbits around 'truth'.  Put another way, all people come to understand knowledge in different ways and on their own unique terms.  People in their own orbits assume their own equality to everyone else and they assume everyone else's equality to them.  There is no 'right' way to arrive at knowing.  It is a beautiful picture, to be sure, but at first it felt very individualistic to me and I wondered where the orbit metaphor allowed for genuine human connection when it came to learning.  If every student orbits around truth/knowledge/reality in a different way, how can school children ever work together to discover something?  Can schools foster a genuine sense of community in learning, or must every child be allowed to proceed with his or her learning completely independently?  I struggled with these questions.  However, after thinking more about Ranciere's ethics and the reality of daily human behavior, I'm not sure that the orbit every person inhabits cannot ever intersect with or merge with another person's orbit.  Obviously, people make connections with each other.  And some of the deepest human connections are often made over a shared sense of knowing.  There is something very powerful in the kinship of understanding or seeing something in the same way as another.  In these moments, our unique orbits intersect.  I think of those magic tricks where independent metal hoops somehow become connected and then disconnected in the blink of an eye.  These connections needn't take away from each person's unique orbit, either.  The orbit metaphor must go hand in hand with Ranciere's ethic of equality.  As long as I acknowledge that your orbit it as valid and beautiful as mine, then we can feel confident that when/if our orbits intersect, it is not due to some form of stultification, or someone forcing 'truth' upon us.  My question then, became: how can education provide opportunities for students to emancipate themselves and enter their own orbits around knowledge?  What are the forces currently inhibiting such emancipation?   

[Incidentally, studying mass media requires a similar ethic of equality that Ranciere applies to people, except that rather than assuming all people are equal, mass media scholars assume all media is equal. This doesn't mean that all mass media are equal in quality or beauty, necessarily.  That is, in fact, not the point at all.  It simply means that all mass media can be critiqued and understood as reflecting something about society and reality.  All mass media texts are equally worthy of study.  For this reason, I think studying mass media provides more opportunities to live into the reality of Ranciere's ethics of equality in schools because there is currently no hierarchy of mass media knowledge, no curriculum that 'experts' have chosen, no content standards to adopt.  Any and all mass media texts can be studied in schools, allowing for maximum opportunity for student choice.] 

In pondering these questions, I started thinking about the ways that students orbit around mass media texts, and the ways in which mass media texts orbit around them.  There are obviously many constraints on equality in society that prevent students from seeing or valuing their unique orbits, not the least of which are mass media.  Mass media texts, influenced primarily by big business and the desire to make money, are not typically designed to encourage deep, unique thought.  In fact, one of my greatest challenges in teaching young people about mass media was their resistance to critique their favorite forms of entertainment.  At times it felt more like mass media was orbiting them and constraining them and defining them than the other way around.  This was the inspiration for the graphic below.  The students in the image are being orbited by a barrage of mass media texts, all attempting to define them and influence them to consume - all preventing them from entering their own unique orbits or discovering 'truth'.  However, as happens with many forms of entertainment that people enjoy, these students have found a connection - perhaps a television show that they both enjoy watching.  The orbits around them have suddenly merged.  The space has opened up for these students to break free from the media orbits that surround them, and enter their own orbit around a text that compels them.  

Undoubtedly these kinds of connections around mass media happen all the time and mostly outside of school.  But here is where I think education might play a particularly important role in the process of emancipation from the influences of mass media.  Schools provide a space in which young people can experiment with their own orbits around a similar object of study.  Because mass media is currently not a regulated discipline in education, students are much freer to come to their own unique interpretations and understandings around a common mass media text.  There simply are no 'right answers' in mass media education (at least for now).  What is possible, then, is depicted in the graphic below.  Students are on their own orbits around the mass media text they connected over earlier.  Not only are they forming community with each other by studying it, but they are also emancipating themselves from the constraints that a consumption-obsessed mass media might place on them.  They are free to follow their own orbits, and the teacher, having created space for them to do so, can also use mass media texts to open new doors of perception.