preview

How Does Media Influence The Military

Decent Essays
Open Document

Today, a majority of the population relies on media for both local and international news. Media is always surrounding us, it consumes our everyday life, and is practically inevitable to escape. There are several different factors, such as politics and bias within the media. The media is a very powerful outlet that provides the public with a set perspective on certain groups and events throughout the world. “The media generally operates in ways that promote apathy, cynicism, and quiescence, rather than active citizenship and participation.” Unfortunately, the media is not neutral and many news stories are projected through the political and economic elites point of view who operate such large media companies (Croteau 1992). Overall, this causes …show more content…

Specifically, the military works with media to influence the public’s opinion on warfare. The military uses embedded journalism as a war reporting perspective to the public eye. This gives a biased view because embedded journalism focuses on the soldier’s point of view and promotes warfare. For example, “embedded reporters tended to sympathize with soldiers they cover and adopt a more supportive tone when describing the mission in Iraq”. They had more positive things to say about the military and soldiers that they covered. Although embedded soldiers had unlimited access to US soldiers during the war with Iraq, a “majority of the war coverage the public saw was skewed towards embedded articles and failed to recognize the extent of the human and material costs.” (Lindner …show more content…

This affects the public both mentally and physically. A large corporation that owns many other companies and networks is the Disney Corporation. Disney is most known for their iconic children's movies. However, Disney films do more than just entertain. They create a realm of fantasy and imagination where anything is possible. As Giroux says, “Disney films combine enchantment and innocence in narrating stories that help children understand who they are, what societies are about and what it means to construct a world of play and fantasy in an adult environment.” As mentioned before, after watching such films, children stay connected to the fantasy element. Thus, Disney has created a huge empire that profits $667.7 million in film, $330 million in consumer products, and $528.6 million in theme parks and resorts. Disney has influenced people mentally in that Disney is the “happiest place on Earth” and that is the place to go where “dreams really do come true”. Disney provides an alternate, positive view of the world (you never see anything negative about Disney, and everything/everyone gets their happy ending). Disney has influenced people physically in that it has created pricey theme parks, toys, and a clothing line for people to take part in to continue living the fantasy lifestyle (Giroux

Get Access