Week 11/15-11/21 question 3

The most interesting concept that I came across in this week's reading was the idea of hegemonic messages, or rather media messages that keep powerless groups from making their ideas known. I'm not going to lie, I'm a slight conspiracy theorist. I tend to think that the man keeps down the little guy, as ridiculous as it might sound. We always see, especially on TV, the idea that the man is keeping the little guy down, and there is usually some struggle to overcome this: the jock being beaten in his sport and getting the girl, the employee uncovering a scandal and fighting to make it known, etc. Let's face it, we as a race want to succeed and be powerful. The media pretty much has complete control over what we see, hear, watch, read, etc. Unless we go outside the box and search for something a little less unknown, a little less popular, a little less commercialized, we get the same thing washed and painted a shiny new color; but the little guy still goes unknown. The media vies for attention based on its sponsors, and rather than sharing the spotlight with those groups that might now be the biggest, the best, or the most popular, they hog all the attention for those who pay the most.