Media & Politics from a Progressive Standpoint
Searching for a website describing how mass media is politically influenced was not difficult, and the one that I found was from "Progressive Living" which appears to be a rather liberal website with ideas on improving our lives and world. What it claims about the media is that nearly every source is seeking some form of profit and therefor rarely independent in thought from those financially supporting it. If this is true, which it likely is in many cases...how does this reinforce our traditional thoughts and continue to keep all but the lower classes of society thinking in a similar way? I think that the topics of discussion in our media are the main thing affected by the fact that all writing for the public needs to make money somehow. For example, news articles in almost every paper include things that take place in our social contexts, whether it be our school programs, other city programs and local as well as national politics, and the articles about crimes committed that we tend to view as something away from our own lives.
The website ends its page on media with different television news stations, such as NBC and ABC and CNN, and their owners. One interesting example they pointed out was that General Electric, who donated greatly to President Bush's campaign own NBC news. The same type of political influence is true with many of the newspaper corporations across the nation. From a sociologically perspective, I think that lack of an alternative and/or independent or even multi-political newspaper diminishes our ability to compare and contrast different philosophy or abilities out there that could enhance the way we live and operate as communities and as a nation. Not only that, but diversity, I think, enhances our versatility as humans and ability to cope with trauma (such as political tension and wartime). My main point is that this website offers some valuble input, despite its definite liberal background, that our media is extremely influenced by organizations with political agendas, and that there could be a better way of distributing information about our country, to our country's people.