Media Anthropology- Project 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-k_Dox30to

SCRIPT:

Hello,

Welcome to my video, my name is Jazzalette Wandrick and today I will be covering a week one project on the philosophical differences between two vastly different men when it comes to their views on propaganda, democracy, government, business, and media based on the information shown in the content videos Manufacturing Consent, Beware of Images and The Century of Self.

Stay tune this is really going to be a great watch and listen…

Edward Bernays the true originator of public relations. He was born Edward Louis James Bernays on November 22, 1891, in Vienna, Austria. Being born to the Freud dynasty even, having Sigmund Freud as one of his uncles. As shown in the film The Century of Self Edward Bernays was more than fortunate enough to be able to take his uncles ideas plus concepts on psychoanalysis and bring them to life. He studied the different psychological motivations there are with buying, products, wants, needs, and so much more. He was able to take the world of mental psychoanalysis and bring its concepts, structure, plus its ideas into the public relations world. As well as expand greatly upon them. As shown in the film The Century of Self He created environments were people were able to come discuses information freely like about products for example not knowing information was being gained from the experience just like psychoanalysis. The experiences that Bernays created like in psychoanalysis now are called focus groups in public relations. These focus groups helped shape a lot of the propaganda created at the time even with life style marketing. Focus groups plus propaganda came to be important enough to even help elect presidents and even control wars. He truly had the ideas of business down to a solid because it what he based his life on. He did this though his large passion for politics but he did not play a fair game at times. As stated in the film The Century of Self Edward Bernays felt he was creating democracy in ways. But, what he was doing was not for the greater good of democracy he was flooding society with propaganda, Which in turn was preying on the society weaknesses such as need, wants, and even creating fake propaganda to tap in to the society fear.

Not sure what preying on society could be. Well the film Beware of Images does a great job at explaining this concept through the subject of child marketing. The film Beware of Images states, “if an adult stalks a child and takes advantage of a power imbalances to exploit the child’s vulnerability, without any concern for the child’s well being we all recognize it as abuse. But when thousand off adults psychologists, sociologist, anthropologist, MBA’s , designers, advertisers, and programmers follow, film, question, study, analyze, and target million of children and take advantage of advantage of a power imbalances to exploit their vulnerability, without any concern for their well being we simply call it marketing”. Well Edward Bernays was amazingly good at “marketing” and spreading his propaganda. As stated in the film The Century of Self he was working directly with the CIA and the government to spread his propaganda and he did this through public relations. Edward Bernays felt that he could and should control society through propaganda and manipulation. He does this through media, print, and other forms of propaganda. All of Edward Bernays followers were firm believers of is philosophical views and didn’t feel that Edward Bernays was doing any harm at the time and was working for the greater good of the democracy and the government.

Here is where Noam Chomsky is very different. Some quick background on Noam Chomsky’s is that he was born December 07, 1928 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is known as “the father of modern linguistic”. He is a very educated and vastly opinionated man. He would not be conspiring with Edward Bernays because his views and philosophies are very different. When it comes to democracy, he does not support governments and big business manipulation of the public’s opinion and emotions. As stated in the film Manufacturing Consent Noam Chomsky states “Propaganda is to democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.” He felt that media was an instrument of propaganda and created a bias. He showed this bias in the film Manufacturing Consent through how American media covered two foreign countries, Cambodia and East Timor, to illuminate the propaganda model at work. The New York Times was the example used which showed the bias in favor of the status quo and power elites and did not covered both countries in the same manner, by paying extensive attention to the one (Cambodia) and ignoring the other (East Timor). Noam Chomsky did not have faith in big business and government he felt that you had to no just believe what you see but you have to I quote from the film Manufacturing Consent

Citizens must take 2 actions:

1. They must seek out information from ALTERNATIVE MEDIA (media outside the mainstream and usually having a particular point of view)

2. They must move toward change by becoming engaged in community action -- because people can use their ordinary intelligence to make changes in their lives and communities. Grassroots movements begin there.

Both of these men were passionate about there philosophical views, Edward Bernays being in to forwarding moving agendas through mass manipulation and studying philological motivation, and the other Noam Chomsky argues that people need to work to develop independent minds and create community’s and not depending only on big business and government..