The Liberal Democratic Tradition
Added on 2020-04-07
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How do the Liberal-Democratic tradition and the Althusserian approach to culture theorize the notion of the individual and its relationship to the media?IntroductionLiberal-democratic approach sees mass media, mass communication, and mass culture as an outcome of progressive evolution rather than social and technological fraud; this shows that LD approach is clearly showing structuralism -functionalist and idealist. Structural functionalism is related to the sociology of the Frenchman Emile Durkheim and North American, Talcot Parsons, they both viewed society as harmonious, cohesive and integrated wholes where every part works to maintain consensus, equilibrium, and social order. LD describes the communication process asfulfilling 3 functions; doing proper surveillance of the environment to provide warnings against imminent threats and dangers of the value system of a community, correlating parts of society in response to the environment, cultural transmission of social heritage from one generation to another.Lois Althusser, who belongs to French army published a series of articles in the year 1960 on structuralism and Marxism and criticized the humanism thought as well as Sartrian Marxism. He introduced a revised role of economic determinacy with respect to economic, political, cultural and legislative structures present within capitalists’ social orders. For him, all of these structures have a direct relation to the larger network of the society. As per him, it is very important that a society in which you live must build a strong social system this is because of meaningful
interaction between social agents which is based on expectations what the other will predictably do, even if they are not related to each other[ CITATION JAY17 \l 1033 ].If we see socialism in terms of media, then it is the aggregation of people who participate too much greater degree in the common life, their attitude, opinions, and sentiments have some bearing on the policies persuade by the government (Roberts, 2009). Another perspective is fromthe view point of an individual where democracy is viewed as the sovereignty of the individual. The individual is believed to have the following traits; autonomous, rational and modern and have equal rights, he is able to participate in various activities of other individuals, they are part of many social groups where they usually give their opinions and shows interest like church, local business communities[ CITATION JAY17 \l 1033 ].DiscussionIn order to specify institutional and material form in which ideology operates Althusser introduced two terms: Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) and Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA) (Roberts, 2009). RSA comprises of a complex of coercive and regulatory forces under control. Which are situated in the public domain and includes, police, government, army and state legislature? It acts as an authority to control violence, whereas ISA consists of social institutions which come out from civil society. It includes educational, religious, family, legal, political media and cultural ISA[ CITATION Jes11 \l 1033 ]. The Althusserian and LD approach both correlates the notion of the individual and his relation with media. The individual as seen in this approach is a rational and autonomous being. According to the western society context this notion comes within Greco- Christian doctrine wherein the individual treats himself as an independent moral entity and is self-governed. Having such attributes individual is only
responsible for his own doings and not related to anybody else except God [ CITATION JAY17 \l 1033 ]. Hence the LD approach defines this assumption of individual as autonomous and rational concept. LD describe the communication process as fulfilling 3 functions; doing proper surveillance of the environment to provide warnings against imminent threats and dangers of the value system of a community, correlating parts of society in response to environment, cultural transmission of social heritage from one generation to another[ CITATION Jes11 \l 1033 ].The use of media by the individual is also explored by the LD approach by implementation use and gratification approach which says that individual consumes media not only to take information but also to satisfy personal needs such as personal guidance, relaxation, shared topic conversation and a structure to the daily routine this indicates that how media plays with the information before presenting it in front of audiences which simply states that media does not only disseminates information but also shapes content as per their interest (Fowels, 1992). Hence this position of the individual in his or her relationship with the media as consumer defines the notion of individual in the Liberal Democratic approach as rational and autonomous (Fowels, 1992). Before presenting it to audience Moreover, despite the notion of individual autonomy the LD approach states that individual is not an isolated personality he is also a part of various group. It also defines mass society as heterogeneous where it is a combination of different people who belongs to different culture, society, age, gender[ CITATION Jes11 \l 1033 ]. This is considered as a positive thing as LD theorists Edwards Shills argues that this uneven different ethnic, religion and economic groupings allow the dissolution of social attachments and obligations. This notion of individuals in group which makes mass society with its relationship with mass media is considered as god thing by LD approach in which mass media provokes individual to actively
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