Media and Ideology: Thoughts on Croteau

I really struggled with this article. I appreciate and understand Croteau's overview of the various ways in which the media functions in our society, but I also feel that many of the issues she is discussing are, in a way, slightly skimmed over. For example, when she briefly discusses that Eminem was nominated for a Grammy for his controversial album Marshall Mathers LP, she speaks of one type of media coverage of the issue. There was a lot of positive hip hop media feedback about that album even considering the often disturbing themes and subject matter Eminem was dealing with. Eminem's purpose was to grind gears and piss people off but in many ways he was playing with the connotations of language in the discourse of modern slang. My point is, Eminem was a huge media issue when that album was released and all the attention it got, bad and good, furthered the success of the album. I think it's difficult for me to read such striking example as Croteau pointed out with Eminem without much explanation of the different types of media ideologies that affect the dominant ideology as a whole.

It's an interesting line we walk when talking about the dominant culture and overwhelming mass media. She explains at one point that many of the producers of media suggest that their perspectives "reflect the norms and ideas of the public" and than she pairs that statement with the obvious quality that mass media companies are looking to make money in any way shape or form. I think it's hard to discuss media ideology as one large thing because in this modern age of technology, the media has been broken into several ideologies. Every person that participates in online activities is in one way or another contributing to the mass media of our culture. Each Tweet and Facebook post is read by others that surround us in various social networking sites. In a way, each individual is a walking site of ideology and even more specifically media ideology.

I really enjoyed Croteau's idea that "there are multiple definitions of reality" in relation to the intentions and consequences of the large quantities of media that exist in our culture. Because we have multiple realities, we have multiple perspectives that affect each person's world view. We all have agency, and therefore are capable of utilizing mental tools to disassemble the problematic aspects media ideology. I wish Croteau had touched a bit more on the propaganda qualities of media coverage, and the ways in which the political sphere takes advantage of almost every single media outlet in our to do things like campaign for a presidency.

Overall, I had a hard time grasping certain parts of the text that seemed to be maybe a bit general but I also enjoyed her analysis of mainstream ideologies as a whole because it is nearly impossible to go in to such detail when she is merely introducing the ideas that make up media literacy.