new media reader pp 230-300

Hans Magnus Enzenberger's essay, Constituents of a Theory of the Media, exactly predicts the beginning of the end for the entertainment industry. He argues that big media conglomerates push their messages down our throats, and make us accept an unjust society. Television advertising, especially during the 1970s became obsessed with what you didn't have, and played off of fear for you to buy it, contradicting the earlier model of just selling a product by praising its uses. Advertising began to be something like, "if you don't buy this whitening toothpaste, you'll look ugly and have no friends," essentially inventing a 'need.'

Enzenberger says that the only way for the media conglomerates to fall would be to pick up our own camcorders and begin documenting, or creating our own media, of the injustice ourselves. Fast forward thirty years later and the YouTube generation is doing just that. The internet is rampant with piracy and self-produced (free) content that is becoming more popular than big-business produced media. The big guys can't get their heads around a business model to make this stuff profitable, and "joe the plumber" types are getting their fifteen minutes of fame. The years of skepticism and resentment toward standard tv programming and movies for that matter are experiencing the backlash of money-hungry people they make themselves out to be. $12 each for a theater ticket plus snacks is not a casual date anymore.

Hopefully this trend away from big media companies will teach them a thing or two. Maybe they'll lower their prices or create some content that's not just a safe sell.