Marshall McLuhan and Raymond Williams have made key contributions to our understanding of media and its relationship to society and culture. McLuhan, in particular, has been an influential thinker on the subject and his ideas continue to be debated to this day. McLuhan’s work laid emphasis on how media is not an exclusive domain, but…
Tag: Noam Chomsky
Propaganda and Mass Media: A Theoretical Analysis
The dependency between government and media is a contentious issue in contemporary times. The media, once termed the Fourth Estate due to the unique role it plays in society, is supposed to be the conscience of the First Estate, namely the government. Yet, a simple analysis of the functioning of media organizations makes obvious that…
Propaganda Studies: Invasion and occupation of Iraq since 2003
The invasion and occupation of Iraq since 2003 is a classic example of the power and effectiveness of propaganda campaigns. For some people, subsequent revelations about the lack of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) might have come as a surprise. But even before the invasion took place, many people across the world (including Americans) took…
Are modes of resistance different in democracies than in monarchies?
Resistance and dissent against established institutions have proven to be difficult throughout the history of organized societies. Even today, many parts of the world languish under the rule of autocrats, plutocrats and oligarchs, where opposition to authority is silenced by coercion or crushed by force. Even in the so-called democratic countries there have been political…
Socrates and the notion of an examined life
According to Socrates, a commitment to moral reasoning is an essential condition of a well-lived life. An individual should base his actions upon the outcomes of such internal dialogues. The exercise of self-examination and introspection as a way of arriving at moral truths is of paramount importance to Socrates. So much so that he unequivocally…
Universalities in Human Communication
Human communication is remarkably universal, in spite of the apparent differences that exist between languages and cultures. This essay deals with the various modes of communication, verbal or nonverbal and elicits their differences across distinct sociolinguistic environments. Having stated that, it goes on to prove how minor and insignificant such differences actually are. The scholarly…