Cultural Studies: Media, Power and Truly Educated Person

Hello Friends,

This blog is my response to the task assigned to us by our Prof. Dr.DilipSir in thinking activity on Cultural Studies: Media, Power and Truly Educated Person. So read, understand and enjoy. Happy Learning!

What is Power?

"Power is the ability to make others do what you would have them do."

There are six main sources of civic power:

1. Physical Force

2. Wealth

3. State Action

4. Social Norms

5. Ideas

6. Numbers

1. Physical Force

This is the power which is through police, military, etc. This also uses violence may be physical or verbal.

2. Wealth

This is the very popular form of power and used by many. Through money people tend to buy anything like degrees, relationships, commodities, good facilities for health and education.

3. State Action

This type of power is the one which we give to government in democracy through elections. We choose the government and so it is by the people, for the people, and to the people. In dictatorship, there is one power that governs, rules common people through all the ways like threat and violence.

4. Social Norms

This power is very much effective in today's society. People look at one another and try to imitate others. People accept changes in older norms and beliefs. Much changes now a days are observed in marriage like now people are allowing love marriages in mega cities. In modern world now people are more open to LGBTQ type of theories and relationships. So, people accept the changes more easily when they observe the changes around them.

5. Ideas

"Ek idea jo badal de apke duniya"

So, ideas govern the world. One idea can change the entire direction of the story. An idea is very powerful one, it changes, motivates one to change the way of thinking and direction.

6. Numbers

Crowds matter a lot. When crowds gather with one single aim, then they can change the system and laws. They can make authorities change their decisions. Crowds don’t have individual voice but a collective aim.

"United we stand, divided we fall."

So, there is strength in unity.

★ How Power operates?

There are three laws of power worth examining.

Law 1: Power is never static.

It means power keeps on changing. Today one will be in power, but tomorrow next. So, power keeps on changing with time, situations and people.

Law 2: Power is like water.

Power needs to be directed in a proper direction and politics play a major role in it. Policy making is an effort to freeze and perpetuate a particular flow of power. Policy is power frozen.

Law 3. Power Compounds

Power begets more power, and so does powerlessness.

When people fight, raise their voice for their rights, when they don't surrender themselves in the hands of power but question them, then they are having some power in their hands to let the power people work and support them.

★ How to read & write power?

To read power means to see, to observe the society around us. How things are working? Who is in benefit and who is suffering? What is ruling the power? To map out who has what kind of power and is arrayed in what systems? To understand why it turned out this way? Who made it so and who wants to keep it so?

To write power, one can be an author. An author of change, we have to learn to express ourselves, it needs a lot of practice of writing, to organize our ideas in a proper direction, to practice conflict. It's an everyday practice, a habit which needs to be developed to get that excellency in writing of power to bring about changes, to inspire people to read of ideas and to bring about changes that are in benefit of majority.

★ NOAM CHOMSKY - ON BEING TRULY EDUCATED

Video Highlights

★ It's not what we study in the classes but the way that these studies help us to look at the society, it should tell us what to look, how to look, and where to look. It's about dealing with the challenges independently.

★ It's about our understanding of many things, to question the doctrines, to bring about changes and to build a harmony among all rather than using corruption.

★ To discover new ways and means of dealing with situations, to be innovative, to be creative and to explore the world rather than remaining in a single well. To broaden our outlook at life.

Political Power & our sense of judgement:Do politics make us irrational?

In this video, it shows how generally people are more biased. They tend to support the group rather than truth. It's important to find the truth rather than becoming influenced by fake websites or false information. It's important to go for the accuracy rather than support the group, political party on biases and partisanship.

If there is dishonesty - foul then rather than supporting that group it's far more better to support the reality, the truth. This will prevent corruption taking place in the society from small scale and later on in larger stages in society which in turn will help in building a more better world to live in.

★ Noam Chomsky - Manufacturing Consent

Observations from above video:

In order to understand how society works, first we have to see who is in position to make decisions, that determines the way the society functions. For example New York Times is the major source of spreading the news all over the world. It records all the events, and people get to know it through this. Media affects the future events, preserves the past and helps in the present. It is mostly controlled by the corporate world, educated and elite class people. It holds the huge responsibility of recording the events, facts, and news. It helps to make future decisions and to overcome many problems and to find solutions of existing problems.

Approximately 20% of people control the decision making, and the others follow the decisions rather than thinking more of it.