Politics, Media and Cultural Forces

I don’t want to get super political here, but I do want to note that the new administration in the White House will have a massive impact on the responsibility of media and media perception. In the following article, which is rather bluntly titled "Trump Strategist Stephen Bannon Says Media Should ‘Keep Its Mouth Shut,’” you can see a clear line in the sand being drawn by the White House’s chief strategist, who used to be an influential player in the right wing media himself.

We talked in class about the “social responsibility of media” and how it is different than other markets because its a cultural force that shapes society and its functions are fundamental to our democracy. In this article, we see Stephen Bannon saying, "The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country…" He also throws around the terms ‘elite media’ and ‘mainstream media’ quite often in his scathing critiques of how Donald Trump is covered.

These remarks seems quite at odds to what we discussed in class. It’s fascinating but also a bit nerve-wracking to think about the relationship that the new President and his staff has with a large portion of what they deem ‘mainstream media.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/business/media/stephen-bannon-trump-news-media.html

-Joe