What is "Power"?
Power plays a vital role in the study of culture. Without power the study of culture is incomplete, and power is connected to the extensive use of media. There are six main sources of civic power:-
1)Physical forces : Physical force and a capacity for violence control of the means of force whether in the police or a militia, is power at its most primal.
2) Wealth : money creates the ability to buy results and to buy almost any other kind of power.
3) State action : this is the use of law and bureaucracy to compel people to do or not do certain things. for example: In a democracy, we the people, theoretically, give government its power through elections.
Dictatorship, state power emerges from the threat of force, not the consent of the governed.
4) Social norms : The fourth type of power is social norms or what other people think is okey. norms don't have the centralized machinery of government. they operate in a softer way, peer to peer. They can certainly make people change behavior and even change laws. Think about how norms around marriage equality today are evolving.
5) Ideas : An idea, individual liberties, say, or racial equality can generate boundless amounts of power if it motivates enough people to change their thinking and actions.
6) Numbers : Number a lot of people, A vocal mass of people creates power by expressing collective intensity of interest and by asserting legitimacy. think of the Arab Spring or the rise of the tea party crowds count.
👉There are three laws of Power:-
1) Power is never static : It's always either accumulating or decaying in a civic arena. so if you aren't taking action, you're being acted upon.
2) Power is like water: It flows like a current through everyday life. Politics is the work of harnessing that flow in a direction you prefer. Policymaking is an effort to freeze and perpetuate a particular flow of power. Policy is power frozen.
3) Power compounds :Power begets more power, and so does powerlessness. The only thing that keeps law number three from leading to a situation where only one person had all the power is how we apply laws one and two.
Mass Media
1.Media Ownership : The endgame of all mass media orgs is profit. “It is in their interest to push for whatever guarantees that profit.”
2. Advertising :
3. Media Elite:
4. Flack: “When the story is inconvenient for the powers that be, you’ll see the flack machine in action: discrediting sources, trashing stories, and diverting the conversation.”
5. The Common Enemy :“To manufacture consent, you need an enemy, a target: Communism, terrorists, immigrants… a boogeyman to fear helps corral public opinion.”
Truly educated people
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