Social role of the media: Control of social reality

• Main Author: Đukić Nemanja
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Hercegovina and Institute for Political Studies, Belgrade, Serbia 2012-01-01
• Series: Politeia
• Subjects: democracy; propaganda; construction of reality; representation; manipulation; communication; discourse; particular perception; public opinion; public; overproduction of information; rationalization; instrumentalization; control; totalitarian society
• Online Access: http://scindeks-clanci.ceon.rs/data/pdf/2232-9641/2012/2232-96411204229D.pdf

Through analysis of the nature and character of media practice, the paper shows that the media are basic political instrument of manipulative social control of the democratic order. Control of social reality as a fundamental social role of the media stems from the manipulative power of the media that is based in the strategies of production and control of the symbolic potential of the society. Through the production and control of the symbolic potential of the society, the media transform symbolic power in social action or absence of social action through homogenization and activate individuals and social groups in public opinion or their dispersion and breaking off in the public. Development of manipulation, control, oppression, domination and hegemony, the media becomes a product of instrumentalist mind which contributing 'colonization of the lifeworld' and the development of modern society which on a rational way becoming totalitarian.