Media Revelation # 3:) The Triune Brain
One of the first things we learned about in this class is the triune brain. The triune brain consists of three parts; the reptilian brain, the limbic brain, and the neo-cortex. The reptilian brain controls all of our natural functions such as breathing, mating, fighting, ect. The limbic brain processes emotional stimulus such as pictures and music. The neo-cortex is the newest part of the brain, this is engaged when you are reading, writing, learning, or just in deep thought. If you have every worked on something and not realized how much time has passed that is because all three of your brains are engaged and you are very focused on what you are doing. Knowing about the triune brain is important when studying media because we can understand how the media is trying to target us. Many commercials aim to target the limbic brain because people have such strong emotions and will often act on them. Whenever an add begins with capturing photographs or music it is targeting your limbic brain. I am now aware of how advertisers will try to engage different parts of your brain through their commercials. Our cheat sheet we got for class lists many persuasive techniques found in modern day media. Each of these are designed to target different parts of the brain.
Media Revelation #4:) Ownership
When addressing mass media it is impossible to overlook the ownership of these outlets. What one will find is that all major companies are owned by one of 6 corporate conglomerates; Disney, Viacom, News Corp, Time Warner, Sony, and Vivendi. Our textbook Media/Society talks about the issue of media ownership and how we cannot believe anything we hear because it is controlled by the same people. This ownership impacts what the public is told and is even the main cause behind media censorship. Media/ Society on pages 49-52 talks about how as these conglomerates continue to grow narrower the information available to us will become less diverse. In other word though more concentrated the ownership becomes though increasingly uniform the content will get. This is crucial because people don't realize that their lives are run by a few of the super wealthy that make up these corporations. The video below shows how this control is broken up between corporations.
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