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Mass Media & Political Economy

al structures of the larger society and cannot exist in the exact form in different societies. Instead, differences--anomalies, in Barber's words--arise in different social settings (Barber, 1995).

Two economists have taken the idea of man as an economic animal to the extreme in popular fiction. Writing under the pseudonym Marshall Jevons, their murder mysteries use capitalist economic theory such as marginal utility to explain their characters' motives and behavior across all facets of human existence (Pfister, 2003). This idea makes me uncomfortable, to think that man's actions are determined by acting in a way that grants him the greatest utility--even self-sacrifice is explained away in this manner.

This subject could form the basis for a research project through the investigation of how capitalism in democratic societies differs from capitalism in nondemocratic societies--such as China. This would integrate the concept of embeddedness with an extension of the Marxist idea that society influences consciousness.

To some degree, the nineteenth century was a zenith of public discourse. Literacy rates climbed steadily as the industrial revolution reduced the need for child labor on farms and compulsory education took hold. Technology made it possible for newspapers to print news with relative timeliness, and literary societies--along with political societies and other small groups--emerged as both entertainment and information since mass communication such as radio and television had not yet been invented. Disparate voices could be heard, and large cities often had a dozen newspapers with different points of view.

Today, that world has almost disappeared. AOL merged with Time Warner, Fox News Corporation owns television networks, stations and newspapers, and other companies are buying smaller competitors as laws within the United States that formerly restricted such actions are relaxed (Yang, 2003). With fewer an...

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Mass Media & Political Economy. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 08:42, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1694923.html