Business Communication Media

Question: If the Petrillo family are not able to achieve the American Dream of owning a home, should the media be blamed? Answer: Introduction: Media is an important tool in the contemporary world where it promises to open and wide-ranging stage for communication. The purpose of the essay is to understand the role of media in influencing the perception on the idea of American Dream. American Dream: In the present era, every individual is living in a situation of continuous mass communication and the effect is experience by them on regular basis (Littlejohn Foss, 2010). Often the effect of mass media is taken for granted as a result the touch with the reality and practical scenario is often lost. The American society is a capitalist society where most of the state affairs and economy is controlled and guided by the private owners profit interests. The American Dream have turned out to be a confused subject and the most complicated part is that it means a lot of different things to different people and perception changes according to individuals (Streitmatter, 2015). Every individual has some needs and aspirations and thus American Dream generally means opportunity and prospects to succeed in life. Influence of Media on American Dream: There is a big role played by the media in selling the American dream. The media create a concept of the symbolic life that can be explained as a general rationalization which legitimates the concept by making it metalize as reasonable (Flew, 2007). Television shows, news and movies of upper class, middle class and lower class has depicted how these classes have become rich but most of the time people simply forget that there is much more achieving American Dream than to just become rich and buy a big house. Basically, the American Dream has been represented in media in such a materialistic way that it has become impossible to achieve it. James Truslow Adams original American Dreamidea has been misinterpreted and showed in more materialistic revelation by media (Rosenberg, 2011). The mass media in the contemporary state is one of the most crucial instruments that safeguards the capitalist idea of ideological supremacy and manipulates the reality (Bryant Oliver, 2009). In reality the legitimate organization of capitalist economy sells the American Dream which includes the media. The media creates persistent themes in news and documents that calls to purchase America, generating a happy picture in front of the Petrillo family. The American society has simply moved from reality that represents practical scenario to the conception of simulacra that has no connection with the real world and practicality (Thompson, 2013). Conclusion: The Petrillo family and many others fail to achieve the American Dream simply because they fail to realize the reality in the influence of the media. The fulfilment of the American Dream is not possible in the current scenario as it is not wished-for. The American Dream is continuous process to dominate the workers, who actually work for capitalists in hope to achieve his dream one day. In reality the actual intention of the media is to attract customers to buy goods, lands and houses, or in simple world they are continuously promoting in search of consumers for the market, as without consumers the entire economic process would crush to an end. Therefore, it can be stated that the basic idea of American Dream has changed to become an element of the general consciousness of American society through institutionalization and legitimating where media plays an important role. Thus, media can be blamed for Petrillo familys unsatisfied American Dream, as it plays a crucial part in generatin g the idea of happy life in their mind. Reference: Bryant, J., Oliver, M. B. (Eds.). (2009).Media effects: Advances in theory and research. Routledge. Flew, T. (2007).New media: An introduction. Oxford University Press. Littlejohn, S. W., Foss, K. A. (2010).Theories of human communication. Waveland press. Rosenberg, E. (2011).Spreading the American dream: American economic and cultural expansion, 1890-1945. Macmillan. Streitmatter, R. (2015).Mightier than the sword: How the news media have shaped American history. Westview Press. Thompson, J. B. (2013).Ideology and modern culture: Critical social theory in the era of mass communication. John Wiley Sons.