Power and Its Privileges

Foucault is not a theorist of media; in fact he died long before media revolutionised into what it is today. His theories on social institutions however, can be related to mass media. Again an example I’d like to use is his theories on power/knowledge and discourse. We felt a group discussion was necessary in order to evaluate the best possible methods of relating his theories to the world of media. After coming to terms with most members having contradicting opinions, we all decided to portray Foucault’s ideas differently, and I decided to focus more on relating his theories to ownership.

For Foucault power is used by the institution, he stresses that institutions have the ability to structure society; they even have enough control to change our values. Media is the most powerful source in the modern age, with a person spending on average 4 hours and 35 minutes watching television a day, and 13 hours of internet usage a week. This doesn’t include the hours a person spends listening to the radio, and reading newspapers or magazines. By these statistics it’s clear that media plays a huge role in society and therefore has allot of influence on a postmodern age. Foucault states that “…from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries onward, there was a veritable technological take-off in the productivity of power.” “The Foucault Reader: Truth and Power” (p.61)

Power in the media demonstrates Foucault’s theory, because power isn't a clear possession of either the institution or the audience. To some extent power shifts between the two, but is mostly used by the institution. This formulates many questions on the amount of control the owners at the top of the pyramid of cultural power have on their audience. Over the years media ownership has condensed into a minimum of six, meaning a small number of extremely rich and powerful people have complete control over the media, and are able to inject ideas into society.