Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Who owns what on television?

Link to blog and rest of images:
http://www.neatorama.com/2008/07/07/who-owns-what-on-television/

What comes to mind when you read the text? What comes to mind when you view these images? What are the implications of having two different sources of information?
It's interesting that one can essentially glean the same information in the images as in the text. The colorful collage of small logos are situated next to the a similarly-sized logo of the company that owns them. The composite of artistic choices made in these images make us question what we would not question if we only read the text. Does this mean images have the power to elicit more than just 2-dimensional thinking?

We can use the images as metaphors for U.S. society. The 6 large companies represent the dominant and governing institutions (government, business, media, corporation, education, etc) and the channels represent the diverse inhabitants (diversity in this case includes identities relating to race, gender, ethnicity, national origin, immigration status, and sexuality among others) Oftentimes the common narrative of diversity in this country, that of multiculturalism, serves to tokenize the diverse elements without meaningfully respecting difference in favor of assimilation. By evading the dimension of difference, this discourse also evades the core issues ailing society.

In the images we see that there are a variety of channels that cater to many interests. However what are the implications for the channels' autonomy and creativity having only 6 large channels? Or am I overthinking this?

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