Several years ago in high school I remember hearing this phrase:
Let me control a country’s music and I will control the country.
At the time I assumed it was a quote, probably from one of the “great” dictators. But after searching all over for it for several years I could not find it. I tried different variations of quote and asked everywhere I could, nothing came up.
Until now. Reading for a class assignment I ran across the following quote in a communication theory book.
If a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation. – Andrew Fletcher
At long last, I have found the quote, or at least a similar and official deviant. (Which is a shame, I would have like to take credit for the first one.)
At any rate, this saying is very controversial, but also expandable. Today could we change it to say
If a man were permitted to make all the TV shows, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation.
Or maybe not TV shows, maybe movies instead. Is this a legitimate claim? Are we shaped by media or do we shape the media?
On one hand, if we absorb what is put in front of us without a second thought, we become what we are told to become. But, as a consumer, we drive what is created. If no one watches a TV show, the company will stop producing the TV show. As a consumer body, we have control over what gets produced. The problem lies with apathy. If people don’t care what they are fed, or they don’t care what products are produced, they won’t have any say in their creation. Yet, if people do care they can make a change.
If everyone stopped eating food at McDonalds, we would collectively make McDonalds rethink their corporate strategy. But if no one cares what McDonalds does, they will have no reason to boycott. (Disclaimer: I am not anti McDonalds.)
Here is my point. Far too often the solution that is proposed is a change of policy, but often for true change to be enacted it means a change in behavior. And as the old adage goes: old habits die hard.