On Edward Said's Critical View On Media

Edward Said is a person with great influence in academic and even political circles. His works impress readers for their broad topics and insightful contents, especially his orientalism and post-colonial literature, which have become the focus of many scholars'study. This thesis attempts to break through other scholars'points of view and focuses on Said's critical view on media.The media, as the carrier and main source of information, play a vital part in people's life. The public rely on the media for information. The government also relies increasingly on the media, and recurs to their power for practicing its hegemony and spreading its ideology. This thesis analyzes Edward Said's critical view on media from three aspects: media products, media behavior, and media phenomenon. The thesis tries to disclose that the U.S. media have become a state apparatus and a tool for exerting America's cultural imperialism and spreading its ideology. In the meantime, it calls on the news producers, as intellectuals, to be brave enough to speak truth to power, and reminds the public of the collusion between the media and the government.First, this thesis, applying Michel Foucault's power-knowledge theory and Edward Said's orientalism, analyzes the media products. It points out that the media products or news works are a kind of knowledge produced by power and orientalist mentality. Then, with the support of Noam Chomsky's manufacturing consent, the thesis points out that news producers, scholars and even the government manipulate the media, public opinions and thoughts. It also appeals to intellectuals to shoulder their responsibility to speak the truth to power. Finally, this thesis, with the use of Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony and Frankfurt School's media domination theory, reveals America's cultural imperialism and the collusion between the media, scholars, and the government hidden behind the media products and behavior.