COMM 403 - Blog #1 - The Relevance of Media Studies through Critical Studies in Media Production and the Consumption Marketplace.

With a rather wide-ranging new category of websites and networks, social media has developed to test what our ideas and concepts of media are. Because of this, through much research, media studies has been proven to be shown in media production as well as the consumption marketplace. To dig in a little deeper into what makes media studies relevant, critical studies (The Frankfurt School) has shown this though the Marxist ideologies.

To begin, Critical Studies (theory) is a “social theory” focused on critiquing and changing society as a whole, in dissimilarity to “traditional theory” focused on only to understanding or explaining it.  The Frankfurt School was formed from pre-modern history for modern art in the early 1930's. Its purpose was built upon neo-Marxist theories and ideologies based on human liberation.  All in all, the school was made for artist who made art for others. Its design was a mixture of aesthetic and practical abilities from those select artists and Marxists intellectuals that attended. This relevance of critical theory has been shown in media production, as well as the consumption marketplace. I would describe this as imagery because we see only what we want to see and this is very noticeable in media itself.

Through the roots of critical studies, media studies has been very relevant in production and consumption marketplace. All are based upon Marxist ideologies dealing with traditional and social theories, imagery, modern art as well as human liberation. Because of these they play a part in the social media world.