“Requiem for the Media” -Jean Baudrillard

Baudrillard argues that there is an inherent structure to media technology; that media serves a social function. He discusses how the situation will no get better by making everyone a producer. “Reversibility has nothing to do with reciprocity”. He believes that the problem lies in our model of communication (transmitter-message-receiver). There are several things that I learned in this reading but there were about 3 main things.
    The first thing that I learned was that “The media are not co-efficient, but effectors of ideology. Not only is their destiny far from revolutionary; the media are not even, somewhere else or potentially, neutral or non-ideological…” (281). This was interesting because you would think that media would go hand in hand with ideology rather than being something that effects it.
    The next thing that I learned was that “The mass media are anti-mediatory and intransitive”…in this they fabricate non-communication. This helped me understand communication passed the typical transmission-message-receiver idea.
    The third thing I learned was that “…the media are able to transmit without distorting the meaning intended” (282) in the sphere of politics.  I thought that was interesting because I think that the media does a fairly good job of distorting the true meanings of politics and changing meanings of what politicians often say.