Russia, 1905 - 1917, The Causes of Revolutionary Change Essay Example for Free

Russia, 1905 1917, The Causes of Revolutionary Change Essay Q3. Using your knowledge of the events of 1917 (March November) explain how the Bolsheviks were able to take over the government in November. The Bolsheviks were able to take over the Government in November 1917 by exploiting the mistakes made by the Provisional Government, their unique ideology, Lenins policies and propaganda, and an element of luck. These were the main factors for their seizure of power, but other factors combined together to allow the Bolsheviks to complete their objective. The Bolsheviks seized power, because they had a unique ideology. Their ideology was that a revolution had to be created, instead of just waiting for it to happen. They thought that they had to lead from the front. The Social Revolutionaries were unable to lead a revolution as they were too sparsely spread out across Russia, which is a vast country. The Mensheviks thought that a revolution would spontaneously occur as a larger proportion of the population urbanised. The truth is that this would never happen in the near future, because currently only about nine or ten percent of the population inhabited the cities. The other ninety percent were peasants who lived deep in the countryside. Lenin, a previous political exile knew that this degree of urbanisation would never happen, as Russia was too vast a country, and didnt have a transport system that was capable of allowing people from the countryside to come to the cities. Another unique idea that the Bolsheviks had was that they were the only party that wanted to end the war, while the rest of the parties (the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries) wanted to continue with the war effort. The majority of Russians thought that the war was also a bad idea, as it intensified the problems that were facing Russia at that time, such as starvation in the cities, terrible urban working conditions and the lack of land owned by the peasants. The war had caused these problems, and the continuation of the war did not remedy the situation. Plus the war was going badly, as the Russian army was able to put up some resistance against the Austrians, but suffered repetitive defeats at the hands of the Germans. The Bolsheviks unique ideology was therefore a very significant factor, as if they had not led from the front, a revolution would have never happened, and the All Russian Congress of Soviets wouldve been the legal ruling body of Russia. Another reason why the Bolsheviks took over the government in November 1917 was because of Lenins unique policies and propaganda. The Bolsheviks grew from a small insignificant party since the split of the Social Democrats in the London Conference, to dominate the Petrograd Soviet by November 1917. Lenin said that if the Bolsheviks gained power, then he would provide Peace, land and bread. This single phrase offered something that would make everyone happy. He promised peace, an end to the war, which was something that the majority of Russians wanted. The peace would allow the army to come home to their families. Peace was such a unique policy, as the Bolsheviks were the only party to offer it. The rest of the now legal political parties wanted to carry on with the war effort, even after they had seen that it had caused so much strife. He also offered land, something that was desired by nearly ninety percent of the population, the peasants. Before the peasants were forced to farm the common land of their village, or Mir, but Lenin offered that they would have their own land, something that they could own for themselves. And lastly, but not at all least was that he offered bread to the people. He offered a cure to starvation, which had plagued the cities, starving the umpteen number of urban workers, who had already been working longer hours to provide equipment for the front. Lenin said and promised things that he never planned on carrying out, but simply used them to win the support of people. The best example of this was when he came back from exile and stepped off the Sealed Train, he then said All power to the Soviets! In April 1917 but he did not mean this, but used it as a political tool to provoke peoples thoughts, and was very effective propaganda. He also used other slogans such as the one mentioned above to stimulate the Russian publics minds, and to gain their support. Lenin also managed to seize power in November 1917, because of his impeccable timing. Lenin was offered to lead the revolution during the July Days, but at that time he would have been taking power for the Soviets, including the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. Lenin refused to take power at this time, but he didnt know for sure if he would have another opportunity to regain power. This risky move paid off later, as later on a Russian general (Kornilov) who was fighting on the front thought that the Provisional Government was weak, and he sought to re-introduce the Tsarist system. The leader of the Provisional Government (Alexander Kerensky) thought that Kornilovs army was finally going to overthrow the Provisional Government. He turned to Lenin and said that he would give him all the weapons of Petrograd if he would protect the city from the oncoming troops. Lenin accepted this plea and the private army of the Bolsheviks (the Red Guard) was given Petrograds weapons. On the 27th of August Kornilov marches his troops from the front towards Petrograd. When Kornilovs troops reach Petrograd, army discipline collapses and they abandon Kornilov to join the Red Guard. Now the Red Guard has the weapons of Petrograd, and an extended army due to the mutineers. The Provisional Government had made a huge mistake. They had given not only some, but all the weapons of Petrograd to the Red Guard leaving themselves defenceless. After Lenin had control of weapons, which were supplied to him by the Provisional Government, and an army that had rapidly gained support from the public and mutineers. He now had all the correct tools, which he needed for a job that he had masterminded: to take control of Russia legitimately. Now, he had time on his side, so he waited for the correct time to take control. The day he took control finally fell on the 6th November 1917, because that was the day before the All Russian Congress of Soviets was to meet. Due to his impeccable timing, he was able to take control before this meeting, which was to decide the fate of the Russian political system; therefore he was able to claim legitimacy. This showed that Lenin was very astute, as he had had chances to try and win power before, but he did not opt for that option, but waited until circumstances to his liking, and took advantages of them, resulting in the Bolshevik party ruling Russian headed by himself. The reason why the Bolsheviks took power in November 1917 was because they exploited the mistakes that had been made by the Provisional Government. The Provisional Government did not listen to what the people wanted, while Lenin told them what they wanted to hear, and subsequently won their support. The Provisional Government relaxed the censorship law, and therefore allowed new influential ideas to spread. This factor combined with the legalisation of political parties meant that these new ideas were large parts of the policies that the newly legalised parties used to try and gain support. The re-entry of political exiles into the country, such as Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin were all major mistakes, which Lenin in particular exploited as he stimulated the way people thought about the revolution that had recently occurred, and made them think if anything had actually changed. Once people had thought about that question, they realised that nothing had actually changed: there was still starvation in the cities, the peasants had no land, working conditions hadnt improved, but had worsened, inflation was still a major problem and the common people of Russia (the peasants and urban workers) were still denied a say. A factor that contributed to the Bolsheviks taking power in November 1917 was something that could not be controlled: luck. Lenin and the Bolsheviks by far did not have a perfect plan on how to take power. They were lucky on three prominent occasions. The first was that Lenin decided not to seize power in July shortly after the July Days riots that took place in the major cities of Russia. The people asked him to lead the way to a fresh revolution as he called it, but he refused, as at that time the Bolshevik party was still a very small minority in the Petrograd Soviet (which was the most influential Soviet in Russia), as he would be taking power for the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries. This refusion of power at that time was very risky tactics by Lenin, as he didnt know if he would have another chance to try and take power again in the future. The second prominent example of luck was the taking place of Kornilovs Revolt. Kornilov was a general who was fighting on the front. He was a keen supporter of the Tsar and the Tsarist system in the whole, and thought that the Provisional Government was doing a bad job of ruling over Russia. He thought that if he could get rid of the Provisional Government somehow, then the Tsar might be re-instated as the rightful leader of Russia. Kornilov planned to March his army to Petrograd and retake power by forceful means if necessary. When the Provisional Government heard about his plans, they began to panic, as they had never faced a situation remotely similar to this in the past. As they had no force of their own present in Petrograd at that time, they turned to Lenin to see if he and his personal army made up of Bolsheviks (the Red Guard) would protect Petrograd from the oncoming army. The Provisional Government said that they would give all the weapons of Petrograd to the Red Guard if they would protect the capital. Lenin jumped at this opportunity when it arose, as he knew that the Provisional Government were making a huge mistake. When Kornilovs army did reach Petrograd, they mutinied and joined the Red Guard. Now the Red Guard had the weapons of Petrograd, and were firmly in control of the situation. This was pure luck by the Bolsheviks, as they did not know if Kornilov was going to revolt in the future when Lenin refused power previously in July, but by chance the circumstances became favourable for him. From the evidence I have given, I conclude that the Bolsheviks were able to take over from the Provisional Government in November 1917, because they had had a great leader in the form of Lenin, who had impeccable timing, motivating policies and propaganda and a unique ideology of what to do with Russia. They were also able to exploit the mistakes made by the Provisional Government, and an element of luck had play in their seizure of power. The Bolsheviks unique ideology was that they should end the war, while the rest of the newly formed political parties wanted to carry on with the war effort for the same reasons as the Provisional Government did, and that was because they didnt want to be seen as cowards. The Bolsheviks knew what the people wanted, and stimulated them accordingly with the use of some crowd-pleasing policies and propaganda. The Bolsheviks leader Lenins astute timing of the day to seize power, the day prior to the meeting of the All Russian Congress of Soviets. Luck did have a part to play in this seizure of power, and without it, the All Russian Congress of Soviets would probably have become the legitimate controlling body of Russia, but circumstances played into the hands of the Bolsheviks. The aggressive political tactics of the Bolsheviks: the idea that you had to go out and create a revolution did eventually pay off, as if they had done what the Mensheviks had done, then the revolution would never have taken place, and Russia would be ruled by another body. The prime reason for success was the masterminding and swaying of public thought, courtesy of the Bolshevik leader, Lenin.

Neil Postmans Technopoly Essay -- Neil Postman Technopoly Essays Pape

Neil Postman, writer, educator, critic and communications theorist, has written many books, including Technopoly. Mr. Postman is one of America's most visible cultural critics, who attempts to analyze culture and history in terms of the effects of technology on western culture. For Postman, it seems more important to consider what society loses from new technology than what it gains. To illustrate this, Postman uses the Egyptian mythology called "The Judgment of Thamus," which attempts to explain how the development of writing in Egyptian civilization decreases the amount of knowledge and wisdom in the society. He traces the roots of technology to show how technology impacts the moral and intellectual attitude of people. Postman seems to criticize societies with high technologies, yet he seems naive to the benefits technology has given society. Postman can be considered fairly conservative in his views regarding technology. His lucid writing style stimulates thoughts on issues in tod ay's technological society; however because of his moral interpretations and historical revisions, his ethos is arguable. For every good insight he makes, he skips another mark completely. Postman divides history into three types. He begins his argument with discussion of tool-using cultures. In these cultures, technology has an "ideological bias" to action that is not thought about by users. He says that this is a time of "logic, sequence, objectivity, detachment, and discipline," where historical figures such as Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, and others clung to the theology of their age. This was a world with God, which was concerned with truth and not power. Postman remarks that the mass production of books and the invention of the printing pre... ... Review. v42 n18 (Sept. 14, 1992) Copyright National review Inc. :58. Lubar, Steven." Engines of Change: The American Industrial Revolution 1790-1860." Smithsonian Institution. http://www.si.sgi.com/organiza/museums/nmah/homepage/docs/engin10.htm ( 1986). Mack, John. Out of Many, v 2, Prenther- Hall, Inc (1995) : 405-423. Moulthrop, Stuart. "Very Like a Book" Wired Subscribe. Wired ventures LTD.http://www.hotwired.com/wired/3.11/departments/moulthrop.if.html (1995). Ravvin, David. "Without Judgement or Morality, Technology becomes God" (I couldn't connect on-line so couldn't get the addess again when I went to do it- it kept saying the file was not found). Star, Alexander. "Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology." New Republic. v207 n5 (July 27, 1992):59. Weir, Stuart. Nation. v255, n6 ( Aug. 31, 1992) The Nation Company Inc.: 216.

Edward Scissorhands Question Sheet

Discussion Questions on Edward Scissorhands As you watch the movie you will need to take notes to answer these questions. The purpose of this film is to get you ready for the next role we will look at in depth which is that of the artistic designer. You need to consider the needs of the director and work with set designers, costuming and other professionals in the film industry for this job. I would like a rough copy of your answers to these questions to be given to the teacher at the end of Friday’s class. 1. a The entire neighborhood is constructed, describe the colors used in the neighborhood scenes? . b What could be the desired effect in this use of color? 2. As the woman drives up to the haunted house there is background music playing. What is the desired effect of this music? Describe two other places in the film where the soundtrack or film score affected your viewing of that scene. 3. How does the costuming set the main character, Edward apart from the other community members and why do you think Edward is meant to be so visually different? How does this help the actor portray his role? 4. What is Tim Burton (Director) saying about the nature of conformity in this film?How does he use color and visual imagery to drive home this point? 5. Is Edward a tragic figure? Why or why not based on the outcome of the film. 6. What are some of the highlights, twists and turns of the story? Create a brief treatment for this film and hypothetically cast the roles of three characters in the film. Explain why you choose them for these roles. 7. Research online what people Tim Burton consistently works with for his productions and list three here. Discuss why creatively this might be important for a Director.

Video Games Have On Culture - 1708 Words

The Far Reaching Influence Video Games Have on Culture All you can see on screen is a pair of arms holding a gun as you proceed down a poorly lit, grungy tunnel. Looking down, you can’t see your own feet—not because of the gloom, they simply weren’t included in the design. A heads up display shows ammo, health, shields, and a motion tracker in the corner while an aiming reticule sits in the center of the screen. The graphics are shoddy at best by today’s standards, but at the time it was released this was considered to be the cutting edge of video games. This is Halo: Combat Evolved, released in 2001, not even two decades ago. Now known as the first in the Halo series, at the time it was an example of how far video games had come; today it†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"In books, everything is laid before you,† he says. â€Å"There is nothing left for you to discover. Video games are the only forms of artistic expression that allow the authoritative voice of the author to remain true while allowin g the observer to explore and experiment.† This is especially true when looking at older creations, when the graphics and narratives were limited by the current technology, forcing players to draw heavily from their imaginations, becoming what Melissinos calls the game’s â€Å"third voice,† the first voice being the designer of the game, and the second voice being the mechanics of the game itself (Tucker). One of the most memorable parts of any game is its main theme, the song that plays during the title screen . Originally simple 8-bit tunes meant to draw attention at arcades, a video game’s soundtrack was handled by the programmers, limited to whatever space was left over after the game itself was complete (Hsu). As a result, early games such as Tetris had a single short, repetitive song that would loop constantly in the background, eventually becoming embedded in the player’s brain. As technology developed to allow for more efficient data storage, companies were able to add longer and more complex songs. Eventually, as games became more immersive, the soundtrack became a way to emphasize what was occurring on screen (Hsu). With video games becoming an increasingly competitiveShow MoreRelatedWhy Video Games Have Made A Shift Into Mainstream Pop Culture6550 Words   |  27 PagesThe term pop culture can be defined as ‘The culture of the people’ a culture th at flourishes through social interaction and mass media that is most actively involved in by the public. Pop culture can cover a wide range of materials and as such should be looked at as a topic open to discussion, interpretation as to why it is popular and what makes it popular. 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The Beginning Of The Cold War - 1718 Words

The year 1945 is the year that became known as the beginning of the Cold War. This war was and continues to be an ideological standoff between the ideas of Russian Communism and American Democracy and Capitalism. According to Webster’s dictionary, â€Å"Communism is a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs†. Webster’s dictionary also describes Democracy a â€Å"form of government in which a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, usually through elected representatives†. The Cold War started after the end of World War II, when the eyes of both†¦show more content†¦Between the years of 1961 to 1963 at the height of the cold war Nikita Khrushchev represented Communism and ruled Russia. On what seemed worlds away a young and handsome John F. Kenned y embodied democracy, represented the American dream and lead the United States of America. On May 29, 1917, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. His family was wealthy and had many considerable political ties. In 1940, JFK graduated from Harvard where he had studied political science. In World War II he enlisted in the Navy and served as lieutenant in the Navy. During active duty his boat came under Japanese attack. His boat was hit by a Japanese torpedo and he led the survivors of his boat to safety. Back from War he wrote Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize in history. He served three terms in House of Representatives, as well as a term as senator from 1953 to 1960. In November of 1960, Kennedy won the presidential election by a very narrow margin beating Richard Nixon and went on to become the 35th president of the United States. For Russia, its Nikita Khrushchev served as the first secretary of the Soviet Communist party from 1953 to 1964 and effective leader of the USSR from 1956 to 1964. He did serve as premier to Russia in 1958 because Russian law doesn’t allow more than two consecutive terms by the same

Technology Is Good For Our Children - 1918 Words

Even though some people believe technology makes children slower, lazier and antisocial, modern technology can affect our children in a positive way because it is good for the developing brain of a child it keeps our kids aware of social change and the media, and it makes learning easier. Modern Technology is good for the developing brain of a child.When using any modern technology like Ipad, Iphone, Ipod, laptop computer anything, when using these amazing their brains are constantly being used. Each icon they click each word they read each picture or color they see is all recorded in their brains. 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Media Role in Everyday Life free essay sample

Analyse the following quote: â€Å" it is because the media are central to our everyday lives that we must study them as social and cultural as well as political and economic dimensions of the modern world. † (Roger Silverstone, Why Study the Media? 1999. ) criteria understand respond to question construct logical argument key terms/concepts used accurately provide relevant examples where required Reading 1. 1 Why Media Studies is Worthwhile: Bazalgette Media studies is controversial because it is still new and because it deals with things that are not only continuing to change but are also the focus of many anxieties. 2000:5 Newspapers, film, radio, television and, increasingly, computer software and communications networks are generally considered to be immensely popular in ways that are not fully understood and about which there is little consensus. They are consequently blamed for all kinds of social ills, political problems and cultural degeneracy. Each of these media has also, in its time, been seen as the harbinger of apocalyptic change – for better as well as for worse. But because the oldest of them – the mass circulation press – has only been in existence for little more than a century, the process of change has been too fast for anyone to arrive at definitive conclusions about what its social, political and cultural effects really are. As much as everyone likes to think they rebel against their parents and teachers, and keep up to date with new ideas and technologies, we are all substantially formed through the frameworks of ideas and thought of earlier generations, and we all find change difficult. Change almost always provokes strong feelings: excitement, anxiety, tension, fear, anger. The media, conspicuous and changing objects in a world that is itself changing, are a particularly public focus for these kinds of emotion and argument. There is therefore much disagreement about how the media should be understood, regulated and consumed. 2000:6 It is essential to recognise that media studies, even as we enter the twenty-first century is still new. †¦. it is a subject still in the process of being formed. Full of disagreements and different claims as to what it is really about. It is also a hybrid subject: that is to say, the ideas and approaches that it draws upon come from many different sources. The mass circulation press, the cinema, radio, television, digital software and the internet each attracted comment, analysis and speculation from the start (2000:7) Everyone who spoke or wrote about these media was themselves already educated within existing academic disciplines and motivated by particular interests 2000:7 Nevertheless, hybrid disciplines do appear a ll the time: semiotics, structuralism, sociolinguistics, and many more. Media studies snaps them all up: there can never be too many different ways of analysing just what is really going on in those fleeting images. Those rapt audiences. Those smoke filled boardrooms of owners. Technology and theory 2000:8 – The media themselves change much faster than any theory. In fact it is often changes in the media – even basic technological changes – that impel changes in the academic construction of the subject. As I write this in the late 1990s we have moved into a period of what are profound changes brought about by digital technologies. Until the 1980s the term media meant what it said (although it was, and still is, widely misused as a singular noun). It refers to numbers of different ways of physically reproducing and carrying meanings. The whole point of a media text is that it moves and flows: the meaning is never there at a given moment, but in juxtaposition and sequence, in the tension between one moment and another. 2000:8 2000:9 Media studies is thus a catch-all title designating a wide variety of courses, and since these are all embroiled both in developing a coherent theoretical base and in keeping up with technological and institutional developments in the media themselves, does it even make sense to lump them all together? 2000:9 In media studies you are asked about the profit motive. In media studies you are asked this. You are asked to look at cinema and television as industries which employ large numbers of people and to understand how they work, how they are financed and why they produce what they do. 2000:10 In media studies you may be asked to think about films, television programmes or other media texts in the same way. But you will certainly also b asked to think about how they address you – or other people – as a member of a group: as British, say, or as a black person, or as a man, or even – but how often? as all three. By asking you to think about texts in this way, and by making you investigate who made, say, a film or programme, and why, and in whose interests, media studies is essentially political. Every investigation of even quite short or trivial texts potentially leads into larger questions about power structures in society and how they are organised. 2000:10 – It is just as political to be asking questions about who owns this newspaper, who financed this film, and why; or perhaps more interestingly, who wouldnt finance that film and why, or how one kind of television programme is more likely to be made than another. The politics of the media affect our lives as much as the politics of Parliament or Congress, and can be more satisfying to investigate since the evidence is all around you every day. 2000:10 At the same time it is the inclusion of this political dimension that media students often find the most satisfying and worthwhile aspect of the subject. You stop taking things at face value. You should beware of media courses which render the subject down to a few handy maxims such as the basic function of all media is to sell audiences to advertisers. To object that this can hardly apply to public service broadcasting or a community video workshop is not to deny that these institutions will also have political roles to play and manipulative techniques to use. But it does reassert the principle that there is more than one way to look at any text. A political dimension to critical analysis should add complexity, not simplification 2000:10 So far, I have identified two basic principles that media studies courses are likely to have in common: using economic and political perspectives as key ways of understanding the media. These are the most characteristic differences between media studies and most other subjects. But no course will concentrate on these areas alone. 2000:11 One of the strengths – and also the challenges – of media studies is precisely that it asks you to consider texts from different and often sharply contrasting perspectives. What do you study in media studies? 2000:11 Just what – if anything – constitutes a valid argument for studying one text, or one group of texts, rather than another? There are five main ways of answering this question? Popularity (2000:12) The emphasis might be on the phenomenon of mass audience pleasure and on understanding and legitimating the enjoyment people derive from these texts or in contrast, the aim of the analysis might be to reveal how audiences are manipulated and deluded by stereotypical or reactionary material Exemplification is an obvious ground for worthiness of study, especially when the aim is to illustrate an aspect of theory, such as genre or representation. Notoriety (2000:12)– is an interesting and useful reason for studying a text that can offer a way in to thinking about social, political and cultural contexts. Texts which are interesting to study in their own right, but whose notoriety reveals much about their conditions of production or consumption, include banned or controversial television documentaries etc Such case studies form the starting point or central exemplar which can illuminate aspects of the media we dont normally think about or see. Turning points and groundbreaking texts could be included in the previous category, but texts can be significant without being notorious, especially in retrospect. Aesthetic value (2000:12-13) s a criterion that many media teachers would deny using as a way of selecting or judging texts. 2000:13 What is it all for? It is also obvious that the media industries themselves are hard to get into and rely increasingly on freelancers, 2000:14: that a knowledge of history, politics, economics, accountancy, law – you name it – would be equally useful as a basis for working, as, say, a journalist or editor It is increasingly likely that, wha tever job you do or whatever your domestic circumstances, there will be more opportunities for you to engage with the media, and not just as a consumer. Indeed, the field of alternative and subversive media production may be the one that grows fastest over the next few years (who knows? How could you tell? ) as access to technology and circulation systems widens Inside or outside the corporate producers, the new voices will come from the people who are already literate in the new media What media studies can really do is open up your understanding of how things work, how people become informed – or misinformed – and how the myths and ideologies that govern all our lives are created and sustained. Reading 1. Media and Communications: Theoretical traditions 2002:23 The field of Australian media and communications theory and research is in a unique position. On one hand, it is highly derivative. this is partly due to general globalisation of ideas today, but also to Australias past as a British colony and in more recent decades, to its dependence on the United States. On the other hand, in Australia we are able to observe and compare the influences and models emanating from the metropolitan centres of the Northern Hemisphere and to selectively combine and modify them in accordance with our own national reality and place in the world -.. dentify the origins of the major paradigms or schools of thought which have arisen in European and American theory and research as they apply to media and communications; to trace the formative influence they have had on particular styles of work in Australia; and to show how they have become transformed in the process of being adapted to our experience here EUROPE VERSUS AMERICA 2002:23 .. European means heavily interpretive and holistic in scope – that is, taking a macro perspective, looking down on society as a whole. Its sociopolitical stance is critical of society as it exists, and most often specifically Marxist. In its methods, it is deductive in that it applies general principles to the analysis of particular cases By contrast, the American approach is strongly empirical and micro in its scope – at its extreme, its form of knowledge relies on the direction observation of distinct phenomena, preferably controlled and measurable occurrences, like in a laboratory experiment. Its sociopolitical stance is said to be liberal or pluralistic – in other words, it is not aligned with any sector of society which has an interest in changing the world, but in that sense, it is really more conservative 002:24: However ideas do not belong to geographical territories and it is important to appreciate that, even if critical theory has traditionally been weak in the United States, Europe in fact has not only produced the characteristic critical and interpretive schools of thought, but also has a strong tradition of positivism, which is much more aligned with American empiricism and functionalis m (Giddens 1974). Positivism is basically the idea that the methods of natural science can and should be applied to understand and control society and culture, which includes the media. Western Marxism and Ideological Critique 2002:24 In order to understand contemporary media studies, it is crucial to understand the significance of the Frankfurt School and its tradition A critique of the rise of the mass media (mainly the new media of cinema and radio in those days) which has defined one important direction for Marxist criticism ever since 2002:25 This is the ideological critique of the media Reading 1. 3 Self and Experience in a Mediated World Reading 1. 4 New Media and Technological Development A Beginners Guide to Textual Analysis