In the media daguerreotype of democracy

Abstract

In the post modernist world dominated by the modern electronic media, language loses its ability to reproduce and establish ideas in a given place and to organize symbols in coherent systems of ideas about a place, time and a subject. The social reality is more often identified with the world of symbols, in which the media, and particularly television, are becoming a powerful transmitter of these symbols penetrating and filling the sphere of politics.The postmodern social space makes a base to create a new generation of people regarding themselves as creative consumers - performers moving within different scenarios, playing in different performances and creating a vision of the common market of culture and consumption, which is submitted to the arranged influence of the “democracy of mood”. We tend to be identified with icons and idols ֊ the products of the culture, sold as goods. However, the torn apart social bonds and the lack of being anchored in a stable community change our lives in an everlasting pursuit of approval. Such “magnets” prone to draw the attention of us - Proteuses by exceeding the limits between the publicly important matters and those being petty but exciting and, at the same time, reaching into the privacy encouraging to psychological exhibition. We are both independent receivers and passive consumers. No particular attitude is dominant today, but there exists void, which may be filled with any feature a demand is for. The media come to our help. Being a commodity to purchase and deriving pleasure from that, they create the sense of human existence, and as a tool of this kind of consumption they also define a receiver’s identity. As it is meant by the author, the reality differs significantly from traditional ideas on the market system and inclusive democracy. The inclusive democracy means a mechanism of active attraction of the society to social institutions by protecting cultural diversity supporting participation and social control, as well as by the reduction of inequality and social barriers.