Power [Will Brehm, Week 2, Substantive]

It’s interesting to see the three forms of power Carr describes –military, economic, and public opinion –through the eye of history: each decade that passes, each war that concludes different States master the various aspect of the three prongs of power at different times. The United States seems to have figured out the military power (1.4 million military personnel and $500bn budget), and the economy power (over $13 trillion GDP) in a relatively short amount of time. It’s public opinion that still proves difficult. Oh, wait. Carr describes a very important symptom of the power over opinion that speaks volumes of the current state of affairs in America:

Their management has, in the natural course of development, become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands and this concentration facilitates and makes inevitable the centralized control of opinion. The mass-production of opinion is the corollary of the mass-production of goods. (122)

America has public opinion covered, too! With some quick research on net, it is easy to see this (Amazing) concentration. (Google search: “Media Concentration in America”; copious amounts of information can be found.) About five major companies control most of the media we watch, read, or listen to: Time Warner, Disney, News Corporation (just bought The Dow Jones –including the Wall Street Journal), Bertelsmann (Germany), and Viacom. Wow. For the past few years the government completed the marriage with the media, to paraphrase John Stewart, with Tony Snow, the former news anchor of Fox News (owned by News Corporation).

There is hope though! Weblogs (blogs). I think people realize how the concentration of media, even though creates greater power control, really means fewer shared views which in turn creates a less informed public. Blogs are the push back on the media concentration. Did the other prongs of power experience a push back as the various aspects of American power increased? As in, as America became dominate in Military power, did a counter movement form to stop the advancement? (I think the answer is "yes.") If so, that paints a bleak future of power of opinion in America: even though a push back exists now, the concentration will continue, solidifying total American power. (It’s like the completed force for Captain Planet: unstoppable. “With our powers combined, I am Captain Planet!" --that can't be messed with.) I don’t think that has to happen. Butwhat happens next in terms of blogs?