Media Pembawa Perubahan: Tinjauan atas Teori Ekologi Media [Media Bringing Change: A Review of Media Ecology Theory]
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.19166/lectura.v1i1.8673Keywords:
Media, Konten, Pandangan konvensional, Ekologi Media, Media content, Conventional view, media ecology, conventional view of media, Marshall McLuhan, Neil PostmanAbstract
Pandangan konvensional terhadap media adalah bahwa perubahan yang terjadi pada khalayak disebabkan oleh konten dari media itu sendiri. Pada tulisan ini, peneliti mencoba membuka kembali sebuah fakta bahwa bukan konten tetapi medianyalah yang membuat perubahan pada diri khalayak. Pemikiran ini adalah pemikiran dari Marshall McLuhan yang dikenal dalam pandanganya “the medium is the message” yang menimbulkan pro dan kontra di kalangan teoritikus komunikasi. Pandangan ini disampaikan oleh McLuhan sebagai bentuk kritik terhadap pandangan konvensional tersebut. Pandangan konvensional terkesan sangat mengagungkan kekuatan dari pesan atau konten dari media yang dianggap “powerful”untuk mempengaruhi khalayaknya. Dalan kajian ini menunjukkan bahwa Neil Postman dalam bukunya “Amusing Ourselves to Death” mendukung pemikiran McLuhan. Ia mengatakan bahwa bentuk medialah yang mengubah cara Masyarakat berpikir dan berkomunikasi juga memengaruhi cara manusia memproses informasi dan membentuk pandangan dunia. Selain itu pemikiran Karl Marx, lewat pendekatan materialisnya fokus pada aspek material media, seperti teknologi, infrastruktur, dan ekonomi politik. Marx berpendapat bahwa infrastruktur material (basis) menentukan struktur sosial dan budaya (superstruktur), tidak berbeda dengan Dallas Smythe, dengan konsep “audience commodity” melihat khalayak sebagai produk yang dijual oleh media kepada pengiklan yang diperlakukan sebagai komoditas. Pemikiran Postman, Marx, dan Smythe, dalam hal ini turut menegaskan pemikiran McLuhan, bahwa media dan bukan konten yang membahwa perubahan. Penelitian ini adalah sebuah kajian yang dilakukan dengan metode kajian literatur, yang menjadikan sejumlah sumber tulisan sebagai bahan referensi untuk menghasilkan sebuah kesimpulan dan rekomendasi.
The conventional view of the media is that the changes that occur in the audience are caused by the content of the media itself. In this paper, the researcher tries to reopen the fact that it is not the content but the media that makes changes in the audience. This thought is the thought of Marshall McLuhan who is known in his view "the medium is the message" which raises pros and cons among communication theorists. This view was conveyed by McLuhan as a form of criticism of the conventional view. The conventional view seems to greatly glorify the power of messages or content from media that is considered "powerful" to influence its aud ience. This study shows that Neil Postman in his book "Amusing Ourselves to Death" supports McLuhan's thinking. He said that it is the form of media that changes the way people think and communicate, and also affects the way humans process information and shape the worldview. In addition, Karl Marx's thought, through his materialist approach, focuses on the material aspects of the media, such as technology, infrastructure, and political economy. Marx argued that material infrastructure (base) determines social and cultural structures (superstructures), no different from Dallas Smythe, with the concept of "audience commodity" seeing the audience as a product sold by the media to advertisers treated as a commodity. The thinking of Postman, Marx, and Smythe, in this case, also confirms McLuhan's thinking, that the media and not content are the catalyst for change. This study is a study conducted by the literature review method, which uses a number of writing sources as reference materials to produce a conclusion and recommendation.
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