Power and Influence

Today's class on the concepts of power and influence was very eye opening, to me at least. Many of the things we talked about I had never really thought of before, and it was interesting to learn how exactly people or institutions come to gain or use power and influence. To begin, I totally agree with the six sources of power in this country, which used to be family, school, and church, but have now become government, military, and business. I agree that this is where the power exists in society today, as these three things definitely have the largest influences on how we live our daily lives. I was also very interested in the cartoon we watched from Saturday Night Live, about the influence of big business on media outlets. I found that although it was a cartoon, the message it gave was still chilling, as these big companies that own the various media outlets can indeed sway public opinion when they need to, simply because they can control what we read and watch in our spare time. The fact that it was never shown after the original airing reinforces this point, and shows the power these businesses have. The cartoon painted them in an unflattering light, and because they owned the tv station, chose to remove it from airing with any reruns. This is the thought that disturbs me the most, that big businesses have so much influence on public opinions and perceptions, and can simply do what they want with these media resources because they have enough money.