Cultural Studies, Media, Power, and the Truly Educated Person

Cultural Studies, Media, Power,

and the Truly Educated Person

- This blog is part of task given by Dr. Dilip Baradsir. 

Media and Power:

The blog argues that media is the primary instrument through which power shapes public perception and social reality. Power doesn’t just coerce; it manufactures consent by controlling information flows, framing issues, and normalizing particular viewpoints (Chomsky’s “filters,” McLuhan’s medium-as-message, etc.). Examples from the blog: corporate ownership and advertising create incentives that bias coverage; “flack” and elite networks discipline dissenting voices; the designation of “common enemies” unifies audiences around elite interests. My own observation: algorithmic platforms amplify emotionally charged content and platform-level moderation choices privilege certain speech and marginalize others, which mirrors older filters but at far larger scale.

Role of Education:

The blog’s idea of a “truly educated person” someone who inquires independently, formulates serious questions, resists external controls, and synthesizes across disciplines challenges narrow, credential-focused schooling. Traditional education often rewards memorization and conformity; Cultural Studies insists on critical interrogation of disciplinary boundaries and power relations. Today, key qualities include curiosity, resourcefulness, media literacy (ability to read framing, sources, ownership), reflexivity (recognizing one’s biases), and cross-disciplinary thinking.

Cultural Practices:

The blog highlights that media representation encodes norms: who is visible, how identities are narrated, which practices are legitimate. For marginalized groups, stereotyped portrayals can limit social possibility (racialized tropes, gendered roles, stigmatizing frames). But media can also resist power: community media, counterpublics, viral grassroots storytelling, and participatory platforms let marginalized groups craft alternative narratives, mobilize support, and contest dominant frames though these counter-narratives face structural limits (reach, monetization, censorship).

Critical Media Consumption:

Personally, media shapes what I prioritize (news selection), the language I use, and the range of actions I consider normal. A critical approach means checking sources, asking who benefits from a story’s frame, looking for absent voices, and diversifying information diets. That practice supports becoming a truly educated person by cultivating independent judgment, reducing susceptibility to manipulation, and enabling constructive civic participation.

Media, Power, and the Truly Educated 

Person: A Critical Reflection:

In the age of digital media, culture is no longer something we merely inherit it is something we scroll, click, and stream. Dilip Barad’s insightful blog on Cultural Studies: Media, Power, and Truly Educated Person provides a framework for understanding how deeply media and power intertwine in shaping modern culture and how education must evolve in response. Drawing from thinkers like Matthew Arnold, Raymond Williams, Noam Chomsky, and Michel Foucault, Barad situates Cultural Studies as a lens through which we can understand not only art or communication but also the very structure of social life. Reflecting on his blog and my own media experiences, I argue that power today operates primarily through media; that education must prioritize critical media literacy as a form of civic empowerment; and that being “truly educated” means cultivating the capacity to question, interpret, and create meaning independently in a world saturated with information and influence.

Media and Power: The Invisible Architecture of Influence:

Barad’s blog underscores that any serious study of culture today must begin with a study of power. Cultural Studies, he writes, “is incomplete without the study of ‘Power,’” and in our times, “Media is the tool to control the perceptions and the subject.” This relationship between media and power is not new, but its reach has become more intimate. Power no longer merely speaks from podiums it speaks through our feeds, our screens, and our notifications.

Noam Chomsky’s “Five Filters” of media Ownership, Advertising, Media Elite, Flack, and the Common Enemy are particularly illuminating here. They show that the messages we receive are not neutral reflections of reality but products of institutional interests. Media outlets are owned by corporations whose revenue depends on advertisers, who in turn shape what is reportable and how it is framed. News producers rely on elite sources government officials, CEOs, experts whose authority sets the boundaries of what counts as “truth.” Those who challenge dominant narratives face “flack,” or organized pushback that disciplines dissent. Finally, the constant identification of a “common enemy” unites audiences around fear and nationalism, deflecting attention from systemic problems.

In practice, this means that much of what we consume is designed to reinforce existing power structures. For example, coverage of labor strikes often focuses on inconvenience to the public rather than the workers’ grievances, subtly positioning capital as the victim. Similarly, social media platforms reward outrage and simplicity over nuance, creating echo chambers that fragment public understanding. As Chomsky warned in Manufacturing Consent, the media does not tell us what to think, but it does tell us what to think about and, crucially, what not to think about.

In my own experience, I’ve noticed how this dynamic plays out in algorithmic media. My news feed seems tailored to my ideological comfort zone. When I linger on a video about climate change or political reform, similar content floods my recommendations, reinforcing a sense of moral clarity. While this feels empowering, it can also be a form of soft manipulation: I see the world through a personalized filter designed to maximize engagement, not understanding. This algorithmic curation is the new face of power subtle, invisible, and effective precisely because it feels like choice.

Cultural Practices and the Politics of Representation:

Cultural Studies teaches us that media not only conveys information but also constructs identity. Barad points to theorists like Raymond Williams and poststructuralists who view culture as “everyday life as really lived.” Media representations, then, are not passive mirrors but active producers of social reality. Who is visible, how they are represented, and whose stories are silenced all reveal the workings of power.

For marginalized communities, representation has long been a battleground. When mainstream films, advertisements, or news outlets portray certain groups through stereotypes whether as perpetual victims, criminals, or side characters they reinforce structural inequalities by making them seem natural. Growing up, I noticed that Indian and South Asian characters in Western media were often reduced to comic relief or exotic background figures. These portrayals shape how others perceive us, but more dangerously, how we perceive ourselves.

Yet, as Barad hints, media is not only an instrument of domination it can also be a tool of resistance. The democratization of production through digital platforms has enabled counter-narratives to emerge. Independent creators, citizen journalists, and grassroots movements now use media to challenge dominant discourses. The #MeToo movement, for instance, began as a digital act of testimony and became a global reckoning with gendered power. Similarly, indigenous activists use social media to preserve languages and challenge colonial histories. These examples show that while media can reproduce hierarchy, it can also redistribute voice.

The challenge is that the same structures enabling resistance can also dilute or commodify it. When a social justice hashtag becomes a marketing slogan, its radical potential is defanged. Cultural Studies helps us see this co-optation as a key strategy of power: transforming critique into consumption. This is why critical awareness not mere participation is essential.

Education and the Formation of the Truly Educated Person:

In the final section of his blog, Barad invokes Noam Chomsky’s definition of a “truly educated person.” According to Chomsky, true education is not about covering content but about discovering meaning. A truly educated person, he says, is one who can “inquire and create constructively, independently, without external controls.” In other words, education should cultivate the ability to think critically, question authority, and generate original ideas qualities essential for navigating the complex relationship between media and power.

Traditional education, however, often does the opposite. It rewards memorization over curiosity and compliance over critique. Students learn what to think, not how to think. Cultural Studies disrupts this model by encouraging students to “question one discipline with the findings of another,” and to see knowledge as contextual, contested, and political. This interdisciplinary approach fosters what Paulo Freire called conscientização, or critical consciousness the awareness of one’s social reality and the capacity to act upon it.

Critical media literacy, therefore, should be at the heart of modern education. It involves more than fact-checking or spotting fake news; it is about understanding the political economy of media, recognizing framing and bias, and interpreting cultural texts as products of power relations. When students learn how to “read” media as discourse examining who created it, for whom, and why they begin to reclaim their agency as interpreters rather than consumers.

For example, when analyzing a news report, a critically literate reader might ask: Who owns this outlet? What language is used to describe different actors? Whose perspectives are missing? When I started applying these questions in my own reading habits, I noticed patterns I had previously ignored: how corporate media softens the language of economic inequality (“market correction” instead of “mass layoffs”), or how global conflicts are often narrated from a Western vantage point. This awareness doesn’t make me immune to influence, but it makes me conscious of it and that consciousness is the first step toward intellectual freedom.

Media Literacy as Empowerment

Media literacy is not merely an academic skill; it is a civic necessity. In a world where misinformation spreads faster than verified facts, the ability to evaluate sources critically is essential to democratic participation. Moreover, as the boundaries between producer and consumer blur through social media, citizen journalism, and digital storytelling every individual becomes both a reader and a writer of culture. Thus, education must teach not only analysis but also ethical creation: how to use media responsibly to inform, challenge, and inspire.

Schools and universities can foster this by integrating media analysis into all subjects, not just communication studies. A science student should examine how media frames scientific issues like climate change or vaccines; a literature student should study how storytelling conventions influence empathy and ideology. Such cross-disciplinary engagement mirrors Barad’s point that Cultural Studies “breaks the difference between high and low culture” and teaches students to connect the dots between disciplines, discourses, and daily life.

Ultimately, critical media literacy cultivates humility. It reminds us that no perspective is absolute and that truth is often constructed through competing narratives. A truly educated person, therefore, is not one who knows all the answers but one who knows how to ask better questions.

Becoming a Truly Educated Person in a Media-Saturated World:

To be truly educated in today’s media-saturated world means learning to navigate the tension between connection and control. Media connects us to global knowledge and diverse voices, yet it also subjects us to surveillance, manipulation, and distraction. The educated person must therefore balance openness with skepticism, participation with reflection.

From Barad’s blog and Chomsky’s reflections, several qualities emerge as hallmarks of true education:

Curiosity — the desire to understand rather than merely consume.

Critical Awareness — the habit of questioning sources, motives, and representations.

Creativity — the capacity to produce new meanings, not just repeat inherited ones.

Empathy — the recognition of other voices and perspectives, especially those marginalized by dominant media.

Courage — the willingness to challenge authority and risk being “politically incorrect” in pursuit of truth.

When education fosters these qualities, it transforms from rote training into liberation. It equips individuals not just to adapt to society but to imagine it differently.

Conclusion: Reading Power, Writing Freedom

As Dilip Barad’s blog reminds us, Cultural Studies is not merely an academic exercise it is a form of social awakening. To study culture critically is to study ourselves: how we are shaped by media, how we internalize power, and how we might reclaim agency. In an era where algorithms curate belief and perception, the intersection of media, power, and education determines not just what we know but who we become.

To be truly educated today is to see the strings of power without becoming cynical, to consume media without being consumed by it, and to turn information into insight. It is, as Chomsky puts it, to “formulate serious questions” and “find your own way.” If media is the new battleground of power, then education critical, creative, and compassionate is our most vital form of resistance.

References:

- Barad Dilip. “Cultural Studies: Media, Power and Truly Educated Person.” 22 March 2017, https://blog.dilipbarad.com/2017/03/cultural-studies-media-power-and-truly.html. Accessed 27 October 2025.

- Bavel, Jay Van. “ Do Politics Make Us Irrational?” YouTube, youtu.be/8yOoOL9PC-o?si=7kfO1HtWI6VlfTFb. Accessed 27 October 2025. 

- “How to Understand Power - Eric Liu.” YouTube, YouTube, youtu.be/c_Eutci7ack?si=ETh5_wE280DZn4cP. Accessed 27 October 2025.

“ Noam Chomsky - Manufacturing Consent.” YouTube, youtu.be/tTBWfkE7BXU?si=xL0JhxWPcbol-Eh0. Accessed 27 October 2025. 

Thank You