Economic Power

Institutional/Financial Power & Mass Media 

Institutional Power is defined as, the ability or official authority to decide what is best for others. The ability to decide who will have access to resources and the capacity to exercise control over others.  I suppose my topic has a lot to do with this.  Considering that our government feels as though it is in their best interest to keep an eye on certain things/people/situations, without our knowledge. Through the media they control what we consume, how we are entertained, and how we think. I feel as though in certain circumstances this is necessary, due to the fact that we have many people that attempt and actually gain access to certain private documentations.  There is constantly someone trying to gain information about certain things that don’t belong to them.  In which case I do understand why the government would want to have a constant watch/an upper hand on certain people that are trying to make our government/country look bad.  Which would then lead us to Edward Snowden, he re-igniting a familiar debate about the balance between state security and individual privacy, the revelations of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden have stalled on matters of regulation and reform, which treat secrecy, securitisation and surveillance largely in procedural terms. (Birchall 2014)

The financial factor on this topic is still an ongoing thing, if you type Edward Snowdens name into google a million things come up about him.  Which makes it pretty clear that some, if not most of the people that are writing about him are getting paid to do so.  That

isn’t even including that numerous interviews that people have had with him and all the news coverage that has been televised on/about him since he leaked all of this private information out to the papers.  When all of this happened in 2013, there wasn’t a news channel that didn’t have something talking about Edward Snowden and his acts of “whistle blowing”

The social significance of this topic is that it is effecting everyone, it is effecting the everyday civilian, our government, even other countries are now looking at the United States in not such a positive way, it has literally effected/is now known by everyone.   By becoming an international fugitive, the National Security Agency leaker may well have succeeded at rallying a good part of the rest of the world around his cause. (Hirsh 2013)  When Edward Snowden leaked this information people began to not trust the United States government, as the information was very shocking to many people.  Which is very understandable, because us as United States citizen expect certain things to be told to us, especially when we feel as though our personal space has been violated.

 

References

Birchall, C. (2014). AESTHETICS OF THE SECRET. New Formations, (83), 25-46

Hirsh, M. (2013, Jun 27). Edward Snowden is riding a global anti-american network. National Journal