Controling the controller

We had a seminar today: 'Media in transitional societies' by Professor Colin Sparks from Westminster University.

He was trying to "explain" the role of media in transitional societies, with a focus on China, Russia, and Poland and I think the very source of my problem with it lies in the word "explaining."

if there are three methods of research (or ways of knowing), i.e. description, explanation, and interpretation, I think at the core of the first two lies the ultimate but latent goal of "control."

We explain things to be able to control them, and in this context, the fact that this approach has been the dominant approach toward sciences, even human science, since the Enlightenment in Europe is very telling. They wanted to explain better their colonies to control them better. Explanation is always about control.

What the lecturer was doing today was an attempt to explain the relationship between the media and the masses in a transitional society, or how the media controls the masses in those societies. In other words, he was trying to control the very control the media applies on the masses.