Barthes/Foucault, and the media training our minds

Side note: Just saw this on NPR's website and had to share. We've brought in up in class before, so it's not completely off subject.

I’ve studied Barthes and Foucault in a Modern Lit Theory class, so a lot of what I have to say is probably less about media/communication and more about literature. Semiology, as I understand it, is all about finding meaning in a text without implying societal or cultural influences, and strictly focusing on the text itself, the differences that appear within it, and its “signs”. It is obvious that Barthes is a great proponent for this, based upon his extensive essay on the subject. He is heavily concerned with myth, which he separates from language. I guess this is where the argument about media influence comes in. The assumption that self is derived from media consumption is troubling to me. Foucault believes it is the author of a work, who must without appearing outright, describe and embody the cultural and historical aspects of that work to the audience. Rather than Structuralism, Foucault has been called a proponent of Cultural Poetics/New Historicism, which implies, “We must know...the societal concerns of the author, of the historical times evidenced in the work, and of other cultural elements exhibited in the text before we can devise a valid interpretation” (Bressler 219). Where Barthes believes the meaning in a text lies in the text itself through its signs, Foucault implies that a reader must look further to derive an interpretation. He states in his essay on the author that, “...the function of an author is to characterize the existence, circulation, and operation of certain discourses within a society” (bottom 452; 6). If we think about the author as the media, then they certainly do just that. Advertising companies target specific groups of people in order to appeal to a sense of cultural and societal understanding within those groups. Modern media messages, like those delivered through television, radio, and the internet, are widely influential on the kind of person someone can turn out to be. In the search for individuality, people tend to migrate between established groups that the media already acknowledges. Currently, it is becoming harder to find a space to call your own, when so many products are pushed as necessities that are otherwise unnecessary to living. I’m afraid we’re all becoming pre-packaged people that the media can manipulate into wanting and “needing”, even believing, things that we otherwise wouldn’t without their influence.