When reading media through the lens of Marxism, some of the main things to be looked at are social class (or the idea of there being a social hierarchy of some sort) and the balance of power. A main focus of Marxism is to look at power structures in society. The "ruling class" tends to be the people who have more economic and/or social power or people who seem to set the societal "norms", while those who are not in that class have less and must follow the norms. Oftentimes, social class plays into how much power a certain group has, so looking at media through a marxist lens, one may look at what the norms are in a society. Conformity (as well as nonconformity) is something to keep in mind when analyzing media through a marxist lens. Who sets the norms? Who demonstrates more power in a relationship? These are things to keep in mind when looking at power structures. A main focus of Marxism is to look at who is in power, who is not, and how that, in turn, shapes our society.
Media reflects a society's ideology and norms based on how they portray different characters in TV shows as well as how they present information in programs such as the news, so Marxism allows us to analyze these things that we might not otherwise notice because we are so used to seeing them.
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