Bp Oil Spill Narrative Essay

Television if full of advertisement and propaganda. As well as the internet with advertisement popups and clips on the sides of every webpage. Propaganda is information put out by an organization or government to promote and idea or cause. Many of these are misleading and bias, trying to make you believe in the same things they do and convince you to participate in whatever cause they are in. Think about some of the commercials you seen on television such as news reports, movies, political ads, and recall ads.
The most memorable to me are recall ads such as lawyers making announcements for medicines and compensation. As well as when election time comes around and all of the runners are putting their names out there. Also, every day, watching the news on new crimes going on in the world and previews for my next favorite movie. Those are all different techniques of propaganda. The purpose of me writing this essay is to show you the propaganda in a simple informative commercial or newscast. My main focus will be on the BP oil spill.
The first sociology theory I will compare with is symbolic interactionism. Symbolic interactionism is the use of symbols or face to face interaction. The way that this relates to the BP oil spill is the way that the owner of the company, Kenneth R. Fineburg, said that he was going to help and compensate the victims of the oil spill. Commercials and speeches were made about his plans to pay back for the damage and loss of wages that his company had caused the Gulf of Mexico and victims.

The second theory will be functionalism. Functionalism is the relationship between parts of society. In this situation, the society came together and fought to be compensated to get their lost wages back. Claiming they have mortgages, bills, car payments, and children to pay for and they have not been working in 8 months. Citizens of the affected area appeared on news cast and commercials were made explaining their situations, trying to reach out to someone that they needed help.
The last theory is the conflict theory. Conflict theory means competition of scarce resources or the elite control the poor and weak. This relates to this situation as the big man, Mr. Fineburg, having the money and resources to help the people out with their lost wages. As, well his colleagues were trying to tell him that he was over compensating the victims. They had all of the control over whether or not the victims were going to be able to get paid and bailed out of this mess that one man was responsible for.
In conclusion, propaganda was used in ways to reach out to people about the real problems going on in the Gulf of Mexico during the time of the BP oil spill. I used the 3 main theories of sociology to compare how each of them relates to the oil spill. The rich over powering the poor, how society came together to get help, and the interaction between the people when the word needed to be put out. RESOURCE Schwartz, J. (2011, February 17). Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Blog. Retrieved from http://gulfofmexicooilspillblog. com/2011/02/17/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-blog-bp-propaganda/