Wanted: The media that we need

This post is an appropriate extension to the question of wanting the media we get. If you change the idea of getting to needing, then even more questions can be raised; firstly, what is meant by need and the media we need. For sake of argument “need” can be said to be “inform you about social, political, cultural, and economic matters. This is due to my belief that as humans we should and need to be informed about the world around us and in which we live. Does the media we want give this to us? Media is not in the business of presenting information that promotes informed opinions and critical thought.  My previous argument was based around the media we want not being our own desires, but rather the desires of the media which have been socialized into us. So is this socialization and constant repetition of certain values the media we need? No, it simply does not function in a manner as to fulfill our needs.

The media are in and of themselves a social and cultural force in western society, the problem with this is their bias towards one way of being (that of consumerism) over other ways of being. This bias is one of them main reasons that the media fails our needs, they socialize us to see the world this one way. If the media was to truly being one that we needed than it would present multiple ideas, and have the ability to step back from itself and its own beliefs. Kelsey Spanik may have unintentionally reinforced or reflected this belief by saying “Now don’t get me wrong I can admit 100% to dying for the newest IPhone to come out so I can purchase it” (http://kelseyspanik.wordpress.com/). I am not saying that Kelsey is lesser for speaking in a culturally normal way; my point is that if media was really something that fulfilled our needs, it would not present consumerism as the only way.

This single representation of media can spread further than just consumers, It can also be perpetuated through political means. Veronica Field makes an interesting point when she talks about Syria: “Somewhere between what is happening in Syria, the reporters out on the field getting a live-action idea of what’s happening there, and the viewer watching at home, there is someone whose job it is to determine whether or not the representations of these occurrences are newsworthy and whether or not to pursue them any further” (http://veronicatmeow.blogspot.ca/). Media has a choice to represent information to us in a way that they so desire. If I was to make an example of this it would be through the conflicts in Israel, Western media often talks about Palestinian bombings of Israeli occupied territories, but rarely ever mentions the fact that Israel has been illegally occupying parts of other countries and building illegal settlements on that land for years. Due to political ties with Israel most American media sources will always reflect positively towards Israel. This is media not giving the information that we as citizens need to make decisions, the Medias intent is not to inform people of the information they need to make political or social decisions, but instead is aimed towards not informing people of the world in which they live.

This information is harder to attain because being bread in a world of consumers, we are taught that what is presented to us is all we should want and all we need to know. Alexandra Town said “A lot of the media is closely monitored and censored so as to not offend or disturb the viewers to extreme levels” (http://allietowne1613.wordpress.com/). Now this quote was about television but I think it speaks nicely of this idea about how media is presented in such a way as to avoid making a ripple. The less ripple, the less people will think about it, which is why the media we get/want is not the media we need.