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.

The media we want?

It may be easy to say that as consumers we have the final say in all decisions in what we consume. How would it be possible that the media, a series of industries, can have any effect on what consumers do? Surely they are only there in response to consumer’s wants and desires. In essence Consumers get the media they want, but no it might not always seem this way. Media has a far greater influence in consumer decisions than can been seen at first glance. Consumers actually want the media they get.

A little clarification might be in order here; there is a subtle change in language but a profound change in meaning when you change the “get” to a “want”. If the consumer wants what they get, than that means that the consumer desires what is given to them. But how can it be that industries meant to serve the consumer don’t just give the consumer what they want? It is to do with the fact that they are consumers, they are raised to desire things; those things are given to them by the media. Though the media doesn’t just give, it also forms the ideas and the desires of the consumer. How can they give you something if you don’t want it? This idea is formed because media products do not show or present the real world; they construct and represent reality (Media and Society pp 36). Since media represents reality, they have incredible influence over what and how we see and think about what is presented to us. In Media and society it is said that “They take on an interpretive role, teaching people how to make sense of the world and other people, and of ourselves (pp35).” Since media is designed to create understanding in society, they have incredible influence over what society will want, since they themselves represent and present what society should want.

Media then in turn portrays and conveys the dominant ideology, and since the dominant ideology is on of consumerism and desiring, that is how people think.  If you relate this idea to television, a show may be successful because millions of people watch it and they want more shows like it. But the show itself is a product of media, and is reinforced by the dominant ideology as well as reinforces it. So then why do millions of people watch it? Is it because the viewers wanted the show, or because the show reinforced these media representations of life? It is because they believe that what is being presented to them is what they want.

In the end consumers want what they get, because they desire what media gives them and what media can give them. The basis of understanding the world and what is needed and desired is formed by this ideological implementation that is in the media. Since we live in such a mass mediated society, our thoughts and desires are shown to us through media representation. Consumers may get what they want, as the original argument said, but what they want is based around what the media represents as what they need. Since these representations are what they believe than it would be a logical conclusion to say that we as consumers want what we get. 

Work Cited

O'Shaughnessy, M., Satdler, J. (2012). Media and Society. 5th Ed. South Melbourne, Oxford \University Press

1f25 Blog response1: Media Impact on Others

Sifting through blog posts has left me a little weary, but in the end it has almost perfectly mirrored something that seems to be a common issue among my fellow students, the vastness and the inconsistencies of media.

It seemed to be fairly common among people to say that mass media is a significant influence on their world views, just simply due to the sheer size of the media  and its many potential outlets.  Korrina Charette (lookingformargo.wordpress.com) summed this idea up nicely when she said “In today’s world, we are bombarded with media from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep, whether it be on the internet, the television, or any other form of technology.” The idea that in our society we have constant access to various forms of media is an intriguing idea, in that people are able to get answers (whether they be accurate or false) instantaneously.

Marilyn Lopez (mlsthoughts.wordpress.com) makes the point “Mass media has made it so that every answer to any question is at your fingertips, no need to use your long term memory to store information.” These ideas lead me to believe that my view on mass media may have been too specific. Where I focused on only the seeking out of knowledge, they showed an interesting side mine lacked. Which is that mass media changes my understanding of research and information, on which I rely for my world view.

Korrina Charette also mentions that people are immediately connected to facebook, twitter, tumblr, and any other kind of social media.  The thing that I find troubling about social media is the amount of people and the amount of information that is spread through it. We have all this information at our fingertips, at all times, yet through social media we are not exposed to all of the information. We are exposed to the information shared by our peers, though it may be false or lacking in all the information about the subject, or simply biased. Alexandra Towne (allietowne1613.wordpress.com) said “We all need to make informed decisions about what we see and hear within the media because the media is not always trustworthy when it comes to the facts.” This quote is more along the line of my original argument, that it does not matter what you look up, as much as it matters how you look up and how you think about the material presented to you.

 After looking over these blogs I think it would be fair to say that our understanding of knowledge and information is based off of this access to all material and the vastness of the material. Due to this vastness there are going to be many inconsistencies in the data presented to us, but that alone should not deter critical thought and an attempt to understand the material fully. The fact that people get news and information from social media just means that people should be even more critical of the information they see, and they should go and seek the whole story.

My searching through blogs has lead me to a fuller understanding of mass media’s effect on the mind set of people, which is a rather poetic way to finish an assignment about the effects of media on my worldview.