Module 3
As I started this week’s module, with the “Attention Economy” article I began to ask myself what the majority of my attention goes to. Sadly, the answer to that question was materialistic things that don’t deserve a thing of such scarcity such as my attention. As the week went on, I began to pay attention to what my peers were giving their attention to. Like myself, they were giving their attention to undeserving things. Unfortunately, it takes eye opening/tragic experiences like what happened this weekend in Orlando to shake us up, and awaken ourselves to what is important in life.
The first topic that is covered in this weeks module in the article titled, “Attention Economy” is the idea that our society, which was originally driven by the need for information, is now driven by attention. An attention economy has become the most dominant in today’s society, with everyone seeking desiring attention. According to the article, information economies are based on what is desirable and most scarce. Goldhaber claims that “attention, unlike information is inherently scarce”(Lankshear, 2001). This is proven because Goldhaber then makes the point that “each of us only has so much to give, and can only come from us, not machines or computers” (Lankshear, 2001). I found this articles point to be extremely eye opening, and fascinatingly true. As a society, generally once our needs are met (food, shelter) we go to our desires. Such as things that gain us attention, and meaning. We have become a society seeking for others approval, doing anything to gain attention at all costs. Examples such as celebrities are used, to describe the term “attention rich/wealthy”. Which means to be as open as possible with ones life, and to get more attention that putting out. This point was frightening to me; because it saddens me to see how much attention we give to celebrities and topics of their choosing instead of things such as poverty in America.
Sadly, our society has become one that pays attention to the wrong things. Such as the latest fad/trend, what is going on with sports or the recent hot celebrity. All the while, child hunger and poverty has become one of America’s leading problems. It is a problem that affects a large number of the United States population, however they receive little to no attention among Americans. According to the article, “Poverty’s Poor Show In The Media”, “the media has always ignored the poor, even as the issue of poverty has grown”(Kuper, 2013). He states, this is because “poverty has never been sexy”(Kuper, 2013). This then leads to escapism in society, no one wants to hear it or see it. When the poor people do get media coverage, it was in a derogatory or negative way. Coverage of poverty/the poor in the media is slim to none. The article, “Poverty in the News” brought this to my attention. Prior to these readings, I did not understand the huge social problem we have in our society. FAIR’s three-year study on ABC, CBS, and NBC news networks proved the notion that the media ignores the poor to be true. I was astonished to learn that over the course of three years, between the three large news stations, they did only 58 stories on the issue of poverty in America. This ratio was very eye opening on the power that media has, on what society can pay attention to. The media is in complete control on how the information is spun, and if that information is even brought to our attention in the first place.
There are 72 million children in the United States, and represent 23% of the population, but makeup 33% of all people in poverty (Jiang, 2015). These percentages of children in low-income families vary by age, race/ethnicity, and parent’s nativity, all things that are completely out of the child’s control. These statistics took my breath away when I first read the article, “Facts About Low-Income Children”, partially because the media has never brought the gravity of this large epidemic to my attention. The article, “Four Problems with the Way Media Depict Poor People”,
Focuses on the importance of media being diverse and accurately representing society, which includes the poor. Ridgeway then explains the four ‘problems’ of the way media represents the poor. One, The Poor Are Invisible. Two, The Poor Are Statistics. Three, The Poor Are Poor As A Choice. Four, The Poor are “Down On Their Luck”. These four problems, diminishes their worth as humans, all the while reinforces the notion net worth represents our worth as humans.
One of my favorites, that stuck with me for the remainder of the module were the visuals that were provided. Such as the Youtube video, “The Child Poverty: In their own words”. This stuck with me, because us viewers got to see first hand the struggles and hardships that poverty brought to their lives. I think it is extremely important to see the faces that poverty touches, rather than read statistic and facts about them. Another visual that stuck with me was the photo diary, “Global Food Disparity”. I thought it was extremely interesting to see what each bought with the money weekly. Another thought that crossed my mind was that Coca-Cola products were in a lot of the pictures presented, and I thought Coca-Cola should use their networks to help with poverty around the world.
Prior to this module, and watching Bartholow’s video “Effects of Media Violence”, as well as Karen Sterheimer’s Chapter 5: From Screen to Crime Scene” I had the assumption violent media plays a crucial role towards aggression in children. Violence has been a part of entertainment since the beginning of entertainment. However, one might make the point that the violence shown in media today is much more graphic than the “Great Train Robbery” as compared in the video. The question that is constantly being asked is, “does media violence cause aggression?” According to Bartholomew, the answer of this question is a matter of perspective(level of violence). Such as mass violence, versus aggression.
