Module 3 Reading Reflection
When I started this week’s readings, I noticed “Attention” was the theme. I did not know what to expect with the readings from this week. This week’s readings and YouTube videos, like my other classmates, struck a chord with me. They were powerful and left the audience thinking about the issues that came up with them.
I will start with the child poverty topic, rather than separate by each individual reading. I started this week by analyzing the photo collection by Fricat in 2008. I grew up poor; there were days I could not eat or take a proper bath because bills were not paid on time. My mother and I were never on welfare checks, but we ate (what she called) Poorman’s Dishes. Looking at the photo collection I was reminded of those dishes. My mother was able to make a large meal with a little bit of food. I think my favorite was Frito Pie: Fritos, beans, cheese, and meat. Looking at this photo collection allowed me to look at different Poorman’s Dishes.
I continued onto the YouTube videos about poverty (can you tell that I did not want to read, just yet?) and was floored with the media’s attention to detail (or lack thereof) of poverty. Edelman reported on (the video came from Children’s Defense Fund) the costs of getting children out of poverty and locking up criminals for small misdemeanors and felonies. I was infuriated with this report; the government is willing to spend more on small time criminals than poor children? I can’t respond to this, my whole reflection will be an infuriated rant on this, and I still have other videos and readings to tackle. Children’s Defense Fund released another video on the children’s perspective of living in poverty. I was instantly in tears when the first boy started singing. This video provided a perspective that often goes unnoticed. This video needs to become viral, so there is more attention on the matter. I think paying attention to the suffering children will cause a larger movement to start; no one wants to see children suffer.
To go on a quick tangent: the attention economy that Lanksheer and Knobel explained in 2001. “Attention, unlike information, is inherently scarce. This, says Goldhaber (1998b: n.p.), is because ‘each of us has only so much of it to give, and [attention] can only come from us‐not machines, computers or anywhere else’.” (Lanksheer & Knobel, 2) This quote accurately describes what I was hinting at when I stated that the children’s perspectives on poverty should become viral. We, as humans, are paying more attention to the government and putting small time criminals away for ridiculous amounts of time, than we are to children in poverty. If we invested more time into paying attention to issues like child poverty, then we would see a change.
Back on track! Some of my classmates were highly upset about how the media portrays poverty. I agree with their distaste and anger towards the media for portraying poverty in such a terrible light. (Kuper, 2013) (Ridgeway, 2013) Some cases though, poverty is not even mentioned at all. (DeMause, 2007) Poverty is not something that can be romanticized. Not eating dinner some nights, power going out randomly, not being able to have hot water, none of these things are “less than ideal,” These things are more than “less than ideal”; they are humiliating and heartbreaking. We need to invest our attention into issues like these to see a change. None of us want to live in poverty ridden conditions, but why are we willing to watch someone else suffer?
Onto the final topic of violence and media literacy. Like my other classmates, I am a gamer. I was inufruated by the results; I have seen many studies linking video games to child violence. I have seen all the negative comments regarding this issue. Sternheimer was a devil’s advocate in this situation and posed a lot of questions that debunked said studies and negative comments. My classmate, Audriana Moore said something that I completely agree with: “I believe that the claim that depictions of violence in video games and other sources of media create and encourage young children to go out and become deadly imitators of what they see is completely off the mark. I think that factors such as economic, social, and family relationships are a more decisive factor on a child’s aggressive tendencies, as does Sternheimer. (Sternheimer, 2013)” I think she worded this idea wonderfully. Responsibility of child violence does not lie with the creator of the video games. I think responsibility lies with the child itself. Biological and environmental factors come into play, and although it is a child, there is still agency in decisions that are being made. Starting at a young age, children know what is right and wrong.
This weeks readings and assignments were eyeopening and brought up some interesting ideas that my classmates and I acknowledged and analyzed.
