Module 5 Reflections
This weeks readings all mostly encompassed the same themes. Representation, and media. I’ve been reading a lot about how media affects politics, especially in my political science class last semester, but it’s interesting to read and learn about it in a more media literate sense.
I think it’s absolutely astonishing the way that press has evolved from a source of importance, to a source of sensationalism. I also think that’s its so sad that “trending” topics are what get prime time spots over equal representation in current events. As the reading The rise and fall of professional Journalism, I think it was interesting what the last slide said: “The problems with our journalism are not because the people who run our newsrooms and media corporations are bad people (McChesney, 2002).” I think a lot of people tend to put a lot of their discontent about media on specific TV personalities, and I think it’s very unfair. It’s interesting, but unfair. I also never thought about democracy and news in the way we did here. I never thought about democracy being taken away by the congregation and merging of major news corporations (Tollefson, n.d.) and the lack of new information because each company is reusing content.
The lack of representation has been an issue since we became a country. As a country, we’re still new. We’re still developing, and new social issues are arising every day as we work out kinks that haven’t been resolved yet, due to differences in views in how the country should be run (Student News Daily, 2010). The reading and video about representation in the news media (Hart, 2014 & Global Media Marketing Project, 2015) was quite astonishing. It’s just raw data, but the inferences that can be made from these sources is still a good way to open our eyes about this issue of under-representation.
Chapter 10 and 11 of our textbook were also very interesting. I think it’s interesting that a lot of parents blame advertisers/ments for their lack of willpower and discipline (read: teaching) their kids to learn about consumerism and excessive wants. This is my personal opinion of course, and everyone is free to go against my own opinion to tell me why I should consider another side. Even back in the last module, where we read about advertisements and obesity (Sternheimer, 2013). I always think to myself, that it’s crazy how parents can blame advertisements when kids aren’t the ones who have the money or the means to buy these things that are advertised to children. The fact that parents would rather “shut their kids up” by giving them things shows an issue that wouldn’t be resolved by getting rid or regulating advertisements.
Chapter 11 of our textbook really zones in on the issues of why we have problems with media in the first place. It all centers in on equality– or inequality, rather; and the absence of representation to make these issues known, and into popular culture. I have to completely agree with the text here, that the lack of representation in our media, and thus our popular culture, all try to paint a much different, more positive one (Sternheimer, 2013). One that creates illusions for our youth, who are usually the first to learn these messages. With the introduction of media literacy, the negative depictions and messages in our media would be less effective towards our youth, who as mentioned before, pick up these messages usually first.
