Pop Culture

In this weeks chapter of Sternheimer she discusses the issue of drugs and alcohol being promoted through media. Unlike the previous topics we have talked about I do think that media shines a positive light on drugs and alcohol. Before I ever drank I would watch teens drinking on television and it made it seem so fun and consequence free, but now drinking as an adult I do not think that drinking is accurately depicted in the media. Sternhiemer states in the beginning of the chapter “As we will see in this chapter, we tend to associate substance use with teens, despite the fact that adults are more likely to smoke, drink and use illegal substances.” I agree with her in the sense that teens rarely smoke as much as they use to and I know far more adults who get wasted every week than I did as a teen but that doesn’t change the fact that the teens that are being portrayed in media are those of whom are partying and having no consequences of them drinking.

I have always really liked Banksy, I actually have a couple of his pieces of art in my room. I think that all of his work shows a great meaning behind it and I do think that a lot of it has to do with media. I believe that Banksy blames media for a lot of our problems socially, so I do think that his art work would be helpful in media education. However I think that the purpose of media education is to inform children that media can be beneficial if used in the correct manner, so Banksy would be able to show the negative effects of media and allow children to help change those effects.