Media Mania Part I

Last semester as I browsed through the long list of available liberal arts courses, the course name “Media Studies” immediately caught my interest. In just a couple of class sessions, I’ve already begun to be more aware of the huge influx of media constantly surrounding me. Thus, it becomes pertinent to one’s success in any industry, business in particular, that one is able to effectively manipulate according to one’s personal interests. The question then becomes, what exactly are media? In Media Studies, the first day of class we defined media as the plural of medium, which is defined as any technology used to communicate thoughts. Unfortunately, when thoughts or ideas are mediated into our homes, classrooms, and general society, the biases and personal perspectives of the source are also absorbed. This makes nearly every piece of “information” received from media, essentially distorted and flawed in that it contains the distinct opinion and perspective of another.
One need not question why media are such big players in today’s society. Every piece of knowledge we hold as true is provided via the mass media. In school, we learn from books, a medium that conveys information through written material. At home, we learn of current events through the news, which is an unbeatable combination of text, sound, and images, or read the newspaper, which through images and text, convey information about our neighborhood, region, country, and world. If one truly begins to evaluate the extent of power and presence media holds in our society, our utter dependence upon it to function, to think, and, essentially, to survive is revealed. Thus, Gitlin’s media “torrent” begins to be fully realized.
I must admit, I initially found Gitlin’s theory on the inundation of media as an elaborate exaggeration. For me, his accounts in the introduction of “Media Unlimited” portrayed a world more similar to Aldous Huxley’s fictional “Brave New World” than the world in which I reside. In my opinion, his concept on the omnipresence of media and the notion that we seem completely unaware of the true extent of its presence, and inadvertently, its influence in society, portrays humans as mindless beings merely living under the illusion of free thought and free choice. Though it was later clarified in class that Gitlin is not proposing any brainwashing or menacing scheme behind the presence of media, I still initially felt that Gitlin gave media way too much leverage to mass media’s role in today’s society. It wasn’t until I was preparing to write this blog on how Gitlin’s theory on the “media torrent” was bogus, and how though there is a strong presence of media, it is not nearly as powerful as he proposed, I realized that…he was right. For as I sat down and prepared to write the paper, I couldn’t even begin to write my thoughts down without plugging in the ear buds of my Ipod. Then, I thought back to how I completely dropped whatever I was doing to watch the Season Premiere of Top Model a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps the reason I initially rejected Gitlin’s preface is because doing so meant turning the microscope onto my own life and recognizing all of the ways I, myself, am influenced by media. I was (and yet am) definitely uncomfortable with the sudden awareness of the huge influence of media in my everyday life. Though I doubt this awareness will make me change my habits, it will certainly make me more a more conscious-consumer of the mass media. I am suddenly extremely sensitive to its presence. It’s like awakening from a mind-numbing stupor, or, to use an example more pertinent to the class, like Neo when he took the little pill that allowed him to see through the illusions of reality and finally view his world as it really was. Thanks to my mere two weeks in Media Services, I’m developing the ability to see through all the fluff.