So do we control the media or does it control us? What we get fed at 5 and 10 at night...was that what we asked for?
I'm becoming progressively aware of the tension between what we call news and what we call entertainment. Meshed together in that ever present, grey, media blender we call our television. I wonder, in the world of media buy-outs, corporate ownership and media saturation, who's actually making the calls on what we hear, see and feel. Who makes the calls on our reality?
In the media's defense no one wants to come home after a long hard day of work and hear about how the world is going to hell in a hand basket. But where does that fall in line with the idea of painting an accurate and unbiased picture of the world in which we live?
Perhaps it has something to do with the idea of relevancy. So what's relevant to us? What directly effects us? As participants in the global community is there anything that happens on this planet that doesn't effect us in some fashion? To a certain degree.
An idealistic turn of events in my mind in regards to the news networks methods of broadcasting would be an initiative to really tell us what's going on in the world with a call to get involved in some way. If there's something going on in Uganda then that's what they tell us and they would follow that up with some information on how we could make a difference.
Maybe I'm being naive and overly optimistic.
The quicker the internet destroys television the better. But then again can the internet be bought?
Suspicion and paranoia take flight!
4 comments:
I wish that I could say that I thought the internet would help at all, but the truth is that most of our information is skewed to some degree no matter what the source. There is no "objective news".
This probably is what fuels so much of my "go and see" mentality...or at least "study and see"...
I don't know if that makes me a pessimist, realist or idealistic. Ha.
Or all three.
Unless we can over come the laziness that's descriptive of the society in which we find ourselves we will never evolve into a more correctly informed society.
Study and see requires effort and energy and so long as we continue to self-indulge, only allowing what we want to hear to enter our psyche, we will be slaves to our own emotions and at the mercy of the ones who have power over our media saturated minds.
Perhaps cynicism, skepticism and paranoia will drive the general public to take a more proactive stance in collecting the elements that make up their perception of the world.
I don't know that the state of the media is unique to out culture/society/government. One of the inherent qualities of power - when it is being misused - is that those who possess it will try and conceal the way that it is being misused. It has always been that the powers that be attempt to appear as good no matter how bad they actually are... and by nature of the fact that they possess power, they have the ability to conceal wrongdoing quite well. Especially in a globalized world, that is why it is so difficult to keep track of everything that's going wrong: a lot of it is bad and the people behind it don't want it to be widely known, and with so much for the media consumer to keep track of a lot ends up going uninvestigated.
I believe you're right Seth. The idea that absolute power corrupts absolutely does seem to be universal.
In this case, unlike many who suffer under those who hold power over them, the powerful are dethroned with relative ease by the masses. Providing that the masses chose to turn to alternative sources for their information. Agreed?
Therein lies the crux I suppose.
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