Reward: and informed generation
Have you ever hard someone having a discussion regarding politics, and you surprise yourself by understanding what they are talking about? This happens because we have such easy access to information that sometimes we don’t even realize that we are learning it. In today’s society it is very easy to learn about social, political, cultural, economic matters, as it can be accessed through the Internet, the newspaper, the television, magazines, and books, almost everywhere!
People today, especially teenagers and children are very vulnerable to the media. We have grown up with it constantly shoving things at us, telling us we need new bikes, toys, and computer games. Often times we do not even realize we are absorbing these things. Melissa Aichele stated “The influential industry has been able to sneak its way into our thoughts and emotions by what is called a conscious industry.” She goes on to state that ‘conscious industry’ controls the masses by manipulating their feelings, and then uses their control to make money.
Lets face the facts, few people my age sit down and turn the television on to the CNN or Global News. People who have not grown up with the Internet and smart phones may begin to think that we do not know what is going on in the world, but this is absolutely not the case. Cale McDonald expressed “I may pass up [the opportunity to] actually sit through a news broadcast to get my world wide news, there are many news outlets such as twitter or different news apps where I can instantly access top quality news that interests me.” This expresses the way many people access their news, personally I check my twitter at least once a day to see what is trending around the world. Although we may not be seen sitting down every night to watch the news, global occurrences still reach us through social media.
The generation before me remembers that if your friends moved away, you would for sure lose contact with them. By choosing to telephone someone, we are missing out on some learning experiences. Inventions such as skype have made it easy to learn about culture, you can actually see what your friends house looks like, how the weather is, or what clothes they are wearing. If your friends or family members go on vacation, skype and facetime allow you to experience parts of the world as if you were there. Classmate Tiziana D’Alesio recalls the iPhone “Apple’s technology […] has become a revolution of social networking. They have a simple policy: to bring global communication together.” When we are facetiming someone, we may not realize the culture we are absorbing.
Many of my classmates shared the same opinions as me, that we affect the media as well as it affecting us. The choices that we make everyday can determine how much we learn about political, the economical, social and political matters. The media makes every effort it can to reach us, but in the end, the choices we make effect which parts of the media reach us
Melissa Aichele- http://melissaaichele.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/1f25-post-1-media-impact/
Cale McDonald- http://cm11ll.wordpress.com/
Tiziana D’Alesio- http://tizid1995.wordpress.com
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