As a media consumer, I am very careful as to how I procure my information. With the uprise of the filter bubble and the skewed views that are represented through news outlets, it becomes more apparent how critical we as a society must become of the media. So do we get the media that we want or do we want the media that we get?
I have developed a habit that I feel is beneficial to my consumption of media; for every tabloid or unsubstantial piece I read or listen to, I locate an article that has mean or insightful journalism, or is even the defying argument of what I had just read. This ensures that I nourish a well rounded appetite for media. However, despite this routine, I find my newsfeeds and new papers flooded with headlines that are not what I am looking for but are geared by my perceived interests. The unavoidable filter bubble on my computer does a great job of skewing my browsing to what they have predicted my interests to be.
That being said I don’t doubt the media machines making profit “education and informing” society have a heavy hand in what is flashing across my screen. O’Shaughnessy and Stadler explore this notion in the textbook “This is not to say that the media set out with this educational -teaching- agenda in mind, or that they are necessarily even conscious of what they are doing, but that the influence they have on us as we grow up, reading and consuming the media, is to give us these patterns that explain how we will see ourselves and others, how we will understand gender, race, and our own identities as men or women with particular national, cultural, and religious identities. “ (page 35). It is too easy for us as consumers to become a cog in the media machine that is more interested in churning out a profit than the truth.
We are at the mercy of the media in terms of the perspective we receive on events and groups of individuals, despite how adverse we are in our browsing. Exploring this further in the text, “In general, Western democratic societies have found ways to maintain social stability at the same time as maintaining social inequalities. They have succeeded in influencing the perceptions, beliefs, and values of many people, but winning their hearts and minds so they accept the status quo” (page 34). It is all too common for society to form opinions of events or groups of individuals based on a collection of carefully pointed stories.
I think it is very easy to find media that we don’t want but are taught to think we want it. It has become the norm to have to comb through the muck of media to find stories that are of your interest or that are valid pieces of journalism. And society is getting very good at that.
O’Shaughnessy, M., & Stadler, J. (2012).Media and Society (Fifth Edition ed.). Australia: Oxford University Press.
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