BLOG REPLY POST #2

Is the media we want the same as the media we need?

Hello to all,

The media has its own positive and negative attributes. On a positive note, the media allows us to be in touch with important information and events going on throughout the country/world; a crucial necessity for being an up-to-date member of society. A great example is the use of communication technology. Sam Dixon mentioned in his blog that he had emigrated from England; and that the use of mass media allowed him to stay in touch with his family back home.  On a negative note, media has the ability to put their own twists on stories and/or leave out crucial pieces of information, which makes it hard to believe everything we see.  Despite all this, the main mandate of the media is to impress its viewers; give them forms of media that interest them. Consumerism is the base of the media, Adrienne Redka states in her blog that “ With the way advertisements are being portrayed, now a days we see thousands of new things every day that we realize we want and are willing to work long hours for.” I believe the media gives us what we want and tells us why we want it; when that desire turns in to necessity, the media is then giving us what we need.

 Take cable television for example; there are a variety of channels, most channels playing shows and commercials suitable to certain types of personalities (i.e. SportsCentre). Allen Rogers made a very interesting statement that caught my eye: “Because of the consistency with what we actually get, we want what we get because it is what we are used to.” We are so used to what we have been getting in the media, we now want what we have been getting since we can remember. The answer to this blog’s question is located in the development of media as a whole. The reason why the media is flourishing in today’s society is because technology has advanced so much. It acts as a source of information for so many things going on in the world today; it is the reason as to why we have become such a diverse society. Mass Media is so crucial  in today’s world,  it has the power to tell us what we want; and it does exactly that.  I personally believe that we need media to function as a social, futuristic, and multi-cultural society. I also believe that the media has so many forms of itself suitable for so many personalities, the media we want may just be the exact same as the media we need.

Thanks for your time,

Ernest Coetzee (ec12qf)

Allen Rogers - http://arcpcf.blogspot.ca/2013/10/the-media-we-want-or-we-think-we-want.html

Adrienne Redka - http://adriennereds8.wordpress.com/

Sam Dixon - http://adriennereds8.wordpress.com/