Blog #6 p. 79 Q3

I don't believe that the media is simly or strictly one or the other- I think that some of it IS what the people want, and some of the people's wants are produced. I think that in the movies and the tv and the news, it is what we want- we want to be entertained and informed. If it were the other way around, there would only be one genre of movies for example. We want violence and sex. I WANTED that hot bathtub scene in The Fountain. If we don't want it, we turn the channel, put in a different movie or pick up a different book. Commercials and ads and billboards are where industry is telling us what we want- they're telling us that we'll be cool if we smoke these cigarettes, they're telling us that we'll be happier with Comcast digital voice. This chapter was a lot of information to take in, as was that packet. But, at the end of it, I get the picture. Corporate and Political types pick and choose what we take in, but that doesn't mean it controls us- in the end, while we are still influenced by all of it, we still make our own decision about it. I think our ability to read media changes just as much as our connotations about the meanings of words do. If someone from 100 years ago were to watch TV today, she would probably take it in MUCH differently than I would.


PS. The whole controlled news thing is appalling.