pg. 70-80.q.3

so... are we just getting what we want, or are our wants being produced? it's hard to say and there probably is not a correct answer. saying that it's both is probably the closest you can get to really coming to an answer.
i would say that some of it IS what we want- because somewhere someone thought of creating it, or publishing it, or airing it, or selling it- most likely because it was something that they wanted to see happen, and they figured they probably weren't alone in that opinion. for instance, i don't think i could say that the media has produced society's 'want' to laugh. everybody likes to laugh- so why not produce a comedy? but then again there are shows like Real World and it makes me think- is this show really necessary? and i say that even as a Real World fan- well, at least until the couple most recent seasons. I do enjoy watching 7 strangers get drunk, hook up, cat-fight, fist fight, and pour out their emotions and flaunt their personal issues- but why? I have no frickin' clue- and that's where i start giving the media the hairy eyeball. so to be general I'll say that America loves reality t.v., drama, violence, comedy, blah, blah, blah... but maybe we only enjoy these things and other aspects of the media culture because (to throw in an analogy) the fire keeps getting fed. and even though we do love to laugh, what makes the things we laugh at funny? why do we even think they're funny in the first place? it's almost like the media gives us what we want, and in between those wants they weave in things that we'll probably grown to want, then those wants will be fed whil again we start to form new wants and it just keeps snowballing. and i don't think that it is necessarily bad or good to have it either way (whether we're given what we want or that our wants or produced).
the media is a big part of our lives, and it's not going away anytime soon. i'm not saying that we should just all become media-fed robots and just sit back and take it in bc there's nothing we can really do- however I do believe that we do have an amount of control over our minds, and wants, and actions, and all that jazz- and if people really did have a problem with the media then we should all turn off our televisions, stop reading... everything, and cancel our accounts with our internet service providers (but then blogging for this class might be difficult).