CFCP Blog Entry: Media we want?

Do we get the media we want, or want the media we get?

Quiet the philosophical question…. So what is it, do we get the media we want, or do we want the media we get? If i thought long and hard about it- but not to long or too hard- i would guess that we, being the very manipulated and easy minded people we are,want the media we get. This means, I believe that the media portrayed to society, is what we want to see. Media companies have figured out how to manipulate society so much so that I feel as if our little droid minds have no idea what we do or do not want. In Chapter nine of Media and Society, discussed is how media, highly depends on “a contextual awareness of how audiences use the media and how media produces and advertisers target audiences”(pp.154). Societies desires in life are solely based on the media theses days. We want to be more beautiful, more happy, more popular (except for me because im perfect… just kidding...sad face), all because the picture depicted in the media is all we see, and all we want. We want the media we get. Even with the world being in a digital divide in which there is an “economic division between people who have access to the new media and those who do not (pp. 117)”, we all fall victim to popular toys, billboards, commercials, fast food symbols ect. If you think about it, we are all the Derek Zoolanders of the media. Doing and saying and wanting anything and everything they throw at us. I feel technology is a huge part as to why we want the media we get. “Why technology per se does not determine technological evolution and social change, technology embodies the capacity of societies to transform themselves” (pp.117). Technology is a huge form of mass media and and as chapter 7 states, it embodies transformation within societies. We have no choice if these transformation occur or not. They just do, because we are a weak minded and easily manipulated society, whether you like it or not, struck out by consumerism and our ever needing want. I sound like a total brute, but what can you do… “If there is anything that this horrible tragedy can teach us, it's that a male model's life is a precious, precious commodity. Just because we have chiseled abs and stunning features, it doesn't mean that we too can't not die in a freak gasoline fight accident.” -zoolander quote…. if you didn't get it.

-Brenda Bouk






Micheal O'Shaughnessy, M., Stadler J. (2012). Media and society . (5th ed., pp. 117-154). Australia : Oxford University Press