Ok, I've spoilered an edit. I tried to keep your langauge and phrasing as much as possible. I left the last sentence alone here, although I'm not really sure exactly what it means and my personal inclination would be to cut it.
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Media is not some horrible, soul stealing monster that waits for us when we wake up in the morning. My idea is more of a window, a computer screen if you will, that allows you to see what you want, and only when and where you want it. It’s a medium.
Of course there are bad places on the internet, of course there’s sex and violence on television, of course popular culture venerates artists who degrade and deface the “old” style of living. This is life and has been as long as there has been civilization. The Iliad has graphic violence caused by illicit extramarital sex. There are pornographic Grecian urns and The Millers Tale isn’t exactly high comedy. This is what happens time and time and time again, in every single society on the face of the earth and in whatever medium they have.
There are plenty of places on the Cape where you wouldn’t go without a few friends; there are countless people in Massachusetts who are not allowed the same freedoms you and I take for granted because people are afraid of them; the United States of America has too many organizations and groups to count that make people cringe when spoken of. Real people do, and say, all sorts of unpleasant things. The only reason why some complain about modern media, is because it allows those unpleasant things to come forward, out of the darkness that is our culture, and into the light. Modern media simply does it faster, and shows it to more people than paintings on urns and epic poetry.
Why do we care about these things? In fact, the reason is a mixture of fascination and repulsion, which feeds “the beast” that is pop-culture and media. This feature of the human psyche isn’t new and psychology has been keeping it self entertained with why for years.
You could almost say that the media conglomerates (such as Microsoft, Fox, CBS, Apple, and others of the same ilk) view the entire situation like and old-fashioned bear baiting, except we are the bear. The hounds that are debauchery, sex appeal, free information, and loss of what seems “normal” takes chunks out of the lumbering, chained public, who can take on only one enemy at a time. Even if it were to do the impossible and defeat these dogs, it would still have to contend with the next batch, and with the hooks set in place by the crowd of spectators (who are also placing bets as I speak), there is no escape possible. Moreover, there never has been.
As I said, if you look away from this sad picture for a moment, possibly into a history book, you’ll see that this new age of media hasn’t changed anything in society. Look at the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It started with a slight creeping, useful things taking gentle steps into the lives of the public. Steam engines, trains, canals, roads, moveable type, mass manufacture of goods. Then, as now, it seemed to completely overrun society as the people of then knew it, changing the cities, draining the towns of people, turning the air solid and water into fire.
This time is not so different. It’s just a bit more subtle.
It’s taken the smog and changed it into light pollution; it’s made the city the same as the county-side, with instant messaging, emails and cellar phones. It has made the world the same as the office. Media has just pulled those demons out from the closet, dusted them off and set them out into the parlor, and so many just want to shut it back up and forget about them. As if simply refusing to see the monster would make it cease to be.
You see, media is simply a reflection of modern life.
Lets look at it this way:
Imagine your town from above.
The buildings, houses, hangouts, anywhere people and information gather, are computers and television programs.
The streets, roads, side-walks, cars, railways, are phones, books, newspapers, talk shows, all these things that tell you about or take you to, the information.
And people you see, are ourselves, children of our own creation, living in a world we seemed determined to walk blithely through, caring nothing for the same dangers we learned to avoid as toddlers.
We are babies in the knife drawer, reaching blindly for whatever we can grasp, thinking that just because something isn’t physical, it isn’t sharp. Then we cry out to mommy when we cut ourselves and blame the knives for our foolishness.
The real world is dangerous. It’s reflection in media is too. Each must be handled with care and neither is going to go away when we close our eyes. If you don’t accept that the world around you is dangerous, what right do you have to say that the digital world isn’t just as scary?
Originally Posted by AKA_Bait
Ok, I've spoilered an edit. I tried to keep your langauge and phrasing as much as possible. I left the last sentence alone here, although I'm not really sure exactly what it means and my personal inclination would be to cut it.
Re: Public Speaking-not ITP
I finally got to read this entirely.
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