Mass Communication and the Internet

            Remember playing the “telephone-game” when you were in elementary school? The rules were easy. All you had to do was listen to the sentence that was being whispered and repeat what you heard into a fellow classmate’s ear. However, in a room filled with short attention spans and giggles, it would seem that the goal of the telephone-game could never be achieved. Either some poor soul would forget instantly what was said and scramble to come up with something new, misinterpret what was whispered, or deliberately jumble up the message for their own satisfaction. Ultimately, the real message gets revealed and everyone is in bewilderment.

            This example is but a small representation of the linear model of mass communication and its affect on society. In this case, the message (which portrays texts) travels through numerous ears (mass media channel) and ends up being received (children who are not the senders at the time but receivers of the message). Yet, there are no gatekeepers and the only feedback is at the end when the false as well as the real message is exposed. In the book, Media and Culture, on page 13 Roger Rosenblatt states in Time magazine that, “We are a narrative species. We exist by storytelling-by relating our situations-and the test of our evolution may lie in getting the story right.”

          Since the oral and written era has passed and the age of convergence has come, what better way can we leave behind our identities for the next generation than through digital communication? No matter how far we progress technology wise, we ourselves cannot escape the need to feel connected with others. Whether we join social networking sites, write blogs, or contribute to Wiki websites, in the end, all we really want is our story to be told and to be told truthfully.

           Authors Richard Campbell, Christopher Martin, and Bettina Fabos of Media and Culture, do an amazing job with breaking down various processes (like the linear model of mass communication, or media literacy and the critical process for case studies) so that the reader can understand such complicated inner workings of the media and mass communication. Part of the writers’ appeal is their ability to combine historical facts with present day situations to produce startling information that is well outlined and relatable.  

Media Unlimited Assignment

             The room is dark, the air is moist, yet Michelangelo’s attention is on the dusty, chipped walls of the Sistine Chapel.  As Pope Julius II watches Michelangelo paint the Creation of Adam onto the frescoes, the bells of the church ring (a clear indication that the afternoon mass has begun). People in their cloaks and muddy shoes pass down the aisles and gaze into the captivating and realistically drawn nude images painted up above. In today’s society, people still roam down the aisles of the Sistine Chapel to marvel at Michelangelo’s work. However, no longer does a person have to physically be at a place to enjoy such an experience: technology forms simulations that transcends to our feelings giving us impressions or a sense of reality but not actuality.

             If  Todd Gitlin taught me anything from his book Media Unlimited, the torrent of images and sounds has made humanity subject to a false reality by fictitiously supplying us with fabricated sensations and simulations we (the viewer) consequently deem are real (ultimately baffling so many of us).

             Like a magician to an audience, I was enchanted by Gitlin’s ability to creatively integrate academic and popular sources in a way that felt seamless. However, like all curious spectators at a magic show, Gitlin’s illusions started to make me question numerous things about the media I had not questioned before. Suddenly, I wanted to know who was really serving whom man or the machine; is man serving the “server”?  Is curiosity the food that feeds the mechanical machine we call the media? If so, can we stop what human nature has engraved in us to do at birth: think and explore at freewill? And why do so many of us seek truth in a virtual world that is filled with false doctrines, images, and sounds? I admit I was puzzled… at first.

          The deeper I got into Gitlin’s views on the media and it’s effects on society, the more I started to uncover the secret behind his magic trick. What was Gitlin’s magic? He was able to dazzle me with endless facts that did nothing but state the obvious. Gitlin’s book is a manifestation of what he himself despises the most: information overload that is forever metamorphosing into something else. His anxiousness to get his point across to the reader was not at all pleasing. Obviously, too much of anything is bad; therefore, moderation is key.