October Blog Post - Doug Mason

In the month of October, collectively as a class we have accumulated tons of useful information based off of many important subjects, and critical readings to accompany those topics. One of the most present topics to come by this semester is the idea of media in our culture. Media affects our culture more than any other generations before us, because of all of the advancements and the new technology that aids us in educational and recreational purposes. However, is media helping or hurting our culture? When speaking in terms of how much media is involved in our lives, all we have to do is look down at our mobile device in our hands. Which is ironic because usually if you look around during the day the majority of people you see, will be looking down at their phones. Media does help us in a sufficient amount of ways, including giving us estimations on the weather, what clothes to buy, and even an influence on who to vote for. Some may say these are positive additives to our culture as the human race, but others may disagree and say there is too much external noise affiliated with media involved in our everyday life. The sentence I am using for this blog post that sparks an interesting idea is a quote seen in the textbook, “Media surrounds us, but they are also constantly changing...but to use media, one must change when media changes to effectively use it for our benefit collectively as humans.” An example of this noise I was referring to, is seen in our textbook titled, "Communication: A Critical and Cultural introduction". A term referred to as, “co-constituition” portrays to the reader how much media is involved in our culture today. It can be defined as, “we use and create media even as media use and create us” (Warren & Fassett, 2011, pg. 165). An example of this would be how even when we try and escape media, and the noise that accompanies it, in a statewide emergency, media benefits the user. The example the book uses to describe this would be when there is a tornado warning, we need the media to let us know when the storm is going to hit, and when the storm will pass and we can safely venture outside once again. This concept proves that media’s stronghold is communicated throughout the world, in our culture and other cultures abroad.  

            Even though there is some negative light on media and the new advances made in terms of technology and the social aspect of it, media plays a vital role in communicating cultures. Without media, other cultures and countries would have no idea what people from other places of the world look like or sound like. We as a society would not know when there is a natural disaster on the other side of the globe, and because of media, we get the opportunity to help certain countries with donations as well. A perfect example of using media for a good cause for our world’s wellbeing was seen in "Communication: A Critical and Cultural introduction". Al Gore (our former vice president) released a documentary in 2006 discussing the reality of climate change and solutions to slow the rate of snow melt and rising temperatures. Based off of this documentary and many others after it, we as a society know what the term “carbon footprint” means and some ways to slow the rate of climate change on an individual level. This is all because of media’s influence in our everyday life. In this way, “media shapes a culture even as we, as members of that culture, use media to serve our needs” ("Warren & Fassett, 2011, pg. 164).