Mediated
Culture
My favorite sentence from this section’s
reading is in chapter 11; “Like fish immersed in water we swim constantly
through media, which develop and shape
our perceptions, goals, desires and beliefs”. * (italics mine.) I then wondered if this were true? Aren’t we in control of our goals, desires and
beliefs? Doesn’t media, through its never-ending opinion polls and surveys,
actually try to discern what our goals, desires and beliefs are so they can decide
what products to sell us?
To
answer I considered a couple of television commercials I viewed recently. What is
a Mountain dew commercial selling? Soda pop or the youth lifestyle you can
experience by using their product? Or the “Toyota-lets go places” ad campaign
for the Toyota Camry. There is no mention of the car itself but rather the
depiction of an idyllic suburban middle-class lifestyle, a young couple with
two children (boy and a girl) happily living the American dream (in the Camry).
Are these lifestyles created by the media or merely reflect what was already
there?
Next,
I reflected on my own behavior. Not
trusting advertising, I have always tried to be an informed and shrewd consumer.
Subscribing to “Consumer Reports” and avidly reading through each issue.
Carefully reading ingredient labels before purchasing a product. Following the research of organizations like the
Environmental Working Group www.ewg.org Yes, I’m one of those people who can’t buy a
coffeepot without studying the specs and reading the reviews on all the
different models. It is essential living in an economy dependent on the never-ending
consumption of disposable commodities where “Buyer Beware” is the prevailing
policy.
Was
this culture of advertising mistrust created by these afore mentioned media sources
or were these media created in response to our mistrust. I tried to get a feel for when they appeared and how many
consumer advocacy media outlets there are but the number is mindboggling.
Just one website
contained a database of over 2000 periodicals alone. **
I
think most would agree that the answer to whether media creates or
reflects culture is that it probably does both. Perhaps
it’s a matter of degree. For me it provides more questions than answers.
*Warren, John T. & Fasset, Deanna L. Communication, a Critical/Cultural Introduction 2nd Edition SAGE Publications Inc 2015 p211
** http://depts.washington.edu/moves/altnews_database.shtml
Visited 1 November 2017
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