Assignment #1 - Media...Making us dumber since 1704

I think that the media can help improve peoples' media literacy, if used in the right way. Reading an article from the New York Times of the USA Today are some of the ways that the media improves peoples' literacy, but for the most part that is not how the majority of people are using the media. The media is just bombarding us with as much information as possible without giving us any time to process what we've just heard, how can that help even the smartest person?

For me personally I use the media for entertainment purposes, thinks like surfing the web at TMZ and Perez Hilton are the things I generally do online. Even when I get a free paper at school all I do with it is the word jumble, and for the most part I think that is also what other people are using the media for. People get easily distracted or bored so we are in need of a constantly changing environment, if we don't like the particular song on the radio, we change the station, if we don't like the re-run of Full House, we turn the channel, we need to be entertained at all times by physically doing as little as possible.

Even now a days people are beginning to not trust the news because they say that they are biased one way or another and might not give you the other side of the story or leave out some unfavorable information. It is impossible to know weather or not you are getting the whole story or just what that news broadcaster wants you to hear, their acting as a filter and that should not be allowed. The public should be given all the information and the correct facts and then leave it up to them to come to their own decision on the subject. When the media smacks us in the face with all of this ever changing information, it can confuse us and we may just believe what is being said even though we may not know for sure.

For the most part the media is not helping peoples' literacy because the media is just that, media. All the news is, is people reading the paper to you and you can see them, they give you fancy pictures to look at and keep you entertained, you really don't have to think about anything, its all told to you. For the fast paced world we live in today picking up a paper and spending all morning reading it over a cup of joe takes to long, we want to news and we want it fast, some news channels start airing as early as 5 am. The media is only out there to scare us into believing what they are telling us, they spend more time on things like Britney Spears or Paris Hilton, when there are far more worth while things to spend their air time talking about. The media is not helpful for the most part, if you want the real news minus the celebrities get an AP.