In Amusing Ourselves to Death, in the middle of the first chapter Postman writes how "our media-metaphors classify the world for us, sequence it, frame it, enlarge it, reduce it, color it, argue a case for what the world is like."
The world famous pop artist Michael Jackson is dead. This is a fact that for almost three hours has been on breaking news without commercials for almost three hours now. No disrespect intended, but I do not believe this news deserves its title as the most important devastating event presently occurring in the world. People are being massacred by the thousands in genocides such as Darfur, but this news is shown to the United States for about ten minutes tops, that is if it is shown at all. While news of starving countries is pushed out of being on the news and forced into commercials, Michael Jackson's death has dominated the television. The television is most peoples prime source of knowing what is happening in the world. Does anyone stop to think that maybe information is being kept from the general public? The media has programmed us to believe that the death of one man, that we ourselves have transformed into a God, is significant enough to overshadow the rest of world wide news. I can not help but think that news seen on television and read in newspapers is mostly a distraction with glimpses of what the real world is. Alot of people base the importance of a peice of news on the amount of time the event spent on the television news. This is how much power the media has. It not has the ability to keep information from the public, but also for most people the power to tell the public how important it is. For example as I write this my fifteen year old brother questions what Darfur is. I apologize to my brother in advance. No doubt he can recount Micheal Jacksons life story and now his death, but he is unaware of the fact that a genocide is happening and thousands of innocent people are dying. Why is that? Is it because the genocide does not effect him directly? I do not believe that is the reason because the death a famous man does not effect him directly either. I beleive it is the culture that we have been brought up in. Maybe if we were brought up in a culture where more significance was put on world issues, children would grow up with dreams of helping less fortunate countries, instead of dreams of becoming the next Britney Spears or Michael Jackson.
Lilliana Escobedo
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Sorry, the events of the day demand that I offer this notice in response to Lilliana's post:
ReplyDelete"My Twitter search script sees roughly 15 percent of all posts on Twitter mentioning Michael Jackson. Never saw Iran or swine flu reach over 5 percent," observed Ethan Zuckerman, a fellow at Harvard's Beckman Center for Internet & Society.
I think we probably have the media we deserve.
ReplyDeleteMichael Jackson serves the world we live in a totally different way than other human beings do. Not to agree with the life choices he has made but his role is much more important than Joe the mailman. He and other celebrities are the faces of our young country.In the public eye their privacy and their life stories are more inrtiguing and interesting than war stories that occur today; as sad as this is, I speak of the truth. No ordinary human wants to hear of pain or suffering, they just want everything to be nice and civil. They know it's there and they know what is happening. They choose not to let it affect their daily lives so the media compensates them. It's wrong and cruel to the real heroes like the ones we have in Iran but it is the world we live in. Celeberities may not be the heroes we read in Marvel comics as a kid, but they are human beings and they too deserve respect.
ReplyDeletethe previous comment was by matthewbradleyfliss
ReplyDeleteI give you a standing ovation Lilliana. I agree with you fully, the T.V. news doesn't tell you what's important, but what keeps you on their station the longest. If that's hundreds of "mourners" who are taking pictures of whatever celebrity is also "mourning" the death of a music legend, then so be it. If it's a "new disease" that they will tell you had to prevent right after the commercial and killed 415 this year as compared to the 50+ million people who died to the 1918 pandemic of the same flu. Ugh, the news sickens me now, I hope your happy Lilliana, you have made it so I may never watch the news again.
ReplyDeleteI would be a fool not to agree with you but Michael Jackson was no ordinary man. You only die once, and I think that it's just there way of paying respects. Michael Jackson was a special guy, and he changed the lives of so many people. Did you know that MJ holds the record for most charities supported by a celebrity?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Lilliana's post. The news tells us what is important and what is not important. If the new spent more time discussing the genocide, most people would be more worried about it because they would be better informed. People see one topic shown on the news for a long period of time and think "Oh, this must be important. All the news stations are talking about it, which must make it important." The stars of the cable television show Jon and Kate Plue 8 were not A-list celebrities, but when the media became obsessed with their divorce, the rest of America did too. The amount of air time a subject gets on television, the more people think it is important. The media is more worried about their number of viewers than showing what is really significant to the world.
ReplyDeleteGio, although Michael Jackson was inflential to many musicians and everyday people, I think this post is discussing the media's effect on people's opinions. Because we see every news station covering the same topic non-stop, we believe it is important. Maybe instead of highlighting Micheal Jackson's trial a few years ago the media should have highlighted his other accomplishments such as his love for charities.