Media Meditation - My Media-Filled World

Introduction

(Courtesy of lifehacker.com)

Wednesday morning, 9:05; I awake to the unpleasant buzz of my cell phone alarm telling me I only have a few minutes to get to class. I ignore it and with sleep filled eyes look around my dorm room; The 302, we call it. My eyes finally focus. I see my computer sitting idle on my desk, occasionally blinking a small blue light telling me all is well. A few feet behind my desk sits our TV; a slew of movies, game systems and pizza boxes clutter the front of it. As the minutes tick by I begin to get ready for the day. I grab all the books I need for the day and throw them into my cluttered back pack, and I’m out the door – prepared for my media filled day in the world of mass media. As I reflect on how media influences my day and my life, I ask you to do the same. After reading each paragraph, pause for a moment, consider my relationship with the media, think about the quote, and compare it to your own media filled world.

Newspapers

Every Wednesday I have my classes in the Ireland building. Whenever I open the doors, I see a stack of newspapers and a sign telling me to, “take one, they’re free!” So I do; it doesn’t cost me a cent and I can usually find an interesting story or two before class starts. That’s the only time where I read the paper; in the fifteen minutes between me getting to class and class actually starting.

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Occasionally I’ll find a human interest story, “news accounts of that focus on the daily trials and triumphs of the human condition,” (Mass media, 252) but for the most part, I casually flick through the pages and toss it aside. Part of the reason I don’t read newspapers is because of the way the articles are written. The writers spend two paragraphs explaining what happened, and then five paragraphs droning on about how this relates to other events or how we are going to be affected by this in ten years. I don’t care for it, so I stop reading, throw it in my backpack and watch as it eventually ends up in the recycling bin.

The Internet

“The internet is a world of infinite distraction,” Professor Williams’ always reminds us. While I have wasted many hours Facebooking and Stumbling, I have also been able to use the internet to better myself and the people around me. To me, using the internet is like a double edge sword; I can use the internet to succeed in school and at the same time, distract myself from it.
I use Twitter every day in my Exploring Marketing class and my Mass Media class to learn about convergence and exposure, and then use Twitter to tell my friends to join me down town. I have struck a balance with the internet that allows me to use it with maximum effectiveness. I use it for work during the day and for social and entertainment purposes at night. Doing research during the day when I’m awake allows me to stay focused. Facebook, Twitter, Stumble Upon, Pandora and hundreds of other websites are available for me to use when the sun goes down and I’m just looking to unwind. The internet is a world of infinite distraction, but that’s only if you don’t know how to use it properly.

Games

(frameworkmx.com)

I have always been a gamer. There is nothing like immersing yourself in a different world for a few hours as you help stop a world ending crisis. Although I have dabbled in computer and MMORPGs, I am first and foremost a FPS console gamer. My favorite games include Brute Force, Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead and Borderlands. I usually enjoy just an hour or two of single player a day, nothing too excessive. “Today it’s not that unusual… for college students and younger professionals to meet in dorm rooms and lunch rooms to play “in” their favorite bands. (Mass Media, 35) I enjoy the escape from the real world and the escape from other players. However, recently my roommates and I have been playing Age of Empire II together on the PC. It’s a real-time-strategy game that allows you to control units and advance though time, developing more powerful units. Not only is it loads of fun playing together, it’s a great team building game. Last night, we came together and completely destroyed the opposing team.

Television

When I lived at home, I used to watch TV for hours at a time. I would watch the same shows over and over again; there was one point where I could recite an entire Futurama episode. That all changed when I came to college. Now, I watch about three hours of TV a week. My roommates and I love dark and off-beat humor, so when we watch TV, we are usually tuned into Cartoon Network’s, Adult Swim. Family Guy, The Boondocks and Robot Chicken are some of our favorite programs.

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I’m glad that I’m watching less TV and getting more variety in shows. Perhaps this is a result of my father’s attitude towards television which coincides nicely with Kent Farnsworth, “There’s nothing on it worthwhile, and we’re not going to watch it in this household, and I don’t want it in your intellectual diet.” (Mass Media, 147)

Radio

Another thing I am doing less now that I’ve come to college is listening to the radio. Back home, I used to listen to the radio when I woke up, went to bed or drove. I used the radio to make mundane activates more exciting. It was nice adding some variety to my routine. When I came to college however, I didn’t bring any devices that received radio signals. I just forgot about radio. Instead of using the radio to discover new music, I used YouTube or Pandora. I realized I just listened to the radio out of convenience.

My bedside clock at home played radio and I didn’t have iPod speakers, so I listened to the radio. Same thing with the car, it played radio, not mp3s. Moving away made me realize how little I need the radio. “Radio affects most people intimately, person-to-person, offering a world of unspoken communication between writer, speaker and listener. That is the immediate aspect of radio, a private experience.” (Mass Media, 126)(Courtesy of jukon.net)

Movies

One thing that stayed the same when I moved to college is my love of movies. There is nothing like sitting down with your friends, in a theatre or on a couch, and watching a good movie. I love physiological thrillers like Inception and Se7en, and am beginning to dislike action films which I was so fond of growing up. “I think American movies are, to be honest, simple. You blow things up, you shoot people, you have sex and have a movie.” (Mass Media, 223)
One thing I love about movies is how quickly my friends and I can enjoy one. It always starts with someone saying, “Hey, you know what we should watch? The Dark Knight, (or some other movie that would make the night).” Usually half the people who have seen it will want to see it again, and then shout at the people who haven’t seen it because it’s so good. When we watch movies, we watch them without distraction. That means phones and computers away and food and drinks are at the ready. We get totally immersed in the plot. We haven’t done this in a while, and I think it’s about time we all watched the Illusionist together.

Books


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I have a very strange relationship with books. I don’t read very often, but every couple of years, I will discover a series of books that I fall in love with. First was Harry Potter, closely followed by the Series of Unfortunate Events series. Now I am addicted to the Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, Series. When find a series I like, I will read and re-read for hours at a time. But it is so hard for me to find a book or a series I can really get into and enjoy. What I find interesting about books is the Authors are selling their writing and their writing alone. There are no advertisements or offers in books; it’s just the story. Perhaps that’s why I have a hard time reading; I am too used to being exposed to ads when I read or get involved in a story. Yet, “our oldest mass medium is our most influential and most diverse.” (Mass media, 315)

Magazines


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Magazines are one of my favorite media forms. It gives you news, stories and facts in a very random fashion. For example, when you open up a magazine, the first few pages are cluttered with quick facts, photos ads, a look at that last issue and what this issue is going to discus. I like to think of it as a younger version of the newspaper that caters to my chaotic mind. A newspaper will cover a story and then beat it to death. A magazine gives me exactly what I need to know and then moves on, providing photos and color. I subscribe to Game Informer, Popular mechanic and have plans to subscribe to Rolling Stone. I also enjoy the trashy tabloids, “that push the limits of decency and credibility,” (Mass Media, 301) one finds waiting for the doctor or hair dresser.

Sound Recordings

I like music. To give you a definition of my like for music, I own an 8-gig iPod full of indie, alternative, ambient, electronic and chill music. “People seem to need their peers to validate their musical tastes…” (Mass Media, 103) I don’t care for popular music or rely on people to tell me if my music is good or not. I use the ear phones that came with the iPod and I own one vinyl record. I have only been to three concerts in my life.
Basically I enjoy music but only to an extent. I listen to my iPod when I’m falling asleep, doing homework, on a long trip or just feel like jamming out for an hour. My favorite time to listen to music is when it’s raining. I shuffle up my Jack Johnson collection and just enjoy the scenery as the acoustic guitar and strong vocals wash over me. When I miss my girlfriend, I turn on Owl City and reminisce about our shenanigans around Connecticut. I like music.

Conclusion


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As I meditate on my relationship with media, I realize that the media I like and use the most are the ones with more ads. I like watching TV, going on the internet and reading magazines. Each of those mediums has a large amount of ads in them. I don’t read books, the newspaper or listen to music that much and those have very few ads in them. I wonder if I have been so conditioned to accepts advertisements and be exposed to them, that I shun and medium that does not deliver ads. Have I been brain washed? I doubt it, but it’s scary to think about how the media impacts us every day. Flipper out.