I think the media affects us to a great extent. Thus, I hold the “powerful effects” view because we are literally submersed in an ocean of mass media and social media outlets. For example, our daily lives are permeated by some aspect of messages being communicated, such as e-mails, texts, Facebook posts, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat (Hahn & Paynton, 2015, internet). With respect to mass media, our television news and entertainment (as well as most films) are provided by only five conglomerated media outlets (Hahn & Paynton, 2015, internet). Our entire days are usually spent consuming some form of media. Hence, the media holds an enormous amount of sway in our lives, and its onslaught is so rapid that it affords us little time to subject its messages to critical thinking.
The media, however, has considerable positive effects on us, especially television and magazines, which can be both informative and entertaining. Moreover, these outlets serve to bond us as a culture, thereby providing a network of interrelationships, and informing consumers about what is going on in the world – creating a pop culture (Hahn & Paynton, 2015, internet). In order to sell, however, the media (both television and magazines) uses sex and violence to a great degree (Hahn & Paynton, 2015, internet). In addition, these types of media, especially television, promote a type of individual helplessness about world conditions. That is, its consumers often feel as if they play no part on the world’s stage, and their lives have little, if any, effect, on the “bigger picture” of one’s ability to participate, and have an effect on culture. Therefore, many people feel as if they cannot change anything about their personal world, leaving them with an overpowering sense of helplessness.
Indeed, I have made friendships that are exclusively on-line. In fact, I have never met many of my on-line friends face-to-face. I can imagine circumstances where a person would not form exclusively on-line friendships because a person could potentially misrepresent themselves, in order to hack into one’s personal and private information. Also, an exclusively on-line relationship lacks true human connection. Thus, one only knows a person based on what they choose to communicate. Other non-verbal cues are absent from this type of friendship. For example, digital communication lacks vocal inflections, touch, and many other types of non-verbal modes of communication. Skype, however, is one form of internet communication that allows face-to-face contact, but even this mode of communication lacks crucial elements of communication, such as proximity and touch.
I agree with the survey insofar as our interaction with mass media is extensive. The internet, especially, has attracted hundreds of millions of users world-wide to its platform. Moreover, social media, ESPECIALLY Facebook, is the primary mode of communication between friends and acquaintances, a social media format that keeps us connected to news and special pages that we can subscribe to, such as Huffington Post and The Onion. Furthermore, the survey states that not everything on the internet is true, and much of the information is presented in a distorted and emotionally-charged manner. I could not agree with this more, as much of the content on social media sites are memes that poke fun at politics, express extreme political views, or just outright distort and manipulate the truth by lying and deceit (Hahn & Paynton, 2015, internet). The survey somewhat implies that social media sites such as Facebook are free (Hahn & Paynton, 2015, internet). The so-called inventor of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is a billionaire. As many people know, the product of Facebook is the user, as their information is sold to advertisers and other concerns that target market goods and services to the user (Gross, 2012, internet). Also, while the survey mentions surveillance insofar as the ability that common folks with access to Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc. are able to post recent news events, such as the Boston Marathon Bombing (Hahn & Paynton, 2015, internet), the survey fails to mention surveillance in another context. For example, the National Security Agency (NSA) collects meta-data from nearly all cell phones, and many social media sites (Ackerman & Rushe, 2014, internet), such as Facebook. Thus, Facebook, Google, and other tech giants turn over confidential user information to the government (Ackerman, 2014, internet). In the view of many people, such surveillance is a flagrant violation of our Fourth Amendment rights that protect us from illegal searches and seizures, i.e warrantless wiretapping (Ackerman & Rushe, 2014, internet).
Moreover, I disagree with the survey’s light-hearted approach to social media, especially its representation as a means of just communicating with friends and acquaintances, sharing gossip, news, and other events. In addition, it is a way that “Big Brother” keeps tabs on what the people are thinking and doing (Ackerman & Rushe, 2014, internet). In a sense, however, the government performs this type of surveillance to protect the greater good (Ackerman & Rushe, 2014, internet). For example, terrorists often use the internet to communicate, and plot attacks or recruit people. Thus, our national security relies on such information gathered by governmental surveillance.
References
Ackerman, S., & Rushe, D. (03 Feb, 2014). Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Yahoo release
US surveillance requests. The Guardian. Retrieved on 17 Mar 2016 from
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/03/microsoft-facebook-google-yahoo-fisa-
surveillance-requests
Gross, D. (16 May, 2012). How you help Facebook make billions. CNN. Retrieved on 17 Mar
2016 from http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/16/tech/social-media/facebook-users-ads/
Hahn, L.K.., & Paynton, S.T. (2015). Survey of Communication Study. Retrieved on 17 Mar
2016 from https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Survey_of_Communication_Study
