I spent a good part of my morning today perusing the blogs that my classmates posted about their feelings regarding the media and I have to say, it was surprising how many of us are on the same page on the matter. In all honesty, I expected to see a number of blogs that argued only for the positive aspects of the media, but a number of them touched on similar views that I did. Shawn Poulin's blog (http://shawnpoulin.blogspot.ca/), for example, mentioned the way cartoon shows such as Sailor Moon had affected him as a child, much in the way I mentioned as well. He, too, spoke of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, that drove him into a place of fear. I took the following quote from his blog, which really illustrates my point: "My view of people became somewhat distorted after that because I felt like you couldn't really trust people for whatever reason and it took me awhile to actually get over this."
Something that I neglected to do, that some other students did really well, was to look on both sides. I used my allotted word count to drivel on about how mass media has harmed me, but I completely disregarded all the good it has done for me. There were a number of students who were able to casually bring up both sides of the argument. For example, the author of one blog (http://noubayan.wordpress.com/) wrote that "...advertisements such as celebrity magazines and television shows like “Jersey Shore” or “Miss Universe” give us a false idea of what men and women are “supposed” to look like and it’s because of this kind of mass media that men, women and even teenagers feel bad and insecure about themselves." This was something that first came to mind when I wrote my own blog on media impact. The same author also wrote the following: "...the news helps us gain knowledge about life around the world. It keeps us up to date on the economy and things we can expect in the future." They go on to mention the other ways that media benefits us, including media outlets like the internet. I enjoyed this blog because the author was able to display both sides of the spectrum without taking any of the strength out of their opinion. Rather than seeming uncertain or wavering, which is something I feared would happen to me were I to include arguments for and against the media, the author seemed both open to the media and informative about it.
I enjoyed the aforementioned blogger's perspective so much that it did, indeed, make me reconsider my position. I am definitely open to the idea that the media isn't all bad. While I still stand by my previous opinions on it, I do agree that the media has some pretty wonderful effects too. I seem to forget that I use Facebook every day to keep in touch with family and friends, Microsoft Outlook to send and receive mail regarding my work and school, and I use Skype at every opportunity to be able to see and hear the ones I love who, in some cases, live extremely far away. There are definitely factors that add to the positive side of media impact that I overlooked!
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