IF25 Response 2: Wanted: The Media We Need

It’s Halloween today! My costume of choice? A cat, of course!

Socially it’s entirely acceptable for me, a 21 year old university student, to dress up as a cat on the 31^st of October. Culturally? Oh heck, my culture dumped Halloween on me long before I could even spell the world. If I recall correctly, my family dressed me as a unicorn 19 Halloween’s ago. That was the norm for this day in my culture!

While I completely respect the opinions of those who choose not to celebrate this day, I believe it to be an important day, especially for the media. Every year as Halloween approaches, television shows start airing spooky, frightful, fun episodes for its viewers, magazines alter their covers, celebrities dress up in celebration, everyone rallies and buys tons of candy for themselves, their children, the kiddies in their costumes, etc. Halloween is a huge deal here; the media helps make it so. Even if I didn't celebrate Halloween, I would certainly know all about it with the help of the media.

There are lots of aspects of social, political, cultural and economic goings-on that make it into the media, directed for our eyes and ears, but there are definitely some things we have to dig deep for in order to find out more.  Because the media is so big, if one outlet isn't delivering the information we desire, there will always be another that would love to in order to boost their ratings/popularity. “Nowadays there are thousands of media choices that we can make; there are hundreds of channels on our TVs and radios, and hundreds of different magazines and newspapers that we can choose from.” (http://st12tq.wordpress.com/). This is the very purpose of the media.

Because modern media is so quickly expanding, the variety we have in terms of access and coverage is overwhelming. Of course there will always be the media giants that most people flock to, but we do have the choice to change the channel, to pick up another newspaper, to click a different link, etc. “Media that ends up successful is media that the consumers genuinely want. If they don't want it, then they will switch to another brand of media…” (http://pharaohjoe85.blogspot.ca/) is a quote I found in another student’s blog that applies well to my point. Sometimes the masses share a common social or political interest and those interests may dominate some media coverage for a while, but if certain consumers are looking for something more they have every opportunity to simply look elsewhere.

The media thrives on delivering to the masses what they want to see; their success depends on it. An example I found in another student’s blog of just how far the media have gone to be inclusive of other cultures’ and other groups’ needs: “They have even gone on the televise Hockey Night in Canada in Hindi, as well as many other languages, just so they can get a larger following.” (http://taradactyl25.wordpress.com/). The media does what it needs to in order to please and satisfy its viewers, followers, readers and so forth.

While my blog entry here very much sounds like an ode to media accessibility, I assure you it is not. My intention is to say that my media choices entirely reflect on my social, cultural, political and economic views because I have chosen to participate in and/or follow those media outlets that cater to my views. And if they didn’t pertain to my interests? Well then I’d have every right to change the channel (or what have you for other outlets) and find something that did.