The media we want?

     When it comes to the question of do we get the media we want or want the media we get, I believe it’s an extremely hard question to answer for the simple fact that we only truly have experience with the media we get so that is what we want. If we had any idea of other possible variations of media then we might not want the media we currently have. So I guess I would have to say that we want the media we get.

     Our basic idea of what we want in the media is based off of what we have already got out of it. As stated in the textbook “the media construct our values for us and have a direct effect on our actions” (O’shaughnessy, Stadler 43). The media is what is telling us what we want from simple advertisements about products or clothing to what we should want out of our news sources and other types of media. The textbook compares it to the chicken or the egg scenario, which one truly came first? It is further explained as “the media are one of the social forces that produce popular common sense, the general social beliefs and feelings of a society. In turn these social beliefs and values influence the media who reflect them” (O’shaughnessy, Stadler 59). So in this scenario just like the chicken and the egg, we will never truly know which one came first. If the media tells us what we want then they are obviously going to tell us to want what they are presenting meaning that we will want the media we get. This makes it much more difficult to want anything else.

     If the media was not telling us what to want then we might decide that we no longer want it the way it is currently being presented. In this case we would change our opinions of what we want and the media would have to adapt to give the people what they want. However currently we our being told by the media to want the media so we are therefore not getting the media we want but instead simply wanting the media that we get.

Works Cited:

O’shaughnessy, Michael and Jane Stadler. Media and Society. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. 2011