Effects of Media

I do believe that the media can be an effective tool for education, but unfortunately that same media can have some negative consequences on people's perception of the world. The movie we watched in class about Sesame Street represented how media can be used to effect children in a good way. I think that one of the reasons that Sesame Street is so successful is because it makes learning fun for kids. The show is filled with songs the kids can sing along to and the characters are very colorful. I mean it's the perfect show for toddlers.

I also think that when the show decided to take a chance by going global, that the producers were very smart in the way that they went about it. I don't think that Sesame Street would have been as nearly as successful if they simply took the American version and simply showed it around the world. The Sesame Street in America would not have worked in other countries because the children would have had no way to relate to it. So rather than send out the our version around the world, they went around to each country and customized the show in order for the children to be able to relate to it. For example, in the African version they added a character that had AIDS. Since AIDS is such an epidemic in Africa and a lot of kids have it, showing a character that had AIDS that was still able to act normal and have fun was a great idea.

The Harry Potter reading was also showed another excellent way that media can be used to educate kids. In the excerpt from Digital Renaissance by Henry Jenkins, Professor James Gee from the University of Wisconsin-Madison was told by a sixteen year old Harry Potter fan that "it's one thing to be discussing the theme of a short story you've never heard of before and couldn't care less about. It's another thing to be discussing the theme of your friends 50,000 word opus about Harry Potter and Hermoine that they've spent three months writing." In this generation, kids are using the internet and pop culture as learning tools. Although some people still think that pop culture is useless as a teaching tool. I guess what I'm trying to say is that kids learn better when the material they are learning about is of some interest or can be related to their interest. The kids that were writing in these Harry Potter fan fictions were actually learning how to crtitique and edit eachothers work while developing better writing skills in the process whether they were aware of it or not.

Although media can be used to educate, it is unfortunate that education is not all it's used for. Nowadays people watch more tv than in the past, and a lot of people get their perception of the world through tv. If you take a close look at what is actually shown on tv, more of the images are negative than positive. The people that get their view of the world only through tv think that the world is a extremely dangerous place. On the local news networks, it seems that almost everyday they start the news of with a murder, robbery, or car wreck. It's really sad how true the saying of "if it bleeds, it leads" actually is. The negative stories are the one's that get all the attention in news today. The positive stories get about two minutes of air time and then its on to the next house fire or murder. It's a shame that the negative stories are the one's attract the viewers rather than the positive one's.

Another negative use of the media is the fear tactic. For example, about three years ago it seemed that everyday there was some kind of new terror threat that would raise the terror alert level. I really don't like how the media is sometimes used to control people through fear. Fear is a very powerful tool that is used far too often. When people are scared they tend to believe whatever the media tells them because they think the media knows all and is trying to protect them. For instance, people were scared to death with the whole bird flu epidemic. The media made it seem like the bird flu was going to wipe out the entire planet. When in fact there were only a few cases reported in the United States. But like I said before, the people that get all their information about the world through tv will believe what they're told.

Eventhough the media is used for negative purposes, I still think that people themselves still have some responsibility in what they believe to be true. I think that critical thinking skills are very important in helping people in deciding what they should believe and what they shouldn't. I think that if I hadn't developed my critical thinking skills by going to school and learning how to decipher through what people say and write, I would probably believe everything the media told me. Meaning that when the media says something like "it was believed that Iraq has WMD's," there are a lot of people that would interpret that as saying "it was found that Iraq has WMD's." It's amazing how just one word can change the entire meaning of a sentence.

I think that the media could be used as an excellent source for education but with the good also comes the bad. There are so many positive uses for the media that it's unfortunate that most of the images and programs in the media are irrelevant or are negative. I'm not saying that sitcoms, talk shows, cartoons, etc are irrelevant. I'm talking mainly about the news. There has to be something more important than than Lindsey Lohan's latest drunken escapade. I mean there is that whole war thing in Iraq going on!