Media Phobia
Media Phobia
In Karen Sternheimer's article relating to media phobia, many issues, since the start of popular culture, have been accused of corrupting our society, especially with the youth. The main problem is not the idea of the media corrupting society, it is setting up popular culture as a scape goat. Sternheimer says we tend to have these fears because it is getting harder to monitor our children's activities and that the real problem is not with the media, but it is hiding something within. The inner problems are actually the lack of funding for education, child poverty and domestic problems. It is easier to blame the culture and media than it is to fix a long ridden problem in society.
One source I have related to is the most recent readings behind the Pros and Cons of Social Media. The subject I touched on was the correlation between Social Media usage and how well students were doing in school. With social media becoming more of the popular culture, where all of our news and stories can be found on Twitter or Facebook as soon as they occur, the problem sought out was the more usage of social media, the worse the grades of the students. I find this to be more of a media phobia, because we can not directly correlate if it is the use of social media and technology, or if it is actually domestic problems, social problems, or the problem of focusing in school.
I find it interesting how people directly blame issues and problems of society on things that may not necessarily be true. The amount of time an individual views social media may have no direct correlation to how well they do in school. Some students naturally can put in little effort and still do well in school while others may struggle more even when they put real effort into it. I feel that this also directs into moral panic or blowing something out of proportion to its direct effects.
ReplyDeleteDo you think parents are over reacting when it comes to knowing what their children are doing on social media? I think if parents really are getting scared about what their kids are doing then maybe that is a sign they are to young for social media.
ReplyDelete