This week we examine the possible downfalls of new-media and
how it affects society.
Masterman wrote an article, “The Media Education Revolution”,
discussing the obvious affects new-media has created for a generation of
students and others. Masterman explains that
media is harmful to children and they need to be protected from a harsh world
that offers instantaneous satisfaction.
With anything found online, it is possible to find any information by the
click of a button. By having instant
knowledge, the current and all future generations will lose patience. The article questions if information is
private or if it is free for anyone to read and use.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, Kellner and Share
describe in their article, “Critical Media Literacy, Democracy, and the
Reconstruction of Education”, that educators should not be bothered on media
literacy, but how to better implement it into their teachings. It is important to teach media literacy in
order to have a solid understanding of what we read on the Internet. Kellner and Share elaborate that critical
media literacy forces us to develop “skills that will help create good citizens
and that will make individuals more motivated and competent participants in
social life” (Kellner and Share). The
article also discusses how media influences our views towards genders, races,
and social classes.
New-media has changed the way the young generation acts,
reacts, and deals with emotions. Anything
that you want to share with the world can be done so by a few easy clicks. We can find out anything we want to know and
all of the details to go along with it. Through
social media sites, we can discover what someone ate for dinner, what it looked
like, and how it tasted. Recently, it
has been made possible to find out exactly where someone is by just a few clicks
of the mouse. Sure, information is now
easily available, but privacy does not seem to mean what it used to.
New-media has blurred the lines between needs and wants and have changed
our critical awareness. By having so
many ads on popular-viewed web pages, it is easy to become distracted and start
to want things without realizing the need for them. Society has become more materialistic in
wanting the best type of technology.
New-media has taught us to want “tomorrow’s technology”.
That being said, new-media has helped the world in times of
crises. Using social media sites like
Twitter, any blurb of news can be sent out and seen by millions in a heartbeat. If a quick message needs to be sent out
regarding a life or death situation, social media would be a great place to
advertise that information.
The world around us has changed drastically to accommodate
the whizzing speeds of media. Media has
changed our world to accommodate the amount of time it takes to receive
information. Do children need to be
protected from it? Not necessarily; children need to be taught how to filter
out the sensitive information that does not pertain to them. I agree with Kellner and Share that instructors
need to teach how to use new-media and how to incorporate it into our daily
lives. By understanding how to use and
filter new-media, society will come to appreciate the new technology.
No comments:
Post a Comment