This particular evening with M & B was charming. We spent nearly two hours strolling through the park, deciding that the rock garden near one of our favorite ponds is inhabited by the "Cookie Goddess." I was charmed that the kids weren't tempted to reach for the TV remote while we were home. Heck, we spent so much time in the park that they didn't even want to go home! Most of all, I appreciated the live concert performance from little B who played "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music on his guitar.
So this has to do with the media how? Well, whenever I hear this song, raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, I immediately ask myself, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens / brown paper packages tied up with string / these are a few of-- what are my favorite things? When I narrow it down to simple things, like the delicate items in the song, I realize that moody clouds, cats, and glow-in-the-dark stars all have one thing in common: they have nothing to do with media.
One could argue that I must've seen these things advertised to me in one form or another, and I'm sure that person would be right, but having taken a semester of critical thinking, my view of the media has come into focus. I am not a fan... yet I am. It is quite interesting to observe from afar, yet the more I watch (and I am a diehard people-watcher, so I can watch intently), the more it saddens me that our society is so critically shaped by the media.
My parents, who raised my brother and I to mute the commercials, have recently experienced me blurting out "Oh! That's the testimonial technique right there!" It is nearly impossible to look at an advertisement without seeing a techniques/appeals handout faintly hiding behind the image. It is almost the same sensation I felt in middle school. Having left my smallish elementary school to attend a large middle school, it was as if I realized there was more to this world than the world I knew. Media is a whole new world that I am just now beginning to explore. Before critical thinking, it was as if this Media World had been a place I knew from a "Wish You Were Here!" postcard. I always knew what it looked like, but I had never walked the streets and listened to the words of the people so deeply rooted in this Media World.
Though I do like watching movies, listening to music, and binging on TV shows, Media World has turned into this planet of stereotypical aliens who seek to overrun our world. I like walking to the duck pond on cloudy days. I like sleeping. I like the sore feeling of working out and the first day of each season. I like living, and I like living on planet Earth not on Media World.
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| Greetings from Media World |
