Tabloidisation, commercial media & Mickey Mouse News:

Some questions that were raised in my mind by this week's lecture:

• Why do people care more about Stars Without Makeup than the conflict in Syria?
• Why don't I know the name of the actress from The Hunger Games, when everyone else in the room seems to?
• I wonder how many of these aspiring journalists could even locate Syria on a map?
• Could I?
• Are tabloids, magazines such as Women's Weekly and 'entertainment' news shows really news?
• No.
• How is it that we don't see that this is being done to us deliberately, causing us to turn into societal robots who don't actually question anything that's being put in front of us? What is coming in the future that the media wants to mush our brains prior to in order to keep us from forming some kind of uprising? Am I being a drama queen? Do I even WANT to be part of a media world that works like this? Why do I have so many questions? 

If I asked my peers who the Vice President of the United States is; or the member for their local area; or the founder of Wikileaks, etc, my bet is that 85% wouldn't be able to tell you - yet I'm almost positive they could recite the lyrics of the entire Tyler the Creator album; the middle names of everyone Angelina Jolie has ever been in a relationship with; and give me a good insight as to what's going on on the front page of PerezHilton.com this morning.

WHY. IS. THIS?

Because we as a media saturated society have been conditioned to believe that we are digesting and retaining important information, when really all we're being taught to do is retain useless facts and information designed to keep our thoughts away from, well, anything that actually matters. I sound like a conspiracy theorist. Sorry for that. It's just difficult, as someone intelligent enough to understand what's going on, yet perhaps not motivated (or revolutionary, ha ha) enough to enough to do much or anything at all to change this within my own life, to see what's going on without getting completely disheartened as an aspiring journalist.

I don't think there's anything wrong with obsessing over celebrities, sometimes.

As long as we're also in the loop regarding what's going on in the rest of the world.

As long as we're informed as to who's in power and what that means for us.

As long as we're still capable of picking up and digesting a novel.

As long as...