The Unlimited Truth

5 Pages 1141 Words

“There is no choice but to navigate, sink or swim,” according to Todd Gitlin, author of Media Unlimited. Sounds vaguely like a threat. It’s a strange and somewhat unnerving experience to hardly recollect how you spent an evening, yet there seems to be something about our contemporary media that defies long term memory. What we are experiencing, much like globalization itself, is merely an intensification of processes long since at work, to which we have become accustomed to through a culture that values innovation, speed, and ease of use. As workers waste away in soul crushing conditions, their need for sensation is fulfilled by various media, which deliver disposable emotions through ready made narratives and escapist dramas. From news broadcasts to sitcoms to movies, media offer emotional investment with an escape clause, satisfying the modern creature with adaptable feelings that can be turned on and off at will. The evolution of the word “media” from a simple collective noun to a representation of an entity, says a lot about humankind’s changing consciousness. We have felt, seen, and become the media, they are us, the whole 24/7 brain bulging shebang.
Think about a typical day in any American’s life. You wake up to your clock radio; turn on the “Today” show while you get ready; head out to your car where John Boy and Billy are waiting for you; ride the elevator up to class, possibly with a few classic elevator tunes looming in the background; you drop by the library to check your e-mail, and end up surfing the net for an extra hour; then you head home listening to your favorite CD on your car stereo, just to flip on the television when you finally get there. The media has become so prevalent that it is virtually impossible to escape it, wherever you go. From Discmans to portable TVs, providers are definitely feeding a demand from consumers. But what came first the technology or the fast paced human way of life? ...