Culture is Not Your Friend: Part II

Over time, culture gradually evolves, but some types of cultural changes in modern times involve sudden jumps forward due to the invention and implementation of new technologies. New technological advances make up a huge part of the societal changes that affect our everyday lives, and sometimes these changes take place faster than people can adapt to them. For instance, the personal computer and how it has facilitated working in cubicles has transformed modern-day life, some would say to the detriment of people’s physical and social well being. While culture is constantly evolving, the way we experience culture is also constantly evolving. In modern times, the way we experience culture is vastly different than it was even twenty years ago because of the saturation of the media through the internet, mobile phones, and satellite TV and radio, and also because the way mass media is presented has adapted in response to these new formats. Mass media, and the news media in particular, are crucial parts of our culture today not just because they constitute much of our culture, but because they shape the way we view and interpret much of the other elements of our culture. As our social networks, job connections, and sources of consumer goods rarify in an ever-expanding world, we are becoming increasingly reliant on technology to keep us connected. In addition, our increasing reliance on technology and specifically home electronics has increased our exposure to mass media. Therefore, it is crucial to discuss the impact that this messenger of culture has on our lives, and how it filters our awareness of the world.

In modern times more than ever, the news is entertainment too. It can have just as much spin as a Dean Koontz novel or MTV. People don’t spend time listening to things they don’t find stimulating, and we have witnessed how the presentation of the news has gradually become more and more chopped up, sped up, and dramatized in the past two decades or so. People certainly might be hyped-up after watching some CNN or Fox News. The problem is that the stories are so focused on life and death disasters and acts of extreme violence that people are left feeling very afraid of the outside world. In addition, they are also left feeling confused because this approach to presenting the news does nothing to improve people’s understanding of the specifics of the big, complex issues in the world today.

The current approach of news as entertainer often does not help illuminate much of the truth, or even help clarify the real problems at hand. The classic methodology of presenting both sides of a story does not mean the middle ground is correct, either. The statement that “there are two sides to every story” is doubly wrong. There is really just one reality, but there are an infinite number of sides to it, depending on each person’s own judgment and history. Everyone’s viewpoint may count for something, but it doesn’t mean that they are all correct. Yet, this way of presenting the news can leave people with the impression that the middle position must be correct, or even that something is true because most people think so. This is the case more so nowadays, when there is often little or no follow up on the effects of events once they’re finalized because often the news media feels it is more important to move on to the next big crisis to grab everyone’s attention. There is a real danger in this approach as well. If people are told such things as “sixty percent of Americans think it was the right decision to go to war in Iraq”, they can be left with the impression that it was the right decision, after all. Regarding complex issues like treaties, or agreements like NAFTA, the tiny amount of post-analysis on the news doesn’t allow people to learn what is actually good or bad about NAFTA, and what the net result has been. Only now, during the election cycle has it even really been bought up.

Instead of this type of approach, the news media should better fill the role that they really play- that of an educator. Particularly after most people finish school and start working full-time jobs, the news media is the primary way that people get information about the world. For better or worse, it forms a major part of what people base their decisions and views about the world on. Therefore, maybe the news media should provide more to the public in the way of analysis and opinion from the experts in the particular field being discussed instead of many thirty second on-the-scene interviews and tedious personal interest stories. For instance, if the political crisis in Kenya is being reported, bring in someone who has spent time there and knows a great deal about the history and politics of the region to talk about the situation. Perhaps spending some time on the history of the country would give people a real understanding of why these different ethnic groups are fighting, besides just because of a disputed election.

To be sure, experts bring biases like everyone else. But, considering that the limited time on the news (or space, regarding newspapers and magazines), can be the biggest enemy in capturing the truth about an issue, an expert can bring a breadth of knowledge and can convey what is accepted as truth by most people in the field who have given the matter serious thought. Because an expert might know as much about an issue as twenty lay people, this approach might be one of the best possible ways to condense information enough to present a well-rounded view in a short period of time. Yet, while there are a few shows that do consistently bring in experts, it continues to be quite rare, in general, for the news media to reach out to academics to get an idea of what is happening in the field.

While the view of news media as educator leaves way for bias, it can be argued that there is no such thing as unbiased news. Furthermore, sometimes biased news presented after careful analysis and editing is much more informative than the watered-down, both-sides-equal approach. Of course, who is picked as an “expert” is also subjective and leaves open the possibility of misrepresentation. However, picking well-respected university professors is often a good bet, since they are less prone to have specific financial interests in the issue, and because they are accredited experts. Even if a report by an expert happens to be strongly biased, at least it would provide the audience with solid ground to either agree or disagree with the expressed opinions, instead of leaving them thinking they got the full, unadulterated truth, when really the newscast was always limited to what the reporters could cover, what the editors liked, and what the networks thought would be the most entertaining.

Despite the value that more in-depth coverage could have on the American psyche, we may not be able to do much about how the news is presented to us. However, one big thing that we always have control over is what media we pay attention to. Regardless of how big and mainstream some aspects of culture may become, we are the consumers, which actually gives us the most power. Therefore, perhaps consuming less and being more careful about what we spend our precious time listening to and watching would do us all some good. While there is a tremendous variety of news and opinions out there, trying to pay attention to too many of them can leave people overwhelmed, disoriented, and stressed-out, like all too many Americans.

Variety is a great thing. Yet, the tremendous variety that we have nowadays in everything from the kinds of shampoo we buy to where we go to college can be overwhelming. There are dozens and dozens of television and radio stations broadcasting news, at least that many major magazines, hundreds of newspapers, and maybe tens of thousands of websites, a great many of which we can check on a daily basis. It is wonderful to be able to consult a few different sources to get a more balanced view of events, but this magnitude of media exposure is surely too much for anyone to handle. Even monitoring five or ten different media sources on a regular basis can be very distracting, and has the potential to cause profound disturbances in our everyday lives. However, there is a feeling in our society that the more information we consume, the more we know about the world and the more educated we will be. This assumes, though that each source we watch or read is actually novel (and doesn’t overlap with the others), and that it is true and accurate. Unfortunately, this is often not the case.

The more information there is floating around on the web and beamed over the airwaves, the more misinformation there will also be. Some information presented is not really false, but is so limited, misleading, or over-dramatized that its educational value is extremely marginal. If someone just wants to be entertained, then certainly there is no harm in watching television or visiting a fun website to unwind. The harm comes because so many sources claim to be real and legitimate when they are not, and people get mislead because it is often hard to tell the difference in a world where the boundaries between advertisements and the news, between “reality” TV and TV about reality, and between legitimate and spurious websites are blurred. The celebrity gossip magazines, “fact”-laden advertising, and reality TV add to this grayish zone. Words such as “real”, “all-natural”, and “certified” are so ubiquitous today that they start to lose their meaning.

One approach is that a little ignorance may not be such a bad thing in an environment so swamped with information that people feel stressed out and overwhelmed. Indeed, some psychological studies on consumers suggest that the more variety of different products they are exposed to, the more stressed and restricted they feel, instead of feeling more happy and free. It may be that after a certain point, more variety just complicates and expands the already burdensome number of choices that constantly need to be made in everyday life. So, it might be advantageous to relax and be at peace with the fact that we cannot keep up with all of the new things being pushed upon us, so it is ok to be ignorant of a great deal of the media and culture we could access. Ignoring most media is not perpetuating ignorance, but quite the opposite because it can help filter out a lot of drama and misinformation, and because it allows people to try to really understand in depth the issues that matter most to them. It could even be beneficial to our societal health to do so by allowing people to stay focused on the local relationships that often get neglected when people are too busy. While the news may offer novelty and variety, only local connections and relationships can provide true comfort, satisfaction, and friendship.