Media Overload

While in previous years being alone meant you weren’t communicating with anybody else, in today’s technological world you can be all alone in your room yet virtually connected to the entire world. From phones to computers to television, these are all media that have helped to create a new public sphere, one based far less on space, and more on time, access to free flowing information, and global interconnectivity (Arjun Appadurai)(248). Marshall McLuhan said in the 1960’s that a medium is any extension through ourselves in a technological form (229). This idea of media extensions is tied in with the creation of mass audience. Monolithic mass culture refers to a period in the early 20^th century where early television and newspapers dominated news, but this gave way to the concept of mass media which is the term used to describe those many media forms used to reach mass audiences with shared interests (226). As a part of the contest between different media and corporations, we’ve seen a battle of spectacles, or basically, shock and awe news (240).This kind of sensationalist approach can have its cons.

 

 

A problem with the approach of today’s quick and ever-changing bombardment of images is the “media overload” it has created (227). Jean Baudrillard coined the term cyberblitz to describe the escalation of random and unpredictable media forms, images, and information that have smothered post modern society (227). My image taken of a young boy this year, shows him gazing into an onslaught of televisions and different media options and speaks to the cyberblitz we currently face and its possible consequences, especially on developing young minds. Because of convergence, defined by many media coming together into one, this media overload is even more accessible and refined, and this raises expectations of instant gratification even higher (look no further than the iPhone for convergence example)(232). Moreover, because these media are so widespread, convenient and encaptivating, almost everybody works within them and media critics such as Herbert Schiller are quick to point out how such power could be used by private organizations to take over private space (236). Because media is now very capable of dictating ideology, and hence culture in large, scholars such as Robert McChensey argue nearly all media can be seen as propaganda- covertly promoting specific ideals in a manner unbeknownst to the masses (237).