Kari T

THE CONSUMPTION OF MEDIA

photo from insidetwitter.com

As a media consumer and purveyor, I live and breath in and around many things related to media. I have come to accept that it is a part of my daily existence, but I am always conscious that it is I consuming it, and not the other way around.  As purveyor, I see its creation, its impact, benefits and pitfalls. As a learned consumer, I engage in it but also know when to step away and weigh its worth -  or the time and space it occupies in my life. In short, I am conscious of its utility -- and its insanity.  Media is immersive, and people can definitely get "sucked in" into its so-called "culture" without realizing it.
         I consume movies, music, videos, web materials, social media of all sorts, literature, and even those "now known and hereafter devised" (it's similar to lab tests, where I get to witness how new media is perceived and received), but as said, I am always consci

Spectacle - the smart sunglasse
by Snap Inc., comes with an integrated

video camera.

ous of the amount of energy and time I spend in that space. It can be fun, but working in media also "removes the blinders," for me, so to speak, so I tend to not participate in what has been coined as the "selfie nation." Not to sound glib, but I've seen way many so-called media celebrities up close during photo sessions and events to know that they look nothing like the images they skillfully peddle on social media. Good lighting, photoshop editors, a good makeup artist, a trainer, an agent and a darn good publicist is what makes these people look "perfect" under the lens. It's their unreal reality, and it is a performance
         As a student of Women and Gender Studies, I also get to observe how media affects people under a different set of lenses. The below passage from the book, Ways of Seeing by John Berger, really sticks out for me, for I have witnessed how much media can direct a woman's sense of reality and self worth.

from the viral video, "10 hours of walking in NYC as a Woman (wikipedia.org)

   "To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space into the keeping of men. The social presence of women has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space.  But this has been at the cost of a woman's self being split into two. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanies by her own image of herself... from earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually.  And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her
identity as a woman."

I agree that under a multitude of lenses, a woman experiences life under a microscope. Inasmuch as it becomes fair game for women to use media to promote their own causes, and make a profit, I always worry about the female consumers, particularly those who find their life's meaning directed by the dictates of whatever is "hot" or in fashion. As a parent raising two young sons, I also am conscious of how my boys utilize media, and how they perceive people of all backgrounds, beliefs and all else that make us unique through the various media platforms they are exposed to. No matter how actively I parent these kids, their impressionable minds are already being taught unintentionally by the media they are exposed to, and the values made normal by the media on the treatment of women, and anyone who can appear to be different.
         However, I also see that media can be a game changer (Yes, the Nobel Prize winning activist and writer, Malala Yousafsai joined Instagram on her 21st birthday!) It provides a multitude of perspectives and ideas that were not otherwise available before - all within a touch of a button or even plain speech (Hello Siri and Alexa). The challenge for us as consumers is in how we gauge the value of the content we consume, and to question why we consume what we choose to consume. We are now in the age of voice/sight/touch activated everything, and where real time can be spent in the endless space of media void. I am ever hopeful that people still value real time, and real space. At the end of the day, it is what we bring into this real space, what we learn of ourselves and others, that make a difference and bring quality into our lives. I hope that despite the pervasive and immersive media culture we now live in, we still know how to validate reality and our own uniqueness.