The Mass Media - A Users Guide

Mass Media- A Users Guide

I can remember a world before the Internet. It stands to reason. I was born in 1975. For me growing up if I wanted to know a fact, I opened up the set of Encyclopaedia’s that most households had, or if that failed I had to go the my local Library. (yes I understand the Dewey Decimal system). Discovering facts was hard work which required time and effort. These days wikipedia can answer most things for you in seconds. That's a great thing. So why do people seem more ignorant now than when before this was possible.

The Gatekeepers

Do you know this man. Anyone who lived in NSW during the 70's, 80, and 90,s will. This is Brian Henderson. He was the Newsreader for National Nine News. Most of Sydney sat down in front of the TV every night at 6pm and received good honest news from this one source. The Nine Network ran ad campaigns based on the trustworthiness of this man. “Brian Told Me” was a slogan we accepted and lapped up. Melbourne similarly watched Brian Naylor together, while in the United States names like Dan Rather, Brian Williams and Walter Cronkite brought the nation together and informed that nations understanding of topics as important as Watergate, the Downfall of the Soviet Union, to tragedies like the Challenger Disaster.

In the print media everyone had their favourite Newspaper. Some leaned left, some leaned right, but they were all written to appeal to the everyman. On today's scale they would be centrist. Everyone read their newpapers. Literacy was even measured by Newspaper Circulation. Something that would be laughable now.

So What Happened?

In short it was the internet. Here was an explosion of opinions, I could find facts without effort, rather just at the touch of a button. But this is where something interesting happened. People started to filter out opinions they didn't agree with. The Internet compartmentalised society in such a way, that you never had to listen to or think through an opinion coming from a philosophy you didn't agree with. So the centre started to shrink, and the extremes started to expand. The Old Media reacted by trying to keep the people it had, the newspapers abandoned the centre ground altogether plumbing for gaining a larger portion of an ever decreasing pie.

On the TV side one of the first to do this was Rupert Murdoch, his Fox News Pioneered the News from one side genre that MSNBC copied to far less effect. In effect the old media has become far less trustworthy that it was before, and it's our fault. We stopped watching and reading. The Old media had to become more like the New media.

Are You Saying we Need a new Gatekeeper?

Well yes and no. What I'm saying is that you need to be the new Gatekeeper. Don't just believe something because you heard it from a mate who read it in a blog and seems to be able to explain it better than you can. You need to think critically about the information you are hearing. Who is telling you this? What is their agenda? Does it mesh with the facts you already know about this subject. If it doesn't agree with what you already know, is the old knowledge correct or do you need to change your beliefs.

Remember that its only the stupid people who are certain. The intelligent ones go on questioning and are ready to change an opinion when they are shown evidence that it is wrong.

So what about you? Are you one of the Stupid ones? You don't have to be. You also don't have any excuse in a western nation in 2014. Knowledge is at your fingertips. Use it.