Conversing about media and its role in society is not only an exciting conversation, but a requirement for journalism students.
Beginning with Missouri State’s “Survey of Mass Media Theory” class, journalism students are trained to recognize certain theories of the media. Discussions of the organization of media conglomerates expose many harsh realities for new students. These realizations of the media world are shocking, confusing and unexpected. Agenda setting theory? Spiral of silence theory? Cultivation theory? Pairings of words completely unheard of previously.
- The cultivation theory examines the long-term effects of television on viewers.
In my public affairs reporting class on Tuesday, we were discussing the setup of the media and its complexity that is often overlooked by ordinary citizens.
A classmate proposed the idea of media interpretation classes for high school students, where information dissemination often begins. This idea seems so practical, as questionable news is produced more and more frequently now that we live in a technology-bound world. Due to endless social networking, millions of individual accounts of newsworthy occurrences are produced daily. Media professionals are pressed to produce news quickly and crucial facts and sources are often overlooked for the impact of immediacy.
Bill Kovach and Tom Rosentiel’s book “Blur” suggests informing students at an early age what to look out for and how to adopt a skeptical way of knowing. The authors say a “discriminating citizen” looks closely at content, completeness, sources, evidence, immediacy and reader satisfaction.
Sponsors of high school newspapers and other student publications could give simple media lessons over different forms of press.
Ultimately, I think we all need to be more skeptical in our way of consuming knowledge. Our way of sharing recent news has transformed tremendously in a short span of time and we should demand the best information possible, especially those who are journalists.
By doing such things, we are much more active as citizens, a bettering ourselves.
To hear some more perspective on the changing journalism climate today, read the article “Technology empowers amateur journalism — for better or worse” by USA Today’s Andrew Kantor.
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