Mass media – it’s a term that is much maligned. “Liberal media bias” is claimed by conservatives while “vast right-wing conspiracy” is touted by the liberal side. But the problem of mass media goes well beyond the bias of the reporters. I believe that the problem of mass media is that it is “mass” in the first place.
We live in a society where we care intensely about what is popular. We have carried this popularity fetish to the point where many people do not even look for something new or interesting – they simply wait for the next hot topic to come down the line through their TV or web browser.
We have an educational system that is designed to produce factory workers. The word of the day is “standardized testing”. It’s tough to encourage a class of 25 children to be unique, so we make everyone draw pictures for a while (even those who are terrible at drawing) and think that it engenders creativity. This was great in the 1940′s and 1950′s (more…)
