Living in a Media Saturated World: Why We Need Media Literacy

A preschooler's risk of obesity jumps 6% for every hour of TV watched per day, 31% if the TV is in their bedroom. The average American child sees 40,000 commercials, each year, on broadcast TV. By the time a child is 18 years old, he or she will witness on television (with average viewing time) 200,000 acts of violence including 40,000 murders. Teens consider musicians their heroes more frequently than athletes and rate the influence of music higher than religion or books. Plus, 44% of children and teens report watching different programs when their parents are not around.

These facts from Common Sense Media and the National Institute on Media and the Family just show how much the media affects people in their daily lives, especially kids. Children are surrounded by all kinds of media outlets on a daily basis: internet, television, music, movies, and much more. This world is constantly becoming more media saturated every day, as people continue to rely on the media for their information and entertainment.

And while media technology continues to develop, education on how the media affects people is not spreading quite as rapidly as it should. Children of all ages are especially being targeted to expand their media usage, since they have grown up with this technology, but they are not being educated on how to use the media properly and how to interpret what they are exposed to every day. Many children mistake the media world as reality. In order to make sound and safe choices when considering the media and what it means for them, children need to be taught what they should believe and what they should be critical of when dealing with the media.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...

The early years of a child's life are crucial for cognitive, social and emotional development. Therefore, it is important that we take every step necessary to ensure that children grow up in environments where their social, emotional and educational needs are met.

This is especially true for young children, but parents also should be concerned about their young teens' exposure to the media. During that time, children are experiencing a struggle between independence and dependence. Young teens will surf the web, listen to music and watch TV without much supervision by their parents. While many parents do trust them to make good decisions, these early adolescents need the tools to understand and to analyze media messages in this media saturated world.

At this age, teens make more of their own choices about friends, sports, studying and school. They become more independent, with their own personality and interests (The Department of Health and Human Services).

One major problem that these young teens face revolves around the social scene. This group is especially being sucked into the world of MySpace and Facebook to meet friends and to interact with people their age, therefore creating a sense of isolation from society. Most of MySpace's almost 50 million users are under the age of 22 (National Institute on Media and the Family). These children will sit for hours on the computer every day, and there's no guarantee that people are who they say they are on these Web sites. It's scary.

Children of all ages need to be educated to become more media literate. As technology improves, these kids will continue to be more and more exposed to a media saturated culture, so it's important for the schools and for the parents to teach their children how to deal with the media.

Playing the Right Cards...

The media has a purpose: it seeks out certain reactions from its consumers, hoping to get the most profitable response. The movie industry has increased its release of violent movies because, according to the Media Access Network, "…Action films export well. Unlike drama and comedies, which need expensive translation of their dialogue, action-packed movies make the transition to foreign languages and markets easily and cheaply."

With this kind of motivation, it's important for people to realize how the media affects them. According to W. James Potter's Media Literacy, oftentimes, the media does not affect us enough to manifest itself in our behaviors; instead, the media continues to move us along a "risk continuum" little by little towards a manifestation of a particular behavior.

I completed an exercise in the book, and to my surprise, I learned a lot about myself that wasn't always so evident to me. First, I analyzed my response to a violent movie, Casino Royale...then I looked at my behavior during and after I watched one my favorite movies of all time, The Notebook. I realized that I'm more likely to manifest emotional behavior after watching a romance, than to exhibit aggressive behavior after watching a violent movie.

Like any Bond movie, Casino Royale lives up to its name with high action-packed scenes which includes violent images. Even the opening credits use "cards" to depict all the violent scenes throughout the movie.



Bond kills at least 10 different people in the movie, and yet after I watched the movie, I didn’t act any more aggressively than I did before I watched the movie. This movie doesn’t result in a manifestation of behavior, but it does move me along the risk continuum.

The media factor "context of portrayals" adds to how I look at characters in life. The book says, "The good guys' violent acts are always portrayed as being justified…The meaning of violence, then, is that if you are a good guy, violence is an essential and successful means of resolving conflict." I began to become desensitized to the kind of violence in the Bond movies, believing that characters like Bond are justified in what they are doing, despite how many innocent people they hurt in the meantime.

However, romance movies make me emotional. For example, I still cry every time I watch The Notebook, referring to the "states" factor. Certain emotional factors temporarily result from watching media messages. In addition, my "lifestyle" factor is affected by romance movies. I begin to think that relationships and love should be like a storybook fairy tale romance.

The way media affects us is like "playing the right cards." It’s like the complex plot of a Bond movie woven together in a complicated card game. If the right combination of factors pushes me down the risk continuum, behavior will manifest itself. In the future, I hope to be more aware of how romance movies affect my attitude towards relationships and to consider the deeper reality of relationships and love.

Lost in TV Ratings?

An ABC Network favorite, Lost has captivated a large audience since its premiere back in 2004. At the end of its first season, the show won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series and averaged 16 million viewers per episode, ranking 14th in prime-time network shows that year.

Lost was a success; it was signed on again for another season. The second installment increased its strength with the show's niche audience demographic of 18 to 49 year olds…going from 15th to 8th place for that particular audience.

Lost is currently in its fourth season. The TV series will air for a total of six seasons, planning to end in May 2010.

However, Lost seems to have taken an unexpected turn. TV networks are out to make money and need shows that bring in the advertising dollars; Lost is not fitting the bill.

Despite a strong fourth season start with 16.1 million viewers, Lost is falling behind other competing network shows.

Recent Nielsen TV ratings show Lost is having trouble competing against CBS's CSI and Fox’s Are You Smarter Than a 5^th Grader? For April 3, Nielsen reported the following ratings/shares during Lost's Thursday 9 p.m. time slot:

CBS’s CSI 12.8/19
Fox’s Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? 6.6/10
NBC’s The Office 3.9/6
ABC’s Lost 3.1/5

Lost's share is higher than its rating, which is generally the case for any show. A rating is the percentage of people watching compared to the total number of households with television sets, while a share is the percentage of those watching a show compared to the total number of people watching television during that time. However, the difference between the two for Lost is not as much as for shows like CSI.

Lost was a repeat last week, so it's not surprising the show is in last place. ABC has been showing repeats since March 20, because of the WGA strike, which prevented episodes to be written and shot during that time. DVR ratings released by Nielsen also revealed that Lost is one of the most-recorded shows on television.

Lost does have a strong fan base, but increased DVR viewings have lowered the show's overall ratings. Trying to counteract this effect, ABC has moved Lost's time slot numerous times during its four seasons (either a 9 or 10 p.m. slot), giving the show higher comparative ratings. Lost is scheduled for a new time slot later this season (10 p.m. instead of 9 p.m.), which should help the show succeed with 18 to 49 year olds, without competitors like CSI for that audience.

While Lost's scheduled return on April 24 should bring the show back up to par in ratings, only time will tell.