Friday, May 11, 2007

Future Role

What role will I choose for my life? Well, I am currently a psychology student, and the role I want to choose regarding that is become a counselor and peacemaker. I want all people to know that their opinion does count and people can work things out if it means that much to them. I also want to be a good daughter, sister, and friend. Family is very important to me, so I definately want to center my life around family first and foremost. I want to eventually be a wonderful wife and mother to start my own family life.
After this class, I have seen the roles that activists have taken and how the roles that they choose effect them in every way. Being an activist is not for me. I am happy with my life right now and want to focus on things that mean a lot to me, such as my family. I think everyone should have a passion, and their role should coincide with their passion.
These are the roles that I choose

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Lippmann Wrapped Up


Walter Lippmann addresses many issues in his book Public Opinion. He states that media creates the pictures that we have in our heads. One issue that he addresses is stereotypes, and he states that the reason that the public has the stereotypes that it does is because media (television, radio, film) puts these ideas into media consumers’ heads. In this way, media acts as the gatekeeper and agenda setter of society. Media chooses what it wants individuals to know and feeds it to us through various sources of medium. In this way, Lippmann hints to the idea that our society is not a democracy at all, but in fact, the public is controlled by the gatekeepers of media.
It can be seen how technological determinism ties into this idea. Technological determinism is the idea that technology determines history and drives society. In a more specific sense, technology (media) determines how individuals in society react and the choices that people make every day. We act on the pictures in our head implanted by the media. This creates society.
The solution that Lippmann proposes to stop the media from holding this power over the public, is a call for intellegencia. The intellegencia are individuals who are educated and thus will educate the public and cause individuals to participate and think critically. The intellegencia will help the public become media literate, and end the power that it has over society. In this way, media will not be able to set their agenda and act as the gatekeepers, but we as society will be guided by individuals who are educated and will lead us to become a better society.

Even though Lippmann was hard to read, “Public Opinion” truly was an interesting read. Until you have a chance to analyze the novel, one may not even think about the control media has over us as a society. It is only after we realize this, and become educated enough to stop it, that we can create a change in society and be our own gatekeepers