The Ecology of Media

The media has been around for many years and as time goes on there will always be people for or against it. The specific medium I am going to focus on is the television. The television’s main purpose is to entertain and inform, but what it’s actually doing is so much more than just informing viewers. Now during these technologically advanced periods the televisions purpose has changed dramatically and its new function no longer holds true to its purpose. The television now in popular demands can be found almost anywhere on a globe and with that, cultural implications arise.

Americanization is changing the face of the world and ultimately, many countries are losing their cultural identity. Many girls now across the world are watching shows such as Gossip Girl and are being influenced to believe what they see as real and acceptable. Now all around the world people are becoming more ‘Americanized’ and thus losing their true cultural identity because of the television.

Neil Postman believes that our society has not plummeted to levels of intellectual deprivation and that the television does not have enough ‘resonance’ to change the truth of reality. My understanding of what reality is, is the world we inhabit. As kids are watching shows and movies that contain violence, I strongly believe our youths are being desensitized to violence. With that, television can change the truth of our world therefore changing the reality we live in. Also, I believe our society has plummeted in levels of intellectual deprivation because now what we watch is being taken in for face value and no being properly understood. As a result of this lack of ability for the viewers to compare the difference between truth and fabrication, viewers are losing that one thing that holds true to them and allowing it to fade away, their intellect.

The television can be a device that can do more good than harm if used properly. It’s a tool to help understand global events, and is a form of entertainment. ‘Television, for Postman is inextricably linked with entertainment and is dangerous when it attempts to be serious.’ I agree with this statement because if entertainment and gossip is taken serious then we believe it and therefore we are being influenced by false perception. It’s important to understand the importance of the television and to understand all the cultural implications the television has to offer. ‘The medium is the message,’ is what Marshall McLuhan said and what he meant by this was that the medium is merging itself within the message which is creating a relationship where the medium is influencing how the message is being perceived.


work cited

The Playboy Interview: Marshal McLuhan. March 1969. 5 October 2009 http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~gisle/links/mcluhan/pb.html.

Marshall McLuhan: Media is the message. Todd Kappelman, 14 July 2002. 5 October. 2009. http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/mcluhan.html.