Let’s talk about something that we are bombarded with every single day: the media. The media is everywhere. It is on social media, television; it even comes pre-downloaded on our smart devices and is labeled as “news.” Why is the media so important? Because unfortunately for most of society the media has replaced the brain.
The media is able to seemingly control the concerns of people just by spoon feeding them what they (the media) wants them to care about. Don't think this is true? Remember the Ebola outbreak, and it was all you ever heard about on TV? Well, have you heard anything about Ebola lately? I promise that the disease and the people that had it didn't just go away. But the mainstream concern over Ebola just disappeared. The media quit running Ebola stories, and society quit being concerned with it as well. This is only one of many occurrences that the media has distracted us from because it no longer fit their agenda.
Another example of the media’s influence happened just this past week. A New York judge ruled that singer Kesha wouldn't be released from her music contract even in light of her rape allegations against her producer, who she will still have contact with because of their shared employer. A woman, as it appears, is being forced to stay in a contract that will have her walking past her alleged abuser on a daily basis. This is something that the public should be speaking out about. Instead, a feud between two other female artists stemming from this ruling took main stage, while Kesha and her battle for justice took the back seat. The media doesn't want the public to focus on the potential injustice that is going on. They want people to look somewhere else, so they focus on Twitter posts of celebrities throwing mud at each other. And many people took the bait. They are watching the newest celebrity rivalry rather than speaking up for justice and women equality.
I speak as a Millennial myself. I am watching the same news and seeing the same links on my Facebook timeline. However, I still depend on my own independent thoughts to draw conclusions and ask more questions. The media is a source for information and a great thing in America, but we cannot take its broadcasts as gospel, and we need to be wiling to dig deeper to find the truth and not allow the media to control the things we care about.Millennials, we are the future. We have so much potential and have the capabilities for greatness. But greatness will not be achieved if we spend our lives thinking what we are told to think and feeling what the media wants us to feel. We should to be able to form our own opinions and being willing fight for the issues that the media wants us to sweep under the run, like their own fueling of racial tensions and the smoke screen of gender equality.
