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| May 10, 2002 |
Media Unlimited
Todd Gitlin
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How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives. A
birthday present from Brent. I allow myself to feel a little
supercilious simply because I don't have TV at home, when in fact I
absorb plenty of other media: from my computer, from my stereo, from
my periodicals. Rather than being a media secessionist I think I am
what Gitlin would call an ironist, someone who devours the new issue
of In Style before falling asleep but pokes fun of it in the
morning. The people I really respect are the jammers, but I despair
of ever possessing the bravery or creativity to pull off their
antics. Gitlin's history of the development of the many forms of
mass media and his argument that their onslaught has a deadening
effect on our senses is inspiring enough to make me want to take a
further step back from media. I love pop culture too much to ever
abandon it completely, but I don't think I have to. What if I sat
and listened to music instead of always having it play in the
background? What if I stopped driving myself to multitask? What if I
became ever more mindful of what goes into my head? Gitlin suggests:
"Perhaps if we step away from the ripples of the moment, the week, or
the season, and contemplate the torrent in its entirety, we will know
what we want to do about it besides change channels."
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