What Good Is This?
The past two days have been a crash course in Comm 101 for me, and a belief I've held before from Comm 102 and 111 has been reinforced.
Communications is a very passive art; it takes a look at events happening and analyzes them. It explains how the world works, and the problems society undergoes, and recognizes these enough to the point where students of the study will understand the dark side of the media. But in communications, no one actually does anything; it's mostly observation.
Even surveys, which are a staple in marketing and business, do not represent the true face of the target audience, because only a certain group is being evaluated.
Communications is BORING. It's all about content analysis, and this is something I really don't want to wind up doing the rest of my life. That's why I want to write, to actually put something down on paper, and to have other people look at it. Also, communications is one of the more contradictive majors out there. I'm taking a break from reading excerpts from a book called "Democracy Without Citizens", which talks about how much the American people have apathy towards politics; that a very large percentage of Americans don't give a shit about politics, and unfortunately there are a good amount of people who think they know a lot, and use this tainted information to guide decision making. But this book contradicts itself so much that I find it really irrelevant to read this.
The author, Robert Entman, states that the ideal of a true "free press" is far from possible in America because companies are profit-maximizing organizations, and therefore their news will be sensationalized and shaped to what the viewers want to see, instead of really focusing on what's important and further analyzing problems. Entman says that because media stations are really controlled by advertisers, the important stuff gets overlooked, and worse, American citizens don't know, and even worse than that, those who do know don't care. But Entman doesn't go on to suggest any solutions to the problem, because he says that a true free press ideal isn't even possible, because in order for an economy to run, people need to make money, and so if a news station were to air unpopular programming, it would obviously lose money.
This is all very basic information. It's like this guy is Captain Obvious, except he happens to know how to write extremely well. The writing on its own is astounding, and I hope to reach this level someday, but to write about the futility of something is, well, futile, because it doesn't affect my day to day life, nor anyone elses'. Yes, I can recognize that bias exists in the news, but what the hell can I do about it? If I'm an editor of a newspaper, I want to make money so I can survive, and if I have to slant the stories in order to do so, then so be it. I just don't understand what the hell the point of this major is.
Maybe there isn't one. Maybe communications is supposed to be about doing absolutely nothing but watching what's going on. I just find that the more and more I delve into communications, the more useless and futile I find this degree. A few months ago I was set into majoring in it, but now I'm probably gonna wind up declaring as a creative writing major under the english department, because I really don't know what I'd do with communications.
If you're looking at comm or are currently in it, I would suggest that you take a look into the future and see where you're going, because aside from marketing and PR, where other degrees would carry more weight, communications might not be very helpful.
In any case, I'm going to finish reading, and see if I can find anything useful.
Communications is a very passive art; it takes a look at events happening and analyzes them. It explains how the world works, and the problems society undergoes, and recognizes these enough to the point where students of the study will understand the dark side of the media. But in communications, no one actually does anything; it's mostly observation.
Even surveys, which are a staple in marketing and business, do not represent the true face of the target audience, because only a certain group is being evaluated.
Communications is BORING. It's all about content analysis, and this is something I really don't want to wind up doing the rest of my life. That's why I want to write, to actually put something down on paper, and to have other people look at it. Also, communications is one of the more contradictive majors out there. I'm taking a break from reading excerpts from a book called "Democracy Without Citizens", which talks about how much the American people have apathy towards politics; that a very large percentage of Americans don't give a shit about politics, and unfortunately there are a good amount of people who think they know a lot, and use this tainted information to guide decision making. But this book contradicts itself so much that I find it really irrelevant to read this.
The author, Robert Entman, states that the ideal of a true "free press" is far from possible in America because companies are profit-maximizing organizations, and therefore their news will be sensationalized and shaped to what the viewers want to see, instead of really focusing on what's important and further analyzing problems. Entman says that because media stations are really controlled by advertisers, the important stuff gets overlooked, and worse, American citizens don't know, and even worse than that, those who do know don't care. But Entman doesn't go on to suggest any solutions to the problem, because he says that a true free press ideal isn't even possible, because in order for an economy to run, people need to make money, and so if a news station were to air unpopular programming, it would obviously lose money.
This is all very basic information. It's like this guy is Captain Obvious, except he happens to know how to write extremely well. The writing on its own is astounding, and I hope to reach this level someday, but to write about the futility of something is, well, futile, because it doesn't affect my day to day life, nor anyone elses'. Yes, I can recognize that bias exists in the news, but what the hell can I do about it? If I'm an editor of a newspaper, I want to make money so I can survive, and if I have to slant the stories in order to do so, then so be it. I just don't understand what the hell the point of this major is.
Maybe there isn't one. Maybe communications is supposed to be about doing absolutely nothing but watching what's going on. I just find that the more and more I delve into communications, the more useless and futile I find this degree. A few months ago I was set into majoring in it, but now I'm probably gonna wind up declaring as a creative writing major under the english department, because I really don't know what I'd do with communications.
If you're looking at comm or are currently in it, I would suggest that you take a look into the future and see where you're going, because aside from marketing and PR, where other degrees would carry more weight, communications might not be very helpful.
In any case, I'm going to finish reading, and see if I can find anything useful.
posted by KTrain at 4:23 PM
1 Comments:
Interesting site. Useful information. Bookmarked.
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