Media matters

For me learning media and pop culture is really important. Media has changed our life and society in various ways and if we do not care about it or learn from it, we will just follow the trance by no reasons. For me by that time, people lose themselves.

        I read chapter 9 and get really interested in this social learning theory. As the book says, social learning theory focuses on how we learn to believe and behave based on observation, imitation and modeling. This theory has this idea that people don’t just behave like that. They will learn from the acts of others. And now, media has taken a great portion of life, a lot of people just change their behavior because of that.

I personally consider myself a heavy TV user. However I’m a TCOM major and will go to the movie industry in the future, my little hobbit may consider not wrong. But it is still too much. I watch TV shows and movies for over 3 hours a day when I’m not supper busy. And on weekends, I can even watch 10 hours a day. Like last weekend, I just finished two seasons of American Horror Stories in two days. That’s a lot of work.

So, how these TV shows and movies have changed me? When I was a little girl, I was really afraid of any kinds of fiction or horror movies. But since I’ve been watching a lot of horror movies, I just no longer afraid of such thing. That’s totally opposite to what we discuss in class today. Because fearful is one same element of those heavy TV users. But this is only for me so I don’t know what others think of this.

However I do find a great fear of marriage and relationships with another person. It’s not because marriages on screen are too bad so that I’m afraid of getting worse relationships with others. On the contrary, they are too good on screen. I like how the main characters fell in love, how they talk, how they play. I just find the real world too boring. And because I have so many movies and TV shows to see, I simply don’t think getting into a relationship is necessary. That’s a big danger because right now I just don’t want to marry. I guess a lot of people would have the same feelings like this. For example, they have a favorite actor and the girls just want to marry his instead of finding a real boyfriend.

This is also a reflection of para-social relationship. I have to say I have a lot of these kinds of people. I have a lot of favorites like actors, actresses, musicians. I watch all their related movies and TV shows as well as interviews and news. I think I know everything about them, their favorite brand, colors. I even think I know their personality, I feel like I understand him. But a voice deep in my mind just tells me that’s not true. They act and they just want you to believe who they are.

Like right now I’m really interested in a J-pop group. The name is Arashi and their music is really good. This group has five members, Ohno Satoshi, Sho Sakurai, Masaki Aiba, Kazunari Ninomiya and Jun Matsumoto. I can remember all their information and almost sing all their songs. I even start to learn Japanese just because I love them so much and I want to understand what they are saying. Each member act as well as host many different shows. They also have their own shows. They have been a group for 15 years and there are a lot of interviews, shows, dramas and movies related to them, which means, I have a lot of work to do. Sometimes, I think it’s horrible to waste time on such things because you simply crazily love a group of people and they may never know you. And they make a lot of money and time from you. Knowing this is just suck.

But they do give me courages. If I listen to their music I feel happy. If I see their faces, I feel happy too. I guess I get benefit too and I don’t regret it. Yes, media do change me but choosing which media to look is totally my choice. Even if my friends ask me to check something, I’ll turn it down if I don’t like it. Living in a world full of media, we young people just need to work hard and fit in. For me, media matters.