Weezy27/ 4-12

While discussing Bourdieu many of his quotes and ideas resonated with me. For example, Bourdieu talked about our need for immediacy in today’s society. We need to know what is happening and where it is happening while it is happening or else we are highly unsatisfied. I thought it was interesting when Dr. Casey brought up the fact that there will no longer be any printed newspaper because the information will be coming to us too late. We no longer care about what happened last night or yesterday because this is information that we already know. We need a newspaper that can constantly print new and appealing news.  How and why does this happen? What about our society makes us crave fast media?

 

One particular quote that I found interesting states: “The farther a paper extends its circulation, the more it favors such topics that interest ‘everybody’ and don’t raise problems.  The object—news—is constructed in accordance with the perceptual categories of the receiver.”  I feel like this quote raises a pretty large issue in today’s society. In the media we rarely hear about events that actually matter such as the war over seas. Today we hear about tragedies such as the latest missing child. But aren’t there several children missing each day? Why do we focus on specific individuals? When you look at the big picture it does seem strange that we spend so much time worrying about one missing child instead of the thousands of kids that go missing each day. Why, instead, do we not focus on issues such as the progress of the war or our stance in Iraq. These are issues that I know little about but wish I knew more about. Things such as the latest missing child is something that I know way too much about yet I would rather be learning something else such as the condition of our U.S. army. So why does the media focus on these minuscule stories and not the big picture. The answer lies in the desires of the “receiver.” People are drawn in by stories of little girls like Caylee Anthony. Therefore, the receiver tends to want more of the story, making the story seem like the most important thing in the news. We do not necessarily want to know what is important; we want to know what is interesting and appealing.