Media Messages
Hi! I’m Abbi.
I’m 21. I’m from Maryland. I enjoy photography, coffee, traveling, and books that make me think.
I’ve spent most of my life not really knowing what I’m doing with it.
Nevertheless, through a long series of events involving my own indecisiveness, a convincing friend, and ultimately the subtle guidance of God, I currently find myself in my Junior year at Grove City College pursuing a major in Communication Studies with minors in Biblical and Religious Studies and, if all goes as planned, Design.
Anyways, Communications wasn’t something I considered in my long, complicated quest to discover my plan for post-high-school endeavors. However, as a friend of mine encouraged me to check out GCC, she also urged me to look into the Communications program.
What I found was a degree about storytelling, creativity, and engaging with the voices of the modern world while giving glory to the one true Creator. It basically encompassed all the things I’m most passionate about.
So that’s how I got here.
Something we talk about a lot in this department is “the media.” With ever-advancing technology and modes of communication, what does that even mean? I see it as the endless voices which feed into our society. It’s the books we read, the television programs we watch, the radio stations we listen to,the social networks we use, the advertisements that surround us…essentially, anything that communicates a message of some kind to an audience.
What’s interesting to me is that the media seems to simultaneously influence, and be influenced by, the culture it is produced in. The media promotes fashion trends, political opinions, social justice issues, and yet it is created by people whose opinions have been fed and influenced by the voices of the media around them their whole lives.
Media is powerful. In our contemporary society, with ever-progressing technology and a culture of consumerism and controversy, it’s nigh on impossible to escape its influence. It can shape the way people think about so many things. May we ever be careful to evaluate the media we consume as it relates to our worldviews, and to be conscious of the messages we are sending through our own participation in this media-driven culture.
