Media Is You
Here are 5 reasons why
You are reading this from a screen, an electronic transmission made of zeros and ones, brought to you by algorithms, marketed by invisible companies that want your money. Saying that media is you seems absolutely absurd. You are not your smartphone, not a character in a video game or a movie, not even a person making decisions about what news story will be aired next.
And yet, it is you, whether you want it or not. Here is why.
1. You need other people
Look at yourself in the mirror. Are you human? If the answer is yes, you are a curious creature who wants to connect with others all the time. You want to learn from them, share your thoughts, be entertained and often even challenged. If somebody unkind decided to lock you in an empty little room with bare walls, with absolutely nobody to talk to for days, you would very soon start losing your marbles.
Although we need nourishment to live, knowing how to eat healthy does not come to us naturally. It’s actually very natural to be addicted to sweets and fatty foods. Same is with the need to connect, share our ideas and learn new stuff. We are not born with knowledge that protects us from shallow interactions, conflicts and misinformation. In fact, we are likely to contribute to all of those, exactly because we cannot prevent ourselves from interacting with other human beings all the time.
2. You are biased
You say that media is partial? Each channel, journalist, magazine and website is pushing their own truth? You are right, actually. But you are wrong to think that you don’t do that too. And it’s not about technology, really. Same thing happens whenever you share a link or talk to a friend over lunch, cast a vote or add a comment under an article, write a memo or parent a child.
This is not something to be ashamed of. Same old “being human” stuff. Despite having common brain traits, unique experiences put each one of us on a separate planet. From there we observe the world, often convinced that our perspective is the only right way to see. We form and share interpretations. So while it’s not at all irrational to be concerned about other people’s agenda, you can rest assured that your head will process their messages to fit your preconceived notions.
3. You enjoy your comfort zone
To continue with the metaphor, each one of us likes spending time with people whose planets are somehow similar. Your brain works hard to prove your truth instead of exploring how this perspective can coexist with others. Modern technology is designed for our comfort — otherwise why would we pay for it with money or attention? So here we are, all happy in our filter bubbles and echo chambers.
We would not blame knives — a form of human-made technology— for cutting living flesh during a conflict. But we do blame algorithms for dividing us, even though algorithms are just tools shaped according to biases of people who create them and those who use them. We keep ignoring that the divisions start in our own heads, because this would mean sharing responsibility with those who live on planets radically different from ours.
4. You make choices
Professional media producers make choices when they decide on an angle for a picture or a story, on what characters to include and what to have them say, on features of a new app or on how to train an algorithm to organize big data. Choices are endless, but their outcomes are not equal. Some may help, others will hurt, while most will do both to an unknown audience in some unpredictable combination.
You also constantly make choices whenever you decide what’s important, what to pay attention to, what to agree on and what to argue about, what holidays to celebrate, how to talk to a slacking colleague, what button to click, what review to write in an online store, what outfit to wear, to whom to profess your love and how to talk to your family members around the dinner table. You may not be an internet celebrity, but your choices do matter in the same undeniable and unpredictable way.
5. You influence others
By now this should be clear: we influence each other. That’s what society is all about. So if you wonder whether I think that media influences people, my answer will be: yes, because media is people. Don’t let the latest technologies confuse you. Underneath the constant change you will find foundations that determine how we all learn, connect, relax and manipulate to achieve our goals.
Not all influence is benign. When power is abused, we should keep others accountable. But we should not assume that our own actions, even the most well-intentioned ones, can never cause harm. Understanding these nuances means being media literate. This is a state that we can hope to achieve only by learning to ask deeper questions about the way we communicate — with or without technology.
If you find this short essay intriguing, check out my book Media is us: Understanding communication and moving beyond blame. Thank you for reading!
