Reflecting on Inside the (News) Media

In the very first session, our instructor gave us an article about why consuming news is irrelevant and even harmful for you since basically none of it has an actual impact on your life. If you’d like to read up on it, here’s the article by Rolf Dobelli: News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier. Agreeing with many of the points stated, this article did not really trigger my eagerness to regularly consume news was not really triggered by this article. Up to this semester, I have been happily reading about topics which interested me, but not on a regular basis. Being forced to make reading and watching news a habit and trying to gain an overview, which simultaneously should be in-depth, did not enhance my quality of life – but because of Inside the Media not being a spiritual course, that was not the aim anyway, I guess. Surely, it helped to question even more what is being presented to us as consumers. I’d probably go as far as claiming that the course opened new perspectives since it raised awareness on issues like the Facebook algorithms and the ‘‘Filter Bubble’’, I have not been worrying about before.

The course differed in its form from most others I’ve attended so far in English Literature and Culture for it rather appeared open and less strict. It was not simply about digesting a lot of information but made us think — at least a bit. Plus, Geoffrey did his best to keep our interests at a high level by showing us funny, exciting or reflective videos or other stuff. Some of the channels we watched, I am definitely going to have a glance on now and then. Coming to the blogging task, I’d follow my colleagues by saying that it was an (almost) fun way of reflecting on issues in more detail.