Tag Archives: media

Tragedy in Colorado

Posted in News & Events by

The news about the shootings in the Colorado movie theater  is like an addiction. It’s like cracking your knuckles. It’s like driving past an animal killed on the street and you don’t want to look but you just can’t help yourself. Of course we are being constantly fed this news by the broadcast networks and CNN. We are updated through every newspaper and all social media outlets. They are forcing this news upon us everywhere, but even if we wanted to, we couldn’t turn away.

This tragedy hits so many levels of our society, it touches upon all kinds of issues that maybe the nation should be compelled to address. Our hearts go out to the victims and their families because it could have just as easily been one of us, or our brother, or daughter, or girlfriend. Every theater across the nation was packed with the exact same kinds of people, filled with costume-clad Batman fans, anxiously awaiting this sequel, excited to tell all their friends about it. Everyone in every theater bought tickets in advance, stood in line for hours, bought popcorn and flooded these theaters. It could have been any of us. We were all in theaters that night. That’s why we can’t turn away.We hear the victims’ stories and our hearts cry out for them and we just can’t imagine what kind of person could do this, especially the person with that infuriatingly satisfied smile on his face that we see plastered all over TV’s and newspapers.

Twelve people have been killed, and 58 injured. This mass shooting has been compared to the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999. It is the result of a sick person buying weapons and ammunition legally and easily and deliberately walking into a crowded theater and firing at people who had limited ways of escape. Maybe some things need to be re-evaluated in the wake of this tragedy.

The biggest issue that has been raised in the news is that of gun control. Journalists and politicians are saying that Obama and Romney should now have to address this issue in detail and take a public stance. On the one hand, it seems that the government should restrict gun ownership. Right now, we are giving guns out to people who obviously shouldn’t have them. The other side of the coin is that it is our Constitutional right to own guns and be able to defend ourselves. This may be, but so many people will be buying guns for self defense and firing away that we’ll just end up with more innocent casualties. Such laws like those in Florida where the Trayvon Martin shooting occurred not too long ago, allow people to shoot and kill if it is in self-defense and they’re in fear of their lives. But whose word do we listen to?

Perhaps gun licenses should be controlled just as alcohol is controlled. We are allowed to drink alcohol in the U.S., and the government can’t tell us not to. But we have to wait until we’re 21 and there are rules even after that. You can’t buy alcohol for minors, you can’t drive under the influence, bars are allowed to cut you off if you’ve had too many. Maybe people should only be allowed to have one gun and only a limited amount of ammunition. If you have a gun for self-defense, you shouldn’t need more than a few bullets–certainly not 6,000 rounds of ammunition.

Last summer, as a news intern, I sat in on the trial of a young man who killed three police officers. I watched the court go through every piece of weaponry he had in his home and was appalled. The sheer number of guns and amount of ammunition led the court to believe that the act was premeditated, along with other evidence, and I believe that is what we can assume from the Colorado shooter. No normal, sane person needs so much weaponry and I believe this needs to be regulated in some way.

A smaller issue that this shooting might bring up is the subject of violence in the media. Is violence and killing a direct result of seeing violence in movies and video games, or hearing violent song lyrics? Advocates of the direct effects of media might say yes. Children are taught from a young age that people shoot and kill each other in movies and games–why not in real life? Kids imitate things they see on the screen, they act out battles and fight with pretend weapons. Maybe this is only pretend for so long before they might try it out in real life. Opponents might say that all kinds of children see violence in the media and yet very few of them actually imitate this violence in real life. Whatever the case may be, this Colorado shooter may have been acting out his Batman fantasy, saying he was the Joker and proceeding to inflict harm on innocent people.

Underlying all of this is the societal issue that we as Americans apparently raise, teach and allow people to shoot and kill other human beings. We have a moral crisis at stake here. Crime is everywhere, even if it hasn’t been headlined in the news. Where did any person get the idea that it is okay to take another human life? What kind of morality is being promoted in this country?

We have politicians who are overly concerned with their campaign finances and advertisements, spreading rumors about each other and mud-slinging, just to win the “race.” We have public officials who are distracted by gay marriage rights, as if that pertains to anyone but the two people involved. We have news outlets that are sidetracked by celebrity scandal.

There are some things that are distractions, sensationalized pieces of news, and there are other things that are worth the addiction. We should take notice when we see a story that we can’t turn away from, when we can’t turn off the TV because we can’t believe something this horrible could happen. Maybe that’s our wake-up call, the red light going off telling us something is wrong and needs to be changed. Because how else could we keep watching this tragic coverage over and over and not want to fix it?

The Global Reality of a Media World

Posted in News & Events by

I read an opinion column today in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette about the state of the world discussed at Rio+20, in terms of carbon emissions, climate change, and sustainable development. The author, Jeffrey D. Sachs, and those at the United Nations Conference, call for an end to extreme poverty, less carbon emission from the energy system, slower population growth, sustainable food supplies, and protection of the environment. But those of you reading this, who probably have at least six other tabs open on your screen, switching from Facebook to Pinterest, updating Twitter on your phone, while texting your friend, are probably nodding your head in agreement, thinking yes, it’s probably a good idea to save the world, yet how many of you got up to turn a light off? How many of you have the TV on while you’re on your laptop, reading blogs and updating social media, obviously not even watching the TV? I admit, I have the TV on. I like having the Today Show on in the background of my morning and if something interesting stands out, I turn my attention to the television.

This is the reality of the world today. People are perpetually connected and plugged in and so immersed in their personal lives and the virtual lives of their friends. People would rather “pin” a link to their dream wedding dress and tell hundreds of Twitter users that the line in Starbucks today is incredibly long than shut off their technology and plant trees. I’m not saying that all people are like this, but this is our reality.

On the other hand, our reality is also high carbon emissions and global warming that eventually will destroy the planet. This is what scientists tell us, but so many people don’t believe it or don’t want to believe it. These claims seem extreme. People just aren’t motivated to look outside their own neighborhoods. We say we want what’s best for our children and no one can deny that. But our ability to look far ahead, hundreds or thousands of years is limited. We see the reality that is right now and right now the sun is shining, the grass is growing, the birds flit around the backyard. Right now the kids have enough to eat and go to great public schools. Right now, I can’t afford a new energy-efficient vehicle, but that’s okay because there’s enough gas in my car, and GetGo and Giant Eagle are helping me save a few cents at the pump. The concern about overpopulation, famine and disease in third world countries doesn’t hit home because, well, we can’t see them. All we see are the sad, slow-mo advertisements on TV telling us to donate just 25 cents a day, but everyone thinks those are over-exaggerated to draw a few more quarters from the crowd.

So what can be done?

If we can’t get everyone to agree on the current state, how can we possibly expect people to agree on the measures that must be taken?

So many people are calling for action from the younger generations. The recent college graduates, like myself, and the students. Treaties and “Sustainable Development Goals,” while great in theory, won’t work unless the information and the impact somehow resonates with the young, tech-savvy, Facebook-stalking, status-updating crowd. So how do we make it resonate? As a communication major, passionate about media, TV, video production, I am a firm believer that media can reach people in ways that newspaper articles and politicians can’t. The only problem is that even media may not always work. You might remember the KONY2012 video that almost instantly went viral with almost 1 billion viewers on YouTube. This video resonated with me and probably hundreds of thousands of others. But it did not resonate with everyone. The video was a big topic of discussion in my college media and politics class and it is up for debate why this video was such an instant hit and then almost just as quickly fell from the spotlight. I’m sure it motivated some people to buy the bracelets and post signs and this kind of enthusiasm is what we need to save the world, all the time. (But that’s another topic.)

So when you think about how to reach the audience, the young internet generation, a YouTube video might work. Or a Facebook page, or a Twitter account, or a blog post. A story on the 6 o’clock news might work, or the endorsement of pro athletes and celebrities. But really, it’s going to be all of that and more. The world won’t change just because someone writes a blog post, or a newspaper column. It won’t change if someone makes the most creative 30-minute YouTube video of the year. It won’t change if politicians put it to a vote. In Sachs’ article he writes, “Since politicians follow public opinion rather than lead it, it must be the public itself that demands its own survival, not elected officials who are somehow supposed to save us despite ourselves.” The public will only demand change if we all agree. The whole world needs to agree. We will only all agree if we are inundated with the information, if we are convinced through all outlets that this is the change we need to see.

We see evidence every day of technology becoming better and people wanting to use it. Take Apple. They could come out with a new, faster, better product every month (oh wait, they do…) and people buy it and use it and promote it. People want better things, they want to be on the edge of innovation. We wouldn’t have students majoring in engineering and science if this wasn’t true. We just need the motivation to convince the world that sustainability is what’s better. That energy-efficiency is what’s better. That everyone’s lives will be better if we all adopt this world-saving technology and practices. I hope that this blog post will add to the global conversation. Hopefully others will continue to flood all media with the facts and someday soon, maybe we’ll all agree.