A Bigger Fish: A Critical Thinking Essay on Media Culture and Us

“There’s always a bigger fish.” Qui-Gon Jinn, The Phantom Menace

We are a technologically based society, now. And thus, it is important to engage critical thinking skills - and that is the point of this essay.

Whether one is talking about legitimate fish, goals, or problems, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn makes a valid point – there are bigger “fish” in this “water” we as people find ourselves submerged in.

For the purposes of this essay, “water” is symbolic of the age and culture we find ourselves in as residents of 2015 America. Similarly, by “fish”, I mean the “issues”, and/or “problems” that exist in this topic of media and culture, or as I later point out, a media culture. By “fish”, I simply mean the bigger situation behind a media culture – its problems, nuances, and implications. Think of this fish as something lurking in the shadows, something unforeseen.

The purpose of this essay?will be to: 1) identify the “water” – or, cultural life – we find ourselves in today, 2) illuminate the upsides and downsides of technologies found in 2015, 3) identify the bigger “fish” in waters we, as consumers, tread. In addition to all of these, this document will take into consideration biblical elements to this thing called media culture in 2015, and what we, as resident “swimmers," can do about it. Overall, the final goal of this paper is to determine the bigger fish of media and culture, or a "media culture."

Our age, or “water”, we’ll call it, is the time in which we find ourselves. Vastly different than the age 20 years ago, our present time is dominated by the internet and media, this concept of “always being in the know." Today more than ever before in history, we are exposed to a consistent flow of information – and, whether one wants to argue if the information is useful or not, at the end of the day, it is still information.

Our world is more informed than it ever has been before – how long does it take for something to go viral on the internet? Overnight, the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer, according to Lucasfilm was watched a massive 112 million times in 24 hours – marking a new record. Similarity, the film has already racked a hefty $50 million in online, pre-booked ticket sales. News of shootings in San Bernadino traveled so quickly the nation was involved within mere hours after the event. Cat videos on YouTube attract millions, and a popular channel, CinemaSins, gets 1+ million views merely hours after an upload. Students can write an academic paper in record time with online access, and medical treatment for the do-it-yourself type is only a click away. I can talk to my best friend in Little Rock and carry on a conversation with her as if she were standing in front of me via Facebook Messenger, and we can see each other over Skype whenever we desire without having to book a $300 flight.

Needless to say, our people are more informed than ever.

At one point in history, information was a luxury. To receive an education was a coveted privilege, and not everyone was allowed the privilege of knowledge. It was something which induced envy for; being informed - it established chasse systems; separated societies. Parents would sell their children into slavery just so they had the opportunity to get an education. Leaders and kings and emperors were elected based on their knowledge and educational background– boys went to school to be kings, not to get a diploma. Knowledge and information were, once, precious luxuries that marked the success and security of a nation or country. It was not something taken as lightly as it is today, where people have the opportunity to drop-out and opt for a GED. Knowledge was not something accessible by every person in the times before - it wasn’t attainable for every child.

To clarify, by "every child," I mean persons within developed countries such as Europe, America, Asia, and the like. Certainly, there are children around the world where the past idea of education as a luxury is still prevalent – that is, this idea is not to ignore those without education, only to make the point here first-world nations.

So this information-riddled water of which we, residents of 2015 America et.al, swim, is murky to say the least. With so much information at our hands, James Harleman suggests, we have to force ourselves into a reality where all this information doesn’t necessarily matter – fictional reality, universes built in the human mind to entertain and numb the senses. We go there, Harlemen suggests, to escape our world and all the hubbub of life and just “relax”, while instead we just take in more senseless information about that fictional reality, for we as people crave information and story because we are made in the imagine of the Storyteller, God the Father.

Within this technological water in which we find ourselves reside “fish” who have no idea of their environment. Millennials are so absorbed in technology and have grown up with it as an extension of themselves, that they aren’t even aware of the issues such an upbringing presents. It takes the older generations to communicate to millennial’s - and Gen Xers - of the murky, polluted water of which they swim – to tell them there is a problem and that life wasn’t always “this way." To us, this technological, media culture is life – this is water. Our environment - our life.

Now having identified the water of which we sit, we must ask – is this water all bad? Or is some of it good? What are the upsides and downsides? Is technology and media culture making us stupid , or is it enhancing our abilities?

Nicholas Carr in his article Is Google Making Us Stupid? writes of Socretes, who bemoaned the idea of writing and written word on the basis that it would cause the human mind to cease in memory and expand in forgetfulness – “Socrates wasn’t wrong,” Carr writes, “- the new technology did often have the effects he feared—but he was shortsighted. He couldn’t foresee the many ways that writing and reading would serve to spread information, spur fresh ideas, and expand human knowledge (if not wisdom).”

While written word (and technology, looking contextually in 2015) do have their benefits, one cannot attain something without losing something else. In our advancement in technology, have we lost the ability reason logically – have we lost the ability to, per se, read?

Carr writes of Bruce Friedmen (University of Michigan Medical School), saying that “[In Friendmen’s] thinking…has taken on a “staccato” quality, reflecting the way he quickly scans short passages of text from many sources online–“. Carr seems to suggest that because of the internet, we have a skimming “staccato” form of reading ability, which prevents us from absorbing longer articles or novels like we used to.

Similarly, The University College London suggest that our sense of reading and thinking has indeed changed drastically because of the internet. “It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of 'reading' are emerging as users 'power browse' horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.”

These are professional scholars in their field, all suggesting that the way we read has "evolved." Even students in the class this very essay emphasizes forewent reading our assigned texts because it “was wordy” or “a lot." Most just skimmed the chapters enough to add some thoughts to class lectures.

Now consider the idea that?Google is “knowledge itself." Does this negate the knowledge of our past? Of oral tradition and book learning, hand written assignments and the encyclopedia? Were people of the generations before us without knowledge because Google is “knowledge itself," or where they just suffering with an inefficient ability in obtaining knowledge? As scholars and researchers are suggesting with the presence of the internet adding to our educational abilities, it would seem that yes, those before us really didn’t experience knowledge – or, their knowledge was insufficient or unsatisfactory.

So – can we even say that technology and the internet and television have aided our education, and society as a whole? Or, is it better to say that it actually created our education – because, remember, if Google itself is knowledge, no one had it three decades ago. Did knowledge even exist before without the internet? Or did we merely have a surface understanding of information - the basics, if you will? If these are the questions in turn, then we cannot say that the internet and technology have aided our education and added to society – it would have actually created it, brought it forth, if it is truly knowledge itself. If it is the form of learning that is superior to all other forms, people were not actually learning in the medieval ages – right?

Wrong – Postman suggests in his book that knowledge and learning has always existed apart from technology. The presence of the mode, or the way that information is presented, has changed. It’s changed from oral traditions to written word/books, to television and radio, and now global connection through internet capabilities. Knowledge itself hasn’t changed, our abilities to receive knowledge has changed. We have, just in a sense, lost the old way of obtaining information, while having gained a new one.

Not to say that any of this is good or bad – modifications are unavoidable. As newer and more information become available to us, we need more ways of obtaining such information. Without the internet, for instance, medical missionaries may not have the ability to research diseases and communicate with hospitals, ultimately getting supplies they need. The presence of the internet itself is not wrong – there is something bigger; a bigger fish to be see, as Qui-Gon Jinn suggests.

The idea that technology exists is not wrong – it is not a sentient thing, and thus does not have the capability to be evil itself. But, the way it is used makes all the difference and determines its allegiance. Television itself was not wrong when Postmen wrote his book, Are We Amusing Ourselves to Death?, no. The way people were using it was.

It is people that utilize the tool of technology – newscasters, for instance, choose what to broadcast on Fox, CNN, etc. – television does not choose what it broadcasts, just as Facebook does not choose what goes online. The user determines the use of the technology. Google itself is not wrong and did not change the way people read – we as humans did that. We, with all the options the internet and television have provided, dropped the ball and fell into an addictive, surface form of thinking and consuming - we failed to use technology in the way it was created to be used, and made it a commodity and luxury. We made it necessary by forgetting the other modes of communication and knowledge. The presence of the internet did not do that – human beings did.

The bigger issue here is people. Uncle Ben, from Spiderman, once stated that “with great power comes great responsibility.” The internet and technological advancements are great tools of power with the ability to change not only the world, but the way we receive information, and the way we think. Instead of retaining information like sponges and sorting through what it necessary and what isn’t, we have become a bucket; continually overflowing without inherently having to classify data. We have taken this power, abused it, and now have made it a problem – so much of a problem, that older “fish” have to tell us that we actually have a “water problem."

So, to quote Qui-Gon, the bigger fish here is us. How we use technology, and what our prerogative is. It is up to us to determine how we use technology, how we use such a power; either responsibly, or not. The bigger issue is the prerogative of people and what our goal is with technology – do we want to utilize it, or do we want to be utilized by it?

The apostle Paul wrote to Rome and stated, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.” The pattern, or "water" of our world is a media culture, dominated by technology.

The "renewing of our mind," similarly, is being aware of the problem this media culture presents and taking it under advisement realizing that it exists and not being ignorant of it, not being just another consumer. Instead, being a reactor, someone who moves into action because of the problem, instead of just consuming it.

God’s will can be outlined in 1 Timothy 2:4 “…God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” God’s desire would be for us to come to a knowledge of truth and realize what’s in our world – to realize our water, if you will. To live in the world but not be of it. To be different, and set apart.

That’s the bigger fish. And it’s a big one indeed.