strawberry wine: Week 2 Individual Task Group Discussion

During our discussion relating to the individual task on our media diaries, we discovered that some of us picked similar programs and enjoyed similar types of media, whilst there were a few of us who picked something a little bit different. Subject covered TV shows like “Skins” and “Two and a half men”, reality competition programs such as “The X factor” and “Strictly come dancing”, as well as one independent French movie, one free newspaper and one celebrity related gossip.

It is obvious that the majority of our group picked something that was massively produced and widely known. Only one of us had picked an independent production, which was a French movie, produced by two small and very unpopular companies, whose owners weren’t presidents of any other companies. What is interesting is that while we were discussing our media diaries, we kept getting the discussion into a different direction, which was actually not that different at all. For example, one person’s choice of a celebrity related gossip story prompted a conversation on celebrities in Britain, such as Cheryl Cole, Paris Hilton, Pete and Jordan, etc., as well us some people’s choice of a TV related entertainment prompted us to discuss our preferences towards nowadays visual media and what types of shows or movies have we seen.

Our group is benefiting from the fact that we have two people from a different cultural background and it is becoming more and more obvious that this has influenced them in a quite different way. One person from the group has been exposed to British cinema for only 2 years, whereas the other has not been exposed to massive British productions at all, which apparently influences their choice of media objects, because they are consuming the media that is out there and that proves to be very different in different places.

Then our discussion took us to the conclusion that we are much more aware of the celebrity gossip and popular culture, rather than for example politics and other important topics from Britain, as well as from around the world. Which, basically, is rather normal in most countries, given how this is exactly the point of the existence of mass media and mass culture – to reflect upon the masses and on the interests of the average person.

One of the points brought up during last week’s feedback session was that the most popular TV show was actually a Chinese show that nobody had seen or even heard of, although it was expected to be a very popular and wide-known show, like for example “Friends” or “The Simpsons”. And that brings us to the realization that we all think that what is popular in our country, in our culture, is the most trendy around the world and also that important to other people, who for example, don’t come from the same place and/or background, which is apparently now true, as it is obvious by the most popular TV show in the world.

Overall, we concluded that all types of media, even independent media, is produced with a commercial purpose. Even if a newspaper is intended for information, there is entertainment in it as well, or an independent project that is intended to shed the light on a specific subject stars famous actors for example in order to reach a bigger audience. This is what mass culture is today – integrated in capitalism and massively produced with intention of profit.

Labels: tasks