Media Criticism

So if the media has the power to show anti-tobacco industry ads, safe- or no- sex messages, and improve the way in which they report and show suicides, why isn’t it being done more often?

The answer to this question may never be known, but here’s what we have so far. According to media critic Mark Crispin Miller (Frontline, 2005), “Kids feel frustrated and lonely today because they are encouraged to feel that way. You know, advertising has always sold anxiety and it certainly sells anxiety to the young. It’s always telling them that they are not thin enough, they’re not pretty enough, they don’t have the right friends, or they have no friends…they’re losers unless they’re cool. But I don’t think anybody deep down, really feels cool enough, ever.”

So basically, the media is trying to push the buttons of young adolescents everywhere. They claim that what they show is based on what teens are doing in today’s society, but when it’s thrown back in your face endlessly and relentlessly throughout the media, it’s almost like a sign of approval. The biggest fear for most parents, in fact, is probably that their teenage son or daughter will see a fourteen-year-old on television having sex (with no negative consequences, of course), and that their son or daughter will run out and do the same thing.

After all, it’s on TV, so it must be ok, right? Wrong.