Potter Chapter 1 Summary

In Media Literacy by James Potter the first chapter discusses the question “Why Increase Media Literacy?”  This chapter talks about high media exposure, the information problem, media literacy, and a variety of other topics and ideas. On page 5 Potter states that “30% of the waking day was spent with media as the sole activity, and another 39% was media use coupled with another activity (pg 5).” There is no question that as a culture we have a very high exposure level to media. This causes an information problem. We are bombarded with so much information that we cannot possibly process it all. “More information has been generated since you were born than the sum total of all information throughout all recorded history up until the time of your birth (pg 4).”  So, it is clear that there is a lot of information. The question then becomes what do we do with all that information? According to Potter “we put our minds on ‘automatic pilot,’ where our minds automatically filter out almost all message options (pg 6).” Our minds enter a state called automaticity. We process the information automatically. This at times is extremely helpful but can also be harmful. We can avoid useless information but we can also miss important information. We have the opportunity to become media literate so that we can be in control of all the media that we are exposed it each day. Being a person who is media literate will make that person more sensitive and selective in their media exposure.

Did You Know??

Here's an interesting YouTube video revealing several statistics about media exposure across various social networking sites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JaDiBiAnv8&feature=related

Media Use Statistics

Media Use Statistics 

Media Exposure Linked to Child, Teen Health, Behavior Problems: Fox News

Fox News wrote an article discussing Media Exposure and the effects it has on children's behavior. Not only is it effecting behavior issues, but now health issues. 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,190566,00.html

Media Exposure in 60 Seconds

Social Media Personalities By Blood Type

Student's Exposure to Social Media

Mass Media Exposure

This article from ABC News suggests that at first, we may think it's crazy to spend 5 months exposing ourselves to media. However, within the article it reveals, "Adults and teens will spend nearly five months (3,518 hours) next year watching television, surfing the Internet, reading daily newspapers and listening to personal music devices, according to the 2007 U.S. Census Bureau's Statistical Abstract of the United States." It later goes on to share that "8-18 year old's spend almost seven hours every day plugged into media." The rest of the article discusses long-term effects this kind of media exposure can have on people. The link is posted below:

 http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2727587&page=1#.T4zUq45pM7B

YouTube Exposure