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The media taken always with a large pinch of salt
Artículo de opinión
It is important to be aware of how misleading, erroneous and simply dubious the media's messages to youngsters and the gullible are in general when transmitting a set of values that contribute to forge young personalities and when commenting on social issues.
Personal effort and perseverance as the source of success seems to have no mention on television where success is achieved through being rude, frivolous, telling sensational lies and generally attracting public attention by any means.
Why are we made to believe that to prove our personal success or assert our individuality we need to possess a certain brand of motorcar?
Why is tackling an office colleague of the opposite sex to the floor in a white-collar environment acceptable when all you wish to achieve is something as trivial as securing a parking spot? Why is mocking and deriding behaviour an acceptable way of treating your well-meaning French neighbour when discussing your choice of Christmas dinner? Why is head-butting a human figure passing as a metaphor for hidden bank charges the expected way of dealing with the irritating minor details of daily existence?
Why are we led to believe that a single human hair falling on the overhead projector during a business presentation is the sure source of infinite embarrassment and should be remedied with the use of a certain brand of shampoo?
Why are we led to believe that being bald is to be remedied at all costs to avoid a supposedly socially unacceptable personal image problem or that woman need to increase the size of their breasts with substances that have proven repeatedly to be hazardous to their health and are often even fatal.
Why is there still talk of "high-class hookers" in the tabloid television shows when the term is an oxymoron giving a very misleading impression of a social problem that is the twenty-first century's version of human slavery, exploitation and forced labor.
Why are the elderly portrayed as frail and passive spectators of life when the contrary is often true? With life expectancy increasing many elderly people choose to continue to work and are important players in all facets of the economy.
Faced with this Goliath of media disinformation the David or educator needs to remain focused in his daily task of putting the media's messages into context with reality and disclaiming the media's half-truths so that his students are able to defend themselves from, and identify, the media's daily tide of myths, relentless social pressure and half-baked lies.
Analogue television is the most potentially harmful of the media because the viewer doesn't directly choose what he wishes to see and watching tends to be a passive activity of consumption. Digital television, on the other hand, is more like the internet where the viewer has a wider choice of desired viewing.
When watching television: if possible, the educator needs to encourage his students not to. Television is usually the mouthpiece of the government of the day and is always affiliated to transmitting the opinions of the ruling party, sometimes unashamedly so.
Adolescents need to watch television accompanied by an adult so that the continuous myths, peer pressure and impossible models of success portrayed on television shows and gratuitous violence are put into context with reality and so that their personality is built on values that associate personal success with hard work and perseverance.
Reading the press allows comparison with other printed sources and more independence of opinion. A free press is a sure counterbalance to any enemy of democracy.
When reading the press: students should be encouraged to read at least three newspapers and always of different political affiliation when wishing to get an accurate account of daily political events and if possible in different languages.
The internet is probably the most impartial source of information available today because it is not controlled by any single political entity and it also allows the free, unhindered flow of information enabling a spontaneous worldwide militant reaction to any issue of public interest. It is also democracy's best friend.
The internet, although democracy's best guarantor also has similar hazards to television with the added peril of anonymity. For example, an individual in a chat room could convince the gullible of anything from parting with their personal banking details, selling them inexistent merchandise, transmitting a computer virus that could erase the victim's computer data or countless other worse outcomes.
Advertisements in the press, television and internet follow the same dubious and misleading guidelines mentioned above and should be taken with a large pinch of salt and always being aware that the information presented is probably misleading the viewer into being made to believe or aspire to a myth or a model of success and happiness that is flawed.
Endemic false accounting statements in the corporate world as seen in the endless accounting scandals of late are a sure sign that something is seriously amiss. And the accounting scandals continue to make regular news every day. What has happened to our values when basic integrity and ethics is being taught as a subject in many MBA schools as something beneficial to business and not as something necessary for basic human interaction? Is integrity and honesty no longer required in the twenty-first century? The media is largely to blame for this sorry state of affairs with its relentless transmission of a set of values that are self-serving and dubious at best.
Educators are the shining light within the shadows of all the aforementioned and generally speaking the bastions of selfless service and transmitters of good, wholesome, idealistic values helping to shape a young adult's personality and set social issues in their true perspective.
Luckily, many of us have already been "inoculated" by good educators.
As with David and Goliath, victory is assured.
Keep up the good work, educators, the future depends on you!
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