Media Saturation

Media Unlimited by Todd Gitlin was a bit hard to follow for me. I felt as if I was being exposed to a very negative outlook on media. The novel consisted of interesting facts, but slightly uncalled for statistics. I felt like the fact that black people watched more television than white people wasn't relative to the media's effect on us. The author often contradicted himself; for example in the introduction he said that children spend 3 to 4 hours watching TV but only 45 minutes of book or magazine reading. Following that he discussed how the television was affecting their media exposure, as if books and magazines aren't. A few chapters later he stated that magazines were apart of the media as well. I really felt as though the author was especially calling out the television. He spent a lot more time discussing the effects of television than mostly any other form of media. When he was discussing the computers he referred to them as our “creatures.” Gitlin goes back and forth explaining how we buy the computers, so we possess them, but because they don’t react to us, they posses us. I felt as if he went back and forth contradicting himself with many topics. In another chapter Gitlin explains how we our lives are filled of choices such as “an index, an inventory, a menu, a guide.” He explains how we are all willingly involved in the media and it pleases each individual. On the next page he states, “This pointlessness is precisely what we are, by and large, not free not to choose.” (pg.9)  He goes back and forth saying how we have choices, but in reality we don’t. I felt confused by most of this novel, and I wish it was broken down in sections that made it easier to understand. The content was interesting; I was just unaware of where it was going.