[Don't] Eat the Apple

I believe this was the story almost always drilled to us kids raised in a Catholic School. God created the Earth, the animals and the sky, then Adam and Eve. Eve felt hungry so she set off looking for food. She saw an alluring tree with a sumptuous apple to boot. The snake sales-talked her into getting the apple, and she ate the apple. Like a loving wife, she gave the apple to Adam. And both felt naked. So they clothed themselves with leaves, and God called them out. The rest, as you know, is [salvation] history.

 

I guess the snake can be called the first public relations person since it was able to persuade Eve on taking the apple for herself. The Church calls it temptation; I call it sleazy [and dubious] marketing. It's not that I despise advertising and public relations practitioners (Lord knows how much I want to take up Integrated Marketing Communications some time in my Comm life); it's just that as a journ practitioner, we are asked to be watchful of 'public relations answers' (you know, the super sugarcoated answers typical of rationalizing a wrong deed).

 

Side point is this: right after Adam and Eve ate the apple, the Bible says that 'their eyes were opened', and with that came the knowledge that they were naked et cetera. By being naked, it was said that their knowledge of the world expanded so much that it rivaled God Himself. But whether the knowledge rivaled God's or not, perhaps it's safe to conclude that they knew better now than before. And to a certain extent, their realization, their 'aha!' moment, brought shivers down their spine. Skepticism, perhaps.

 

Studying the media, for me, is like an apple experience in the Garden of Eden. When you're experiencing the media from a passive perspective, you believe that the media is a very powerful and a very good friend. You know it could be bad, but you keep it aside. 

 

Let's take episode 6, season 9 of the PowerPuff Girls. In this episode, Bubbles said, "I guess I shouldn't believe everything I say on TV..." Then the Mayor said, "No Bubbles, don't say that! Television is your friend. Television is never wrong and you should always listen to it and do whatever it says." Then the girls said [hypnotically] in unison, "Yes. Television. All hail the great and all-knowing television..." I don't know if it was just mock adoration or sort, but I sure found the message disturbing that I was perturbed by it throughout the day.

 

Studying the media is like an apple experience in the Garden of Eden. I guess any media analyst will agree with Roger Silverstone saying that we are living in a media saturated world, that everything entails media and we sure can't live without the media. And the image that we know of the media is something that is beneficent to the human race. Something that aids rather than destroys. And it's true to a certain extent, that's why saying negatively about it sends bad vibrations in the process. Truly, nobody wants to talk about the media in its goriest details because we were raised to think that it is the all-good media. The friend that never goes wrong and will never fail. That is our constructed reality. A perspective we have been conditioned tothink and live about. 

 

That is why I was so shocked to find a body of knowledge used to analyze the media from a critical perspective.

 

But then again, as a Communication student, I have to be familiar with these theories of media reception, power, and representation. I have to know what makes it hot and what makes it not. As a journalism student and practitioner, I am trained to get both sides of the story. And putting these in perspective, it's a deadly position to face something so warm and cuddly and then attack it with due ferocity once you unearth its sinister side.

 

I agree, then, that it's not easy dabbling with critical theory because it's tantamount to debunking your traditional beliefs. You see everything with a grain of salt, and just as when you are close to believing everything, one simple thought ruins almost everything. That is how I characterize my Media Studies experiences.

 

My alumni friends used to say that learning begins by intense wonder. Must have gotten it from philosophy class. And now, I am in this stage all over again; of questions and confusion at how the world wide web came to be. Of how social networking sites prove to be a boon and a bane to one's existence. Of why these services provide an avenue for identity construction, and a way to assess one's likeability over the superhighway. Is this exactly what Marshall McLuhan meant by media being the extensions of man? Is it really possible for everyday social relationships be intensified in mediated environments such as chatrooms and instant messaging? Why do people get numerous hits whereas some people barely get any?

 

Is there a link between social likeability and online likeability?

 

Malene Charlotte Larsen, Ph.D. is, to date, my greatly admired analyst for coming up with the 35 Perspectives on Social Networking. This document, admittedly, challenged and sustained my previous beliefs that social networking sites are an avenue for identity construction and mediation. I feel, sometimes, that if you are 'liked' by everybody, they will want to see what you have in your online space. What happens then, if you're not that popular? Will it stagnate? What will happen to your site? Few hits?

 

Truly, studying the media is like an apple experience down the Garden of Eden. With a system of beliefs challenged by non-traditional theories, you take things with a grain of salt. In a way, you learn how to take things in stride even if its trade-off will be constant questioning and wonder. There will be times where you wouldn't want to be in this state; but isn't wonder so great that you actually stumble on something?

 

That, I guess, is the [not so] secret magic of the world called Media Studies.