Monday, August 6, 2012

The Influence of the Media

So I've been sick with some kind of stomach bug the last few days which means that I've spent a lot of time just randomly browsing the internet for anything that might catch my eye.  So most people know that two big events happened recently.  The first was the tragic shooting at the Batman premiere in Aurora, Co. that killed twelve people and left many others injured.  The second was the news that Kristen Stewart, star of the Twilight movies, had an affair with the director of her summer movie Snow White and The Huntsman.  Thinking about, even for just a moment, the first event seems to be the one that would garner the most media attention as it was without a doubt the most shocking and tragic.  Families and friends enjoying a movie together suddenly found themselves in the middle of what surely felt like a horror movie they never wanted to be a part of.  In the end twelve people were dead.  A father taking his kids to the movie, a 27 year old man hanging out with co-workers on his birthday, a soldier on a date night with is girlfriend, and perhaps most tragic of all, a little 12 year old girl having a night out with her mother.  The event rocked our country, causing fear and shock that what felt like a safe place of enjoyment and entertainment could turn deadly in a moment.  People were even more shocked when the shooter was revealed:  a young man with a high IQ, no criminal record, and no past history of violence.  There were numerous articles in various magazines, in the local paper, online.  The news seemed to talk about it constantly as well with new facts seeming to emerge daily.  It continued for about a week or so and then a new story broke and it disappeared.

About two weeks ago, give or take a few days, US Weekly came out claiming they had photographic evidence that Kristen Stewart had cheated on her boyfriend of three years, Robert Pattinson, with her SWATH director, Rupert Sanders.  Almost immediately the story took the world by storm with many Twilight and Robsten fans refusing to believe it, crying foul and claiming the photos were Photoshopped, while many others were unmoved claiming they weren't at all surprised.  And then to the shock of many came the confessions and apologies of both Stewart and Sanders and in moments, the tragedy of the Aurora shooting was forgotten and it seemed the entire world was focused on yet another Hollywood scandal.  For two weeks now the affair has dominated magazines and online articles.  It seems not a day goes by without some new "information" regarding Stewart's or Pattinson's whereabouts and whether they're going to stay together or not.  And it shows no signs of slowing down.  Granted, its lost some of its initial steam now that the shocks worn off, but its still going strong.

What kind of world do we live in that the romantic lives of various stars is more important and more interesting to us than the deaths of twelve innocent people?  Since the whole cheating scandal emerged, I've seen perhaps two or three main stream articles regarding the Aurora shooting.  But overall, its pretty much faded into obscurity already for most of the country, except for those whose lives were forever changed by it.  And the saddest part is that its so easy to be caught up in it all.  I think it shows just how much of a hold the media has on us that it can turn our attention from one  thing to the next so effortlessly.  That's not to say that all media is bad, but letting it get to the point where it dominates where our focus lies isn't good.  Perhaps its time that we start to focus on what really matters, what the Bible tells us that matters, and not so much on what media tells us matters.

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