Summer English 1010 – Strickland Cherylene Rosenvall
The Collapse of Big Media:
The Young and the Restless
The Collapse of Big Media: The Young and the Restless, written by David T.Z. Mindich, examines the ever growing issue of how the health of the media is failing in America not only due to Americans’ low level of engagement but also due to flaws in media agencies themselves. Mindich discusses how both sides of consumers and producers are at fault for a vastly uninformed population through the use of surveys, studies, and general observations. It is apparent that Mindich would feel strongly about this topic of discussion as he was a former assignment editor at CNN, a news corporation in itself, focusing largely on politics and world events, making this passage an obvious call to information among the youth and general public of the nation. Corporations and audiences will need to make changes in this environment so that both can profit in the new and approaching political and world future.
Mindich first addresses the fact that unfortunately young people are not picking up the news habit that existed in earlier decades among youth by offering the results of two studies. In fact the majority of the news audience is over the age of 40. Habits should be introduced at an earlier age to participate in news and media because in a research conducted by Wolfram Peiser, “it was found that as people age they continue the news habits of their younger days.” However, news and media agencies themselves also need to make some changes as most of their information is aimed towards an older audience. Another example from the passage that Mindich uses demonstrates the success of establishing media participation habits at a young age, through the example of a teacher who had assigned her sixth-grade students to read an article from the New York Times. It was found that later on in the academic careers of the students that they were still reading from the aforementioned news source and accredited their habit to that assignment. Through the use of these studies, Mindich successfully supports the claim that if news and media were introduced into citizen’s lives at an earlier stage of life, consumption participation would be more likely continued in the future as well.
Mindich also conveys that it is not only the general American public who is at fault for disinterest in the news, but news and media agencies are also to blame. This belief helps make the article seem less-biased, and one might originally assume that someone who actually works for a news agency would solely take that side. As described in a text, “Tune in to any network news show or CNN, and note the products hawked in the commercials: The pitches for Viagra, Metamucil, Depends, and Fixodent are not aimed at teenyboppers.” Mindich offers this general observation to support the claim that we can see the media is not doing a very good job at maintaining a younger audience’s attention, because no one in a young audience would have any relation to a majority of the things being advertised or talked about during and in between the reports.
Mindich then continues by discussing how it is a common mistake that most people think the majority of young people get their news online, but that’s not so. Young people usually get online not for news, “but for emailing, instant messaging, gaming, and other diversions.” Youth audiences are tuned out of newspaper, television, and internet news in general and according to a research conducted by Mindich, it was found that, “most young people tune into situation comedies and reality TV to the exclusion of news.” This is so because situational comedies create a “sense of emotional investment” whereas a news source such as CNN seems emotionally detached from the viewer. Mindich brings to light through this examination the fact that most youth have “better” things to do when they get online, and that if news media wants to capture the attention of a younger audience, presentation of such will have to become much more personal and invested, rather than the traditional distant and detached feeling given off in a news report.
In the article by Mindich, it is examined and explained through the use of surveys, studies, and general observations that habits for viewer participation in the news should be established at a young age, news agencies should work to make their programming applicable to a broader audience, and time and money should be better spent making the news more relevant and appealing to younger audiences. News and media corporations and audiences alike will need to make changes in this environment so that both can profit in the new and approaching future.