We the Media

The best part about this book is that I had the opportunity to choose which articles interested me the most and read them first. This book was especially helpful in strengthening my arguments for my semiotic analysis because so many divisions within media are discussed in this collection of articles. The only major draw-back to this book was that it has now become semi-outdated as media is constantly changing.
The first section of articles that I looked at was on advertising, which actually inspired my concept for my semiotic analysis based on the American Dream. I appreciated the effort made in this book to tackle two sides of the argument. Articles like “Selling Our Souls” and “Force Fed Television” were informative about the negative effects of advertising; however, unlike Toxic Sludge is Good For Us, there were also articles that discussed the benefits and positive uses of advertising. I really enjoyed reading an article by Herbert Chao Gunther titled “Advertising For the Other Side.” His article outlined how advocacy advertising is used for positive promotion. Advertising does not always have to serve the purpose of luring people into buying a product as it has become associated with, but it also can be used to promote positive beliefs.
The section called Access was also very interesting in its relation to media. The articles related to the hiring of traditionally oppressed groups. Whether it be minorities or females, there is an obvious effort being made in the news, especially broadcast news, to represent our population in Canada more accurately. This has been done partially in the interest of attracting a larger range of viewers to a given news station so that a wider audience base can relate to who is presenting the news. The article titled “The Unbearable Whiteness of Publishing” made an interesting point about how individuals that we cannot see in the news are predominantly white. (journalists) I think that this has changed more recently, as this article is outdated, but there is still an obvious distinction.
I would recommend this book because it is the type of book that can be picked up and set down at any given time. The articles are generally short and one does not have to be read to understand the other. I also liked the fact that this also meant that I was able to turn directly to the page of the articles that I wanted to read. There is an obvious effort made in this collection of articles to include many different aspects of media, so there is likely an article on something that appeals to a variety of readers.