Infotainment

This week, during a lecture on binary models, we came to the topic of the phenomenon known as infotainment. Defined as a fusion between information and entertainment driven media, our discussion quickly became focused on infotainment as it was a new concept to myself and many of my classmates. After examining the topic I came to the realization that a much larger amount of TV that I was aware is infotainment, which our teacher Mr. Miller stressed throughout the class. Suddenly the countless programs I had watched with my grandfather on the History Channel or Discovery lost their merit, on the account that the information that was presented was neither important or that informative in the first place. Whilst watching a show on Pompeii, Big Foot or UFOs I was thinking, "Wow. Instead of watching something meaningless, I am spending my time learning!" And in a way, I was. But was it beneficial to me in the way I thought it was? Probably not. The topics that are so heavily focused on in infotainment channels are, more often than not, only focused on because they are entertaining. It is understandable that, as a company, these channels do need good ratings. However, I worry that soon all TV will be totally centered around the viewers enjoyment. I think that as a very influential media, TV has the responsibility of keeping the people educated and well informed, which is where elitist media comes in. My concern is that TV is on the verge of becoming completely populist. The problem with this is that there would be a constant stream of pointless messages being broad casted to the public, void of an ethical purpose. I imagine this society as dumbed down, uncultured, and dull. Though, yes, a cute video of a cat is objectively nice to watch, if everyone just sat and watched cat videos all day where would we be? I think that media that is important is very inspiring. If there were mostly, for example, programs about students engineering new technology or about activism, perhaps TV could inspire people to become active in their communities and in the world. Especially because many people receive the majority of their media from television, there is a huge level of responsibility within TV. I believe it has the potential to either drive the world to productivity and success, or to laziness. For awhile there was a respectable balance between the two, but I think the scale is currently not shifting in our favor.
The week's discussion about infotainment opened my eyes to a new perspective towards media, and I now feel a heightened sense of responsibility as a journalism student to learn how to help push the world forward through media, not capitalize on what people think is fun to watch.