We watch television, listen to radio, read magazines, newspapers and books. We see advertising messages everywhere. We browse the internet. Whether we are media consumers or media workers, it is worth our while to understand what this almost constant exposure to media does for us, or to us. Because people spend so much time with mass media, everybody has an opinion about them.
Some people believe media affect our society by shaping our values, our opinions and our tastes.
Others believe media do nothing more than reflect our values, opinions and tastes back to us. Sometimes these opinions are valid, based on a clear understanding of the purposes of media and hard evidence of their successes and shortcomings. Sometimes these opinions are useless, based on anecdotes, little understanding of the way media work and very little evidence. The goal of this class is to help you become one of those people in the first group, those whose opinions about media are based on an understanding of the media's purposes and hard evidence about how well media achieve their purposes. You must learn how to critically evaluate media so that you can use them wisely as a consumer and improve their quality as a media worker.