Dear Skeptical Person,

I am writing to you in the name of all students that have studied

media, are studying media, and will want to study media. I am
writing to you to try and change your point of view regarding this
field that you consider ‘useless’ or ‘a waste of time’. Moreover, I am
writing to let you know the reasons why media plays a huge role in
our day-to-day lives and why it is something worth studying. You
may argue for subjects such as Math, Physics, History or English
Literature. I want to prove you wrong and also to help you
understand that with the evolution of the society comes an evolution
in the way we think and in what matters to us.
Who am I? It is not relevant, so I consider myself as the voice of
the people who you spent your life criticizing, the media students-
‘the nobody’. My dream-our dream, was to go to University, study
hard, learn about new perspectives, take chances, apply techniques
that we have learnt and become the best in our business, make a name
for ourselves. You, the every day person, are influenced by the
constant ‘attack’ of media content, most of which you are not even
aware of. 'Everything of which I know, but of which I am not at the
moment thinking; everything of which I was once conscious but have
now forgotten; everything perceived by my senses, but not noted by
my conscious mind; everything which, involuntarily and without
paying attention to it, I feel, think, remember, want, and do; all the
future things which are taking shape in me and will sometime come
to consciousness; all this is the content of the unconscious’ (Jung,
CW8, paragraph 382). ‘Besides these we must include all more or
less intentional repressions of painful thought and feelings. I call the
sum of these contents the “personal unconscious”’ (Jung, CW8,
paragraph 270). This quotation from the psychologist Carl Gustav
Jung proves just what I am about to argue for: all the advertisements
and the media content that we perceive are not analyzed and
interpreted by our minds; they remain stored in our memory and
come out whenever it is needed and it impacts on the choices we
make and in the opinions we have.
Firstly, you, as a skeptic, you may wonder why do we have to go
to University instead of going straight to work or internships and gain
some work experience. Well, the answer can be found in multiple
books and from people’s experience that will prove you wrong once
again. This paragraph: ‘A University is a place … whither students
come from every quarter for every kind of knowledge; … a place for
the communication and circulation of thought, by means of personal
intercourse. … It is the place to which a thousand schools make
contributions; in which the intellect may safely range and speculate.
It is a place where inquiry is pushed forward, … discoveries verified
and perfected, and … error exposed, by the collision of mind with
mind, and knowledge with knowledge. … Mutual education, in a
large sense of the word, is one of the great and incessant occupations
of human society. … One generation forms another. … We must
consult the living man and listen to his living voice, … by familiar
intercourse … to adjust together the claims and relations of their
respective subjects of investigation. Thus is created a pure and clear
atmosphere of thought, which the student also breathes.’ (John Henry
Newman in The Idea of a University in 1852) sums up what teachers
alongside with students have to say about their experience in the
University. There is not unintended that alumni students have
returned to their universities more than a decade after their graduation
to help share their knowledge and shape young minds, as well as
being students’ guide to achieving the most out of the information
that is given.
Secondly, I want to approach a more concrete level. Means of
media are diverse but they all serve the same purpose: impacting and
influencing the society. Broadcast media refers to film, radio,
television and recorded music; digital media suggest the use of both
Internet (social media, blogs, websites and e-mail) and mobile
services; outdoor media uses AR advertising, billboards, blimps;
while print media is based on magazines, newspapers, books, comics.
Public Speaking and Event organising is a part of the media, as well
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media). In this modern and fast-
moving society, all of these means of media are used to reach us
more frequently; most of the times they are customized by the type of
consumer that will purchase or will access their product by creating a
feeling of need. For example, in an entire day, we're likely to see
3,500 marketing messages (Owen Gibson for the Guardian;
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/nov/19/advertising.marketi
ngandpr) and access our social media about 50 times a day (according
to 100 students that I have asked). This however, may not prove to
you the importance of studying media. “Research in the media has
often preferred the significant, the event, the crisis, as the basis for its
enquiry. We have looked at disturbing images of violence or sexual
exploitation and tried to measure their effects. We have focused on
key media events, like the Gulf War or disasters, both natural and
man-made, to explicate the media's role in the management of reality
or the exercise of power. We have focused too on the great public
ceremonials of our age to explore their role in the creation of national
community. There is a point to all of this, since we have known since
Freud how much investigation of the pathological, or even the
exaggerated, reveals about the normal. Yet continuous attention to the
exceptional provokes inevitable misreading. For the media are, if
nothing else, daily. They are a constant presence in our everyday
lives, as we switch in and out, on and off, from one media space, one
media connection, to another. From radio, to newspaper, to
telephone. From television, to hi-fi, to Internet. In public and in
private, alone and with others.”(Roger Silverstone,1999, Why Study
the Media?). This paragraph from the book mentioned before can
persuade you into believing that media studies play a substantial role
for the society as it reaches out to people daily. For over 15 years,
since this book has been written and to these days, not much has
changed regarding the importance of media. Furthermore, the only
transformation that has been made is for the better and consists in the
fact that means of media have evolved and almost conquered all of
the other fields, making the study of it even more relevant and in
depth.
Although the book from the 1999 may seem a bit out-dated for a
skeptical person like yourself, an article from February 2014 about a
Media student may come as more reliable, along with the statements
of some University teachers. ‘Media studies isn't about watching
films and reading newspapers, it's about actively engaging with
media practice, theory and production. It's about working within the
industry and requires skills like good project management and critical
thinking.’ says Enya Quin-Jarvis, the writer of the Guardian article
(http://www.theguardian.com/education/mortarboard/2014/feb/03/wh
y-study-media-studies-students); ‘The course is very challenging: we
want students to be intellectually stimulated and to understand and
experience pressures that they will encounter when they take up jobs
within the media. This is possibly one of the unspoken skills in that it
is a pressurised course and it is no different from what people face in
the industry.’ ;’ It gives the people a voice or the skill to actually
change people's views or lives and I think that's incredibly powerful.
That is why media matters.’ says Professor Philip Thickett, head of
Birmingham City University's school of media in the same article.
Teachers and students both argue for studying media and for
changing the image that this specialty has been given for some time
now. I believe that they all have a reason to fight against this
disapproving attitude towards them; and that is the importance and
the influence it has on the society once you understand how to use it
correctly and once you have experience what is like to play a major
role in any part of the media.
Furthermore, if all of these arguments haven’t convinced you yet,
I believe that statistics will work best for a person like you. The
Office for National Statistics lead by the UK Government reveals that
in 2013, medicine and dentistry graduates have the highest
employment rate, at 95%, followed by those who have a diploma in
media studies(93%), (interpreting the statistics found at
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/mro/news-release/second-highest-
work-rate-but-lowest-pay-for-media-studies-
graduates/grad1113.html). This number supports my argument that
media has been rapidly progressing, along with the people that
choose this degree as part of their studies.
In conclusion, I hope that going through all of these evidences
and reading my explanation you will reconsider your position
towards the study of media. Likewise, I propose once again to start
realising the impact that the media has on you and to be aware that
behind all of these stay numerous hours of learning in our courses
and practicing the techniques we have achieved through that.
Kind regards,
Me, the voice of Media Students.