Mind Over Mass Media/Music

The essay we looked at this week focused on the change in technology but specifically social media. The author, Steven Pinker, argued that the the easy access to various media outlets in order to gain various information has developed our minds to focus on what may be important or focal. He asserts the idea that mass media has morphed things to make it easier for people to retain more information than before. The essay Pinker presented formulates the statement that new technology, specifically mass media, has made information gathering more efficient.
Our group had a very long discussion on this essay and how it pertained to music. We looked at how technology has changed over time just as music has. Just as how mass media has made it easier to gain or implement facts, thoughts and ideas out to others globally like music has done to people of different genre or even background. Don’t get me wrong, it was pretty difficult at first to develop some ideas on what to write about for our blog post but we came up with the idea of change in music and mass media as a good thing. I wanted to add a twist to this blog post while keeping the topic about music and mass media, so my main focus will be the stereotypes that follow both ideas.

First of all, let's start off with the definition of stereotype. For those of you who don't know, a stereotype is a fixated idea of a person or thing. Let's start off with an easy example, if I met a guy with a colorful Mohawk, I would most likely believe he may be a fan of heavy metal. Another example would be that if I noticed someone likes to take a lot of selfies or food pictures, I would assume they would be more into the app Instagram than Twitter. Cadwallader states that "[w]e use social media to communicate with each other in greater ways today" (Cadwallader 1) than we ever did before. The old timers don't really understand that because of their perception in taste whether it's music or technology. Jeff Balke summarizes this perfectly in his article about music and stereotypes by saying "If you think country music is bad, you may never hear a great country song and you’ll likely pass that belief onto others – your children, your friends, your family – despite the fact that your belief is likely inherently flawed simply because of your perception rather than your actual study of the genre" (Balke 1). So go on Facebook, go on Twitter, go on Snapchat or +Google and express yourself while watching others express themselves. You might break a stereotype or two by the end of the night. You might find yourself agreeing with Pinker or Cadwallader or Balke or my composition group that change may be a good thing.

Works Cited

Cadwallader, Sunny. "Study Looks at Music and Stereotypes." Broken Record. Linkedin.com, 6 May 2014. Web. 13 Nov. 2014.

Balke, Jeff. "Study Looks at Music and Stereotypes." Broken Record. Broken Record, 25 Feb. 2008. Web. 13 Nov. 2014.