Frank W Baker

Frank W. Baker is a graduate of the University of Georgia (ABJ, Journalism). He worked
in television news from 1977 to 1986 at stations in South Carolina, Maryland, and Florida. He focused most of his knowledge researching on Media Literacy; how do people analyze and create media? According to F.W. Baker, Media Literacy is the education that aims to increase the students’ understanding and enjoyment of how the media work, how they produce meaning and how they construct reality. He lectures all around the country to students and teachers from every kind of educational institution; his aim is to deliver a message to us: “Everywhere I go, teachers tell me that their students believe everything they see, read and hear. Students today aren’t applying the critical thinking skills we know they need in order to become active, engaged, intelligent citizens and consumers of information. [ … ] They don’t have a clue how it got to the screen: the process. Media literacy, among other things, is about helping them appreciate how media are constructed. When we ‘pull back the curtain’ (on advertising, TV, film, propaganda, etc.) and give students opportunities to create media, we help them better understand and appreciate both the ‘languages of media’ and how the media work to influence and persuade: critical skills in a 21st century world.” (Fran W. Baker’s webpage).

Being able to listen to one of his lectures was great; as an Advertising and Media student this is extremely important to enhance my understanding of media. I realized TV and every mean of communication is nothing less than the vehicle to deliver propaganda to society, its all about creating programs to attract viewers and pitch them with specific ads. What he tried to explain is that we shouldn’t just believe what we see on propaganda; we should think why it was done that way. What are they trying to provoke on us? Media presents productions; although they don’t look like it, and they seem real, they are all productions. Those productions construct on each of us a notion of reality.

Frank W. Baker insists we should be able to distinguish productions forms reality so we are not mastered by media. Once we are able to differentiate those concepts we will become active citizens and intelligent consumers of information; we are empowered to speak with a voice of our own.

He mentioned an interesting example on how media affect us and how it’s disguised as reality. The president of the United States presented a reform on healthcare, and of course he needed approval form society. He made a speech on the Whitehouse gardens where he invited doctors’ form all around the country. They where all asked to attend the speech dressed in white; why would they all be asked to do so? Why couldn’t they just wear suits and dresses? The white house wanted the media to capture B. Obama talking to these people, and let society believe his reform was approved by people related to the reform in matter. By doing so Americans will feel more fond of the idea of the reform in healthcare and trust what they saw, thinking it’s reality when its not.

In my case he really opened my eyes and made me think much more on this. How is it possible to be unconsciously controlled by media producers? How can we let these people alter our notion of reality? Media literacy it’s all about that, opening our eyes and making us intelligent consumers and media receivers.

 Media there is way different that it is here. The technology we have is not as sophisticated as the one in the U.S, and we don’t interact with media as often as American citizens do. There are two types of different interaction with media in Uruguay, those who only watch national television and those who don’t. The ones that don’t watch national TV they watch American shows and use the same technology people use here. Although I follow American shows and my friends also, commonly people back home don’t like American programs that much.
Having a laptop, an i-phone, or a TV set per person is not a reachable reality for most of Uruguayans; we do have computers in most houses and cable TV, but we don’t pay that much attention to it as American people do. So obviously the interaction here with media is gigantic compare to ours.
An important thing, that basically explains all these differences, is that money is not enough to match American. There is not that many consumers to make media a profitable business so it will never evolved. Also, Uruguayan media is highly influenced by the Argentinean one; advertisements are conceived in a different way. We use sexy images in a very explicit way; ads are really offensive compared with American ones.
Newspapers are owned by very wealthy families, none of the newspapers is owned by the government but there had been many accusations to the government for paying to chose what to be published or not. This media is the one that reaches most citizens in Uruguay, so if it is controlled by the government, by paying the owners, is like having filtered information.
The aim of any country is to be able to match American media because it’s obviously the best one and most authentic. So I personally hope that Uruguay some day can manage to do so.

Marshall McLuhan

Herbert Marshall McLuhan, Edmonton, 1911 – Toronto, 1980 was a philosopher, Canadian    teacher and theorist who influenced in contemporary culture by his studies on nature and          effects of media in social processes, art and literature.

He studied engineering at the University of Manitoba and then moved to Cambridge to study literature. McLuhan studies were pioneers in the field of information and the influence of new media and electricity in the changes in perception of modern man. His famous phrase “the medium in the message” become a slogan for science of contemporary communication. For him, the way of perceiving reality is directly related to the structure and form of information, and to each in turn is related to part of the human psyche.

His works were written mostly in the form of aphorism or short excerpts, style: “Any form of technology is a reflection of our psychological experience more intimate,” and, in large part, his writing is chaired by the humor: “As the typewriter, the phone functions merge, enabling the operator, for example, to be his own trickster and Madame. “

This style, between assertive, ironic and prophetic, brought some problems in academic circles, not knowing how to classify it, wondering if it was a great philosopher in the style of F. Nietzsche, an imaginative writer or a “a crazy wise.” The truth is that his work and his ideas come to every day that passes, greater force and effect in the science of communication and social behavior within the framework of the mass media, regardless of wit and paradoxes that satisfy, for Moreover, the modern literary and artistic imagination.

Among his major works include The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), The Global Village (1989) and essays such as “Joyce, Mallarme and the press” or “Laws of Media”, McLuhan included in the anthology. Essential Writings (1998). The Gutenberg Galaxy popularized his ideas on the media: for McLuhan, has completed the age of culture based on the book, television and new electronic communication systems in general have already installed the human being in a “global village” an audio-haptic tribalized society worldwide.