How many teenagers know all about Chris Brown’s temper tantrum on the Good Morning America show last Tuesday? Compare that number to the teenagers who know all about the potential nuclear meltdown in Japan that may affect the west coast of the U.S. The numbers for the latter would be significantly lower than the first.
It’s no doubt that the last few weeks of news have been anything but slow. What’s concerning is how we live in an age of communication where events that occur on one side of the world can spread globally within a matter of minutes; yet most of the youth in America know more about the latest Charlie Sheen scandal than what is happening with their own government. Who is to blame? The youth for neglecting to keep up with all that has been going on, or the media for focusing more on these types of stories?
Obviously the media wants to grab their readers’ attention through stories which they think are important to a specific target, but how can young adults and teenagers even decide what they think is important if they aren’t aware of all the choices? Many students at AHS are oblivious to the fact that the U.S. imposed a no-fly zone over Libya on March 17 but are fully knowledgeable about the etymology of the terms “tiger blood” and “bi-winning” which were coined by Sheen.
Brown wrote on Twitter the day of his violent tantrum that people tend to “praise Charlie Sheen and other celebs” for their negative behavior. It’s true; the media does seem to glamorize the inappropriate behavior of celebrities by giving those types of stories big headlines and blowing the situation way out proportion for the sole purpose of entertainment.
If these incidents were not focused on as much by the media, the audience would also have to ignore them and focus on more important news. Not to say that news pieces such as these should be ignored completely by the media, but perhaps the more serious news organizations should avoid reporting on stories that make the audience doubt their reputation. In short, CNN should not be reporting on the same things as People magazine.
One of the messages the media may be sending out by paying so much attention to people like Sheen and Brown is that acting out is the best way to gain attention. Before the Sheen scandal, people at AHS rarely brought up the name Charlie Sheen or Two and a Half Men for the simple reason that teenagers didn’t really care about Sheen. The only reason his story appeals to them is because the comments he made were mildly amusing. If that is indeed the case, what is the point of the media making such a big deal out of him if not many cared about him to begin with? All it does is rewards celebrities who are clearly a bad influence by giving them so much attention and distracting people from news that affects their lives directly.
