The Top ten, top 100, best, most beautiful..

To celebrate the end of the first decade of the 21st century, many magazines and newspapers made lists of the top movies, shows, songs, artists, and books of the decade. Every year many magazines also do the lists of the top and best whatever, one of the most famous being People's Most Beautiful released each year. All of these awards and lists make me question our society's loyalty to the media to give us accurate perspectives on the most important things in our life, entertainment and appearances. I'm wary of trusting media sources to tell me which movies to watch or music to listen to, but I still find it hard to combat the influence. Rolling Stone published a Best of the Decade article and I immediately bought about half of the albums they discussed and watched three of the movies they advertised. A lot of these movies and albums were from the early 2000's, when I was just nine or ten years old. I had no interest in music back then or movies outside of the Disney and Nickelodeon realm, yet while reading this list, I still felt like I had missed out on an important part of my life. I experienced a huge cultural gap, and I trusted Rolling Stone to fill me in accurately on what I had missed.

In some ways compilations of different media sources, such as movies, is a good way to get a glimpse into a year of movies unwatched, yet each magazine or tv show or news program has its own opinions on what makes a good movie or a good artist. In Rolling Stone they posted the editors and reporter's top ten and then in the corner they posted the reader's top ten. Some of the reader's choices went without representation in the editor's top ten, and the movies that were the same through out were in different orders, some number one on one list and number ten on the other. While Rolling Stones readers too have a different perspective on different media sources, the dichotomy is emphasized by the fact that both parties are interested in the same magazine yet have vastly different opinions. We trust beauty commercials to give us accurate information on what will make us more beautiful.

There's something to be said for the fact that our whole world is intertwined in a web of dependence. We depend on doctors and lawyers to keep us healthy and fix us and save our money and win us money. However, the law and medical trades are based on knowledge and a specialized set of skills, whereas magazines and television shows are more based on a specific opinions that are developed, rationalized, and promoted. The people creating these media sources are very skillful, yet they have skills in promoting not the real truth, but the truth viewers want to hear. Television shows and magazines form their own personalities not based on having attended a specific school or studying a certain discipline but by knowing how to adapt. We trust magazines and television to tell us what we should like and what we should do with our free time. Also, the people reading many of these top 50 or most beautiful articles are of a young (ish) age, relative to those not viewing these types of media. Younger people tend not to put health and money at the top of their lists of the most important things in their life, so many of us are placing entertainment as the number one priority. College kids trust magazines and television to tell them what types of alcohol to drink and what types of parties to throw. Mothers and homeowner's trust House and Garden to tell them what their house should look and feel like. They trust House Beautiful to tell them the best colors for a living room or a kitchen. Home renovations are an important part of our lives outside of work and making a living. Our homes are representations of ourselves as much as what music we listen to is. In many ways we are putting our identities in the hands of the media, as we often listen to their advice and shape our lives around what they say. I've never defined myself by my doctor or the grocery store I shop at. Even though the people involved in these enterprises are more important to our well being we don't always listen to what they say or advise. A diagnosis at the doctor's might define us as someone with a disease or a condition, but we don't base our identities on the opinions of doctors as much, such as their opinions of what foods to eat or medicines to take. I wonder how media sources target what we find important and what we want to define ourselves by. While what they say and write is often based on their opinions, they are also targeting certain people and interests. How often do they track what their readers and viewers want to see? What is the rate of change for how media sources approach their viewers and what they give them? Hourly, daily, weekly? When Tiger's mistresses were revealed his shows were immediately pulled from the air. Does the media usually work this fast at changing what they show viewers based on what their values are (American's don't value cheating celebrities) or do they only work this fast in the case of disasters, when viewers would be angered by Tiger endorsements? How do the different filters described by Chomsky and Herman influence the way the media shapes our identities? Do these filters work to shape our identities by catering more to us or does their work shape our identities because they operate with their best interests in mind? If what we are viewing is what the filters have produced based on their values, opinions, and identities, then what does that say about our relationship to the filters? What does it say about the American identity?