Critics often talk about the effects the media have on us as though the media were something separate and distinct from our everyday lives. But conversations with my students have convinced me otherwise. Every semester I poll my students as to what media they have used so far that day, with the day starting at midnight. I run through the list: checking Twitter, Snapchat, or Instagram; listening to the radio; checking the weather on a mobile device; binge-watching Stranger Things on Netflix; reading the latest John Green novel; listening to Spotify on an iPhone; and so it goes.
In fact, media use is likely to be the most universal experience my students will share. Surveys of my students find that more of my morning-class students have consumed media content than have eaten breakfast or showered since the day began at midnight. Are the media an important force in our lives? Absolutely! But the media are more than an outside influence on us. They are a part of our everyday lives.
Think about how we assign meanings to objects that otherwise would have no meaning at all. Take a simple yellow ribbon twisted in a stylized bow. You’ve seen thousands of these, and most likely you know exactly what they stand for—“Support Our Troops.” But that hasn’t always been the meaning of the symbol.
The yellow ribbon has a long history in American popular culture. It played a role in the rather rude World War II–era marching song “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.” The ribbon was a symbol of a young woman’s love for a soldier “far, far away,” and the lyrics mention that her father kept a shotgun handy to keep the soldier “far, far away.” The yellow ribbon was also a symbol of love and faithfulness in the John Ford film She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.
In the 1970s, the ribbon became a symbol of remembering the U.S. staff in the Iranian embassy who had been taken hostage. This meaning came from the song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ’Round the Old Oak Tree,” made popular by the group Tony Orlando and Dawn. The song tells about a prisoner coming home from jail hoping that his girlfriend will remember him. She can prove her love by displaying the yellow ribbon. The prisoner arrives home to find not one but one hundred yellow ribbons tied to the tree. The display of yellow ribbons tied to trees became commonplace in newspaper articles and television news stories about the ongoing hostage crisis after the wife of a hostage started displaying one in her yard.
Later, during the 1990–1991 Persian Gulf War, Americans were eager to show their support for the troops fighting overseas, even if they did not necessarily support the war itself, and the stylized ribbon started to become institutionalized as a symbol of support. The yellow “Support Our Troops” ribbon was followed by the red ribbon of AIDS awareness, the pink ribbon of breast cancer awareness, and ribbons of virtually every color for other issues.
And how do we know the meanings of these ribbons? We hear or see them being discussed through our media. The meaning is assigned by the creators of a ribbon, but the success of the ribbon depends on its meaning being shared through the media.
So, do the media create the meanings?
Not really.
But could the meanings be shared nationwide without the media? Absolutely not. The media may not define our lives, but they do help transmit and disseminate shared meanings from one side of the country to the other.
See all of the Seven Secrets About the Media “They” Don’t Want You to Know 2.0
