What is the difference between knowledge and information?" Such was the question I faced during my interview for admission into the Media Fellows program.
I had to take a moment or two to gather my thoughts, but I would like to think that I answered the question aptly. To paraphrase myself, I said that knowledge is a deep understanding of a topic. Information, however, is simply recognizing the surface level instead.
Regretfully, I must say that our society is not knowledge-oriented but information-oriented. What does this mean? It means that our society does not attribute the proper attention to local, national and global events. We may know a great deal of information, but we are far from knowledgeable. This reality will harm our society's present, as well as its future.
Part of the unwritten job description for celebrities is to attract attention. There is a simple reality inherent in most celebrity news: it is superficial. I personally do not care about Justin Bieber's haircut, but I understand other people do. The allure associated with these celebrities takes precedence over the harder-hitting issues. It is regrettable and confusing.
What happened to Kony? Hardly anyone knows. I briefly perused CNN's website but I could not find anything. Kony's relevance deteriorated within months. Only the scar of public indecency from the campaign's promoter remains from the noble endeavor.
How about WikiLeaks? Same thing. Society enraptured itself in the mystery and seriousness of WikiLeaks, but, after some legal proceedings devoid of immediate punishment, the situation faded into the ether.
A person can say only so much in 140 characters, yet Twitter seems to be the preferred and convenient means by which society gathers its information. As we absorb tweet after tweet of abbreviated news, we are slowly devaluing each event we hear. It does not matter if a car crash in Florida harmed 52 people when another scandalous and rare event takes places an hour later.
In my junior year of high school, I attended Senator Lugar's symposium for Tomorrow's Leaders. There, I observed a lecture on the media. Matthew Tully, a respected columnist for The Indianapolis Star, helped lead the lecture.
He explained a surprising truth of reporting to those in attendance. Tully said that a governor's affair is more important and takes more precedence than a shooting in downtown Indianapolis. This struck me. I asked him how we could justify paying more attention to an affair than to someone's death, regardless of whether we knew the victim or not. Tully said that the affair takes precedence due to the rarity of the event and to the high esteem of a governor's position. I understand Tully's point; I would put the affair over the shooting as well, but I believe that there is a problem hidden within this methodology. Our society devalues the seriousness of violence and death, and instead values scandal and shock factor. People die every day, so I recognize a general lack of interest; however, a human death is undoubtedly significant, regardless of its frequency.
I understand and support perpetual improvement of technology, yet I cannot endorse such indifference to the biting realities of our world.
My proposition is simple: promote media knowledge in every class and discussion in some outlet. I do not expect everyone to tear through The New York Times, but I think it is fair to ask people to be informed citizens.
Numbed by the speed of technology, our society has fallen into informational-nihilism. If society could attribute its same fervor for quick information to the important issues, then our knowledge would improve. In an ideal world, society will evaluate all significant events with a calculated mind and a cross-referenced knowledge base. We cannot make knowledgeable decisions based on our information. We can and should make informed decisions based on our knowledge.
- Weilhammer is a freshman from Indianapolis, Ind., with an undecided major.