Mcluhan's quote "All media work us over completely"is one of the most bluntly true statements I have read. However, my interpretation of the quote differs from his a little bit. The media is a propaganda machine. Those in control of the media use to it to convince people to believe in certain things and to influence how people view the world. For example, after the Seattle Seahawks defeated the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC championship, Cornerback Richard Sherman went on a rant and taunted his opponents. The media then labeled Richard Sherman a "thug" because of this.
At the same time you have Justin Bieber who has been constantly getting into trouble but the word "thug" was never used toward him once. And that's pretty messed up being that Richard Sherman has never been in trouble with the law. This can be seen as an example of racism in the media, and how the media depicts certain races of people to be one way and another race to be another. And I'll let Richard Sherman explain the rest...
The article that I agree with is "Does the Internet Make You Smarter" by Clay Shirky. Some points he made that stood out to me is that "the internetwill fuel the intellectual achievements od the 21st century society".
The internet now serves as a platform for people to exprrss their ideas and is an open forum for learning. With search engines such as Google, or media sites like youtube, anything you want to know can be found within a matter of seconds. Information is available at the click of a button.
