This is my brain on Deconstruction

This deconstruction thing with Beach is killing me. If it doesn't stop it, I may have to jump from my balcony--which wouldn't be very effective because it's only about 10 to the ground.

Maybe I'll jump from the Empire State Building instead. Of course, I'm assuming that exists, but I've actually only seen it represented in the media, so it may not exist because there is no "true and fixed meaning associated with external reality. (45)" True, there is a website that claims it exists. AND it may have looked real in that movie Sleepless in Seattle. But, they were probably filming that in front of some cardboard decorated with glitter and elbow macaroni and held together with Elmer's glue and duct tape. (It's true. You can make ANYTHING out of duct tape.)

Oh, isn't this ironic, I am both reinforcing Beach's argument and showing how clearly bizarre it is!

Seriously, although I'm sure there is a logical fallacy or two in there, I really DO believe that "media representations," as Beach refers to them are connected to a fixed reality. Just because societal norms change over time doesn't mean they hold no concrete truth in this time and place, that is, the present state when we are having our discussion. Right now. As I'm typing. And then, as you're reading this. I'm guessing we're still pretty much on the same page about, say, who the president of The United States is, that the world has 7 continents, etc. (It does have 7 doesn't it? One time I totally forgot Australia during a game of Trivial Pursuit. I was SO embarrassed.) Anyway--it seems ridiculous to me to suggest that messages put forth in any medium created by people who live in this reality are removed from our reality or furthermore, that the messages/ideologies could be considered amoral. The representation can never be completely separated from it root source because outside of each particular social construct it never would have been created. The two are inseparable. Married. You can't divorce them. And there is no reality polygamy going on here, so don't even suggest it!

The conclusion being: applying Deconstruction as a whole to the concept of media studies is a bad, bad thing. And I hate it. You must not do it. I command it!

Regarding the whole "chicken and egg" issue, I'm just going to put my opinion out there because that's what I like to do. (And because Beach clearly states his). Generally speaking, the problem came first, not any media representations. Yes, media effect our lives and values, but they don't directly cause our problems. Social problems existed well before this concept of "mass media." These problems have evolved as a consequence of mass communication. While media, in general, have produced gross distortions of reality because their creators have personal agendas, they are not the direct cause of society's problems.