Gershon: Media Ideologies

In “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover: Media Ideologies and Idioms of Practive”, Gershon discusses how everyone has a different media ideology and how these ideologies change what messages mean to either person. Along with the change in the meaning of the message itself, the choice of the messenger also carries secondary messages that relate to the receiver’s understanding of the formality or informality of the messenger. I found the example of Halle and Doug particularly interesting. Doug, who broke up with Halle over text, violated the assumption that texting was a medium for casual joking conversations. Gershon’s theory of Halle’s media ideology and how that affected her understanding of Doug’s message resonated with stories I have discussed amongst my friends. Amongst my friends it is agreed that guys who break up over facebook are to put it bluntly a little wimpy and a little rude in choosing that route. Like in the case of Halle and Doug, there are certain expectations for the types of conversations meant to be carried out through facebook messenger. These conversations are usually more casual and include things such as “What are you up to”, “When are you free”, etc. More intimate conversations such as conversations having to do with the status of a relationship are thought to be reserved for when you are talking in person with your significant other because the physical proximity matches the intimacy of the conversation topic. By choosing to end a relationship over facebook messenger, my friends and I felt that that violated our expectations of the casualness of facebook conversations. We considered it slightly rude because this signified a refusal by someone you thought you were close with to carry out this conversation in person which typically is more fitting for such conversations. It was also considered a little bit wimpy because it suggested that the now ex was also afraid to bring this topic up in person when they would have to face their and the person being broken up with’s emotions up close and in person. Overall I found the idea of media ideologies and how varied they can be are very intriguing because this was a previously I had discussed certain assumptions about why certain messengers were illfitted to certain messaged but I had never explored the thinking behind it.