Media is the message

President Obama's visit was nothing more than political. That is what leading political pundits have told us, at least. The New York Times, The Voice of America, Fox News, MSNBC, etc. Local news stations and leading local papers created an image of patriotic students listening to a motivational speech by their president. The most powerful man in the world visited OUR school. He spoke to OUR students. He reinvigorated the passionate and memorable collective hopes of "Yes we can!"

But will history remember his four-day, five-state campaign as a repeat of his presidential campaign, promising change and hope? That's doubtful. Media transforms our political history as we know it today. Social media, newspapers, online blogs, and television shows all have changed the way that history will be created and perceived for the rest of time. The impartiality and skepticism of all these forms of media today are what overwhelms personal accounts of history.

I did not have the chance to attend the rally, and I don't trust peers to tell me the entire story without bias. But I cannot trust anyone to really tell me the whole story without bias. History is written from the perspective of those who have the given power to determine what is important for us to remember and take from certain historical events. I cannot be injected with feelings of hope or pride when i read news articles about the President's speech, but instead only contempt for politics and regret when I read these same articles or blog posts. No matter how hard these forms of media try to make a certain argument for emotion, or try to convey a feeling of pride or anger, history cannot be relived through text and all that exists are shadows of what was.