It seems that as the Western medias grip on information and agenda’s become stronger so does our generations awareness. When the class in the lectorial were asked to identify 5 words they instinctively associate with media, responses of “propaganda”, “bias” and even “Murdoch” echoed throughout the room.

It’s clear that the bias from the Newscorp owned texts in Australia is becoming shamelessly less subtle. On 9th of September 2013 the ABC show Media Watch pointed out in their article titled “The final tele tally” that ‘Out of a total of 293 political stories we scored only six as pro Labor. While 43 were pro coalition. On the negative side there were just five articles which we judged to be anti Coalition. While a remarkable 134 were anti Labor.’ Yet the clear awareness of such bias within the Australian media in the lectorial is most promising, particularly considering how no Murdoch-owned text would report these statistics, naturally.

It seems this is a clear example of how younger generations are now seeking their political information elsewhere, enough to be able to decipher the propaganda from true news. The response to the question in the lectorial stands as a clear example of a generation more attached to new media, such as podcasts and freelance blogs than Australia has ever seen before.

This is particularly interesting considering how large a role the media plays throughout the lives of this generation, particularly a group of Media students. Take the Branson and Stanford quote, for example:

“The media are not so much ‘things’ as places which most of us inhabit, which weave in and out of our lives. Their constant message and pleasures seem to flow around and through us, and they immerse most of our waking lives” (Branston and Stafford 2010, the media student’s book, 5th Ed, NY: Rout Ledge.)

It seems, contrary to the clichéd condemnation of the adolescents of today from older generations, that as media becomes a greater part of our lives, we become more aware of it, and hence the determined goals of Australia’s media mogul’s, become less and less out of reach as the future draws closer.