Mediocre media impact on youth education
The station’s owners claim it will be primarily aimed at the under-35 age group, and will feature American drama and Irish-made fashion and music shows. The channel will show no news or current affairs programming.
Channel 6 will enter a difficult marketplace directly in competition with RTÉ2 and TV3, two channels that offer minimal programming of an educational nature. The media’s obsession with the under-35s is not confined to television. Radio stations up and down the country constantly bombard us with the latest American rapper or Brit popper and the country’s newest national newspaper seems to be more concerned with the latest celebrity gossip than actual news.
So, do the general population and, more specifically, the under-35s have no interest in news, politics, foreign affairs or history?
General election turnouts are continually in decline and there is a large proportion of young people who have never bothered to vote. And if education and learning are now frowned upon, what will this mean for Ireland’s future?
An ill-informed society can easily be duped by media, advertisers and, more worrying, shrewd politicians. Economically, will Ireland still remain an attractive location for investors if our educated workforce is not as educated anymore? And what about our culture and heritage?
The continuing obsession with US and British television and film has seen many Irish traditions die. Our young people’s knowledge of Irish history seems to be largely based on Neil Jordan’s film Michael Collins. At GAA and rugby matches, the words our national anthem, Amhrán na bhFiann, have to be printed in the programme or projected onto the big screens.
Enda Kenny wants to scrap Irish for the Leaving Cert. While he’s at it, he might as well scrap hurling, Guinness and St Patrick.
And it is not just on topics concerning Ireland that our young people know nothing. How many of them could name the president of the European commission or know the capital cities of at least half the EU member states?
So, I ask, is the Celtic tiger generation a bunch of intelligent whiz kids who are just too busy enjoying themselves to worry about the matters I have raised? Or are they just a generation of dunces?
Eamonn Ó hEachach
3 Iona Close
College Court
Castletroy
Limerick
