Media and The Lonely Deviant

Every time I consume mass media such as TV, podcast, newspaper, etc; I always have a battle in my main. The main question appears in my brain: 

Am I the “queen/king audience?” (who can be freely interpret the media and have full command to my mind), or Am I the “slave audience” who follows the representation in media message and follows the media interpretation power about the world? Frankly speaking, I do not like to be in the second choice because: “I’m (not) a slave for you (media)” (Britney Spears, 2001) but my resistant and rejection doesn’t mean that I am immune to media message injection. 

Orthodox media concern on “media polysemy and semiotic democracy,” which means that the audience will have diversity in understanding the media message. Diversity and resistant exist but it doesn’t mean that the audience is free, have power, and strengthen the idea of audience democracy. The second challenge is the audience is not necessarily always able to analyze, reject, or interpret the media. Therefore sometimes (for certain issues especially something that the audience have no direct connection with it) audience will get influence by the media. I have seen an interesting research when I was in high school. Someone put a glass of water which is labeled “HIV person has drunk from this glass, would you dare to drink from the same glass?” and no body dare to try it! After I ask whether they believe that HIV AIDS has no influence through saliva, and they say yes, but they just fell disgust and reduce any possibility of AIDS in their life. It means that active audience does not necessarily immune to media exposure (p.415) and inconsistency in interpretation and reaction occur.  

In my opinion, people tend to have stronger opinion to fight the mainstream media message if the issue is connected with their daily experience or the issue tend to jeopardize their communal believe. For example it is easier for Indonesian people to distrust the media message that Indonesia is the invader of East Timor (such as from the news of CNN, ABC or documentary film from Noam Chomski). They have personal experience from communal sharing or parental information that many people of East Timor want to be part of Indonesia but they are forced to be in East Timor or East Timor is poor and unstable therefore it is disadvantages for them to release from Indonesia, and all the idea that Indonesia “save” East Timor from problem by “in-vade-tegrate” them (Facebook response).

The resistant or diverse believe is strong because of the collective meaning has confirm individual believe. I think I am able to be resistant to media message or association for certain issue related to my life. However I am not the “strong queen”, I need various dependent variables to help me convince myself that my belief is true through communal validation (culture or behavior), alternative media confirmation (still media but at least it is not mainstream), and personal experience (which should be confirm by other’s experience). Those are all my excuse of being deviant. 
“I can be deviant but I do not want to be alone!”

"HOT" Ideas for future research:

a. Research in the variety of news/issues perspectives in digital media, such as YouTube, blogs, or website. For example: How Web 2.0 frames an issue, such as abortion, East Timor, tobacco campaign, etc. (choose one)

b. Research using FGD or interview about people's opinion on certain controversial news or news that is assumed as biased in mass media

c. The motivation of people looking for alternative information in digital media than conventional media.