What kind of consumer am I..?

As a person whose native language is not English, the mass media is one of the primary sources I use in learning and enhancing English skills. Documentary programs, radio, drama, news broadcasting, newspapers, and magazines are all sources where I would learn new vocabulary, idioms, facts about American society, and the world as American news or magazines see it. Many people in my home country(South Korea) watch American tv shows to learn English. So mass media is an important tool for me to learn new facts and language.

On the other hand, I also watch Korean documentaries and sometimes the news, but I try not to pay too much attention to the television news or the newspapers. The way they present the news is sensational, and it seems that different newspapers have taken different political sides, some being totally(maybe too) liberal and the others being to much of an advocate of the government(whether it's democratic or conservative-they seem to change sides after every election). It takes a lot of newspapers too get the whole picture of an inccident, as they are all concentrating on the 'facts' that they wish to present, and making it seem like the whole truth. So instead of the paper newspaper, I read news on the internet. There are many links to various on-line newpaper homepages on the portal site I use.

I guess I'm more critical about the mass media inside my home country than that of the US, as I do not have enough knowledge about how the American media works, and also because I don't have the adequate background knowledge about America to interprete the intentions and maybe even the fabrications of the mass media.

However I am aware that news reports, dramas, and even documetaries are sometimes trying to be too sensational in order to catch the audience's attention. I'm careful not to always blindly believe the messages from the mass media. It's very alarming to see how the same news story changes bit by bit as the day goes by, and how unconfirmed information circulates in the internet through the comments and blog postings! of millions of 'anonymous' people.

So mass media is important to me because it is a tool for learning, to a certain extent. And of course television shows and magazines are a source of entertainment. But I try to not be biased by the images or words I consume through the media.