Over to you

Even though we can no longer accept any more students for work placement in The Irish Times for this school year, we still love to hear from Transition Year students with opinions on various subjects. Send us your thoughts (200 words maximum) on a media-related topic - and if your submission is published, we'll send you a book token.

Mark Tobin, Blackrock, Co Dublin

It can be hard for people to accept life and go out and live it. I would reason that this is why society has arrived at the point where people rely on the media to spoon-fed them their opinions. With the "wonderful" Mr Murdoch at the helm of such a massive media machine, I would seriously discredit a lot of public opinion. People continuously criticise the tabloids - but, I ask you, who pays for these celebrity soap operas? In the wake of Diana's death, there was a uproar against these so-called newspapers - and tabloids enjoyed record sales at this time.

This shows how uninteresting people have become. No one is dreaming; even teenagers have become cynical.

I think the reason for this stems from the current schooling system. Instead of encouraging creativity and individualism, the system promotes conformity. For example, students are marked on structure in creative writing rather than on originality; surely there is room for both.

Education, in the fullest sense of the word, should be a foundation on which to build your life, not just something to guarantee you life behind a desk. People under the present system aren't getting a chance to learn about themselves and form opinions.

Laura Porteous, Ashton School, Blackrock, Cork

I rarely watch television any more, as it caters largely for a "dumbed down" society. The flood of "reality TV" and "docu-soaps" appear to provide a false sense of reality to those who are too glued to their TV screens to go out and experience the real world.

They say Ireland is 10 years behind the US, where television has become some people's only link to what's going on in the real world. Even the news has become a soap opera, chronicling the tawdry lifestyles of celebrities.

With the advent of digital television, people will soon be able to choose from a plethora of reality-based TV, and firm favourites like The World's Scariest Police Chases

will be overshadowed. I just hope that when we are able to receive hundreds of satellite channels, which will need to show such quality television as this to fill time, the terrestrial channels will revert to showing some half-decent programmes. However, it will probably just result in the creation of even more trashy TV.

Write to media scope by posting your comments to Newspaper in the Classroom, The Irish Times, 11-16 D'Olier Street, Dublin 2, or faxing them to (01) 679 2789.

Be sure to include your name, address and school, plus phone numbers for home and school.

Or you can use the Internet and email us at mediapage@irish-times.ie.

media scope is a weekly media studies page for use in schools. Group rates and a special worksheet service are available: free-phone 1-800-798884 (8 a.m. to 5 p.m.).

media scope is edited by Harry Browne.

Fax-back: Worksheets and other materials for media scope are available to teachers who place group orders through their schools. The worksheets are sent out to all subscribing schools via the automatic fax-back system. This automatic system will re-try a busy line up to four times.

If you do not receive the fax-back material by Wednesday morning and you have a touch-tone fax machine, please use it to dial (01) 670 9709 and follow the recorded instructions; the material will be faxed automatically to your machine. If you have a pulse dialling machine, refer to your fax manual for details on how to set it for touch-tone dialling. If you have problems, telephone (01) 679 2022, ext. 568 or 580.