The Importance of Being Earnest: a Trivial Comedy for Serious People is the title of Oscar Wilde’s 1895 play, which became one of his most famous dramatic works, although not everyone at first appreciated its subtle irony about the virtues of Victorian society, commonplace lies, twisting of facts, double identities and other stratagems.
In English, “earnest” has a much deeper meaning than “serious”. It invites one to think not only about seriousness, but also about truth, honesty and what is of importance. Today, the most complex and difficult events are routinely presented by the media in familiar if not mundane modes; there is too much information to fathom it all; the unimportant things, such as the moods of reality show contestants, are presented more effectively than the decisions and events that are truly important; and politics is presented as theatre and sport as drama. Thus, it is difficult to distinguish what is serious and worthy of looking into, and what is not.
The workshop for seniors, but also for others, was dedicated to media literacy, focusing on the need to remain earnest and able to critically assess, think and act in the whirlpool of images, news, visual and audial information, for this, to a large extent, is what determines how truthful of an environment we live in.
Ilva Skulte has a degree in philology, she has worked in cultural journalism, and she’s a communication and media researcher at various Latvian universities. She is Associate Professor at the Riga Stradiņš University.