Blog Three: Learning Outcome

Mass media influences everyone regardless of their awareness of it or not. While some claim this to be untrue, media dictates people’s perceptions of life and reality.

As seen with American reality television shows, reality made by producers is not often times how reality really is like. For example, it can be claimed that reality television, such as Jersey Shore, focuses on what they believe the audiences want. For that show, it can be said that audiences want to see drama and a whole lot of partying; hence, producers and directors would not want to highlight the moments that the ‘cast’ gets along, but the parts when members of the group get into disagreements. While this is not advertised, the audience sees only what is edited together and the story filmed from a third party view. Yes, there are people who claim that reality television does not change their perceptions of reality, but it sure changes their cognitive thinking… If anyone was seen walking down the street dressed like Snooky, it is more likely that someone would begin to subconsciously stereotype the person as being what looks like to be a party girl. That is natural, but to what extent is television changing someone’s reality if it actually changes their stereotypes?

Media on a global scale is much easier to use as an example of how media can dictate people’s perceptions. Something that happened in China would be portrayed differently there versus here in the United States. That has various factors that go along with it. The form of government and customs is much different there than it is here. With that said, something could be shown on the news here and can give an entirely different look at an issue than what is shown of the actual situation. This could be done intentionally by using propaganda.

While there are only a few ways that media can influence perceptions given, there are many ways that it can be done. As previously mentioned, propaganda can be used as well as censorship. In the third learning outcome of the semester, it pinpoints the main ways that media plays a role. On an everyday bases, people are consistently influenced by mass media in the ways language and images as used as well as by the style, layout, and possible manipulation of the media that are used.