The art of communication!!! A fitting cartoon drawing which ironically has the same title as my blog's address.
Can the media destroy our perception on things and shape how we interpret and understand information? From this cartoon, it seems that the media, particularly the tele or as we all know the idiot box, seems to be the main channel of information source,debate topic and communication similarity as depicted in this cartoon. Has the tv destroyed our own personal perceptions, thoughts and opinions? Well to tell you the scary truth, the tv does have a very strong influences on our cognitive schematas even if you counciously or unconciously aware of it.
In all of us, our minds are complex creations that consist of many storage areas that keep our cognitive schematas. Such cognitive schematas include personal constructs, prototypes, scripts and puntuation. Such areas of cognitive store houses are the key fundamental pillars in how we respond to a stimulus from the outside enviroment. Take the above abstract for example, the tv which is a form of linear model in communication, sends the stimulus in the form of information to us and inturn affect us sublimally. As watching the tele occurs across all ages, we are in one way or the other affected by such channels of media.
However, do not fear or be alarmed as now we are aware of the mind controlling effects of the media, we can gaurd ourselves against such froms of bombardment that we experience day and night. The 4 idols of the cave and having multiple channels of communication would enable us to prevent such brainwashing from taking place. Further more, we have to be aware of the origin of source and seek multiple veiwpoints before jumping into any self-bias perceived conclusions.
All in all be aware of the fundemental attribution error innate in all of us and please do watch more tv as even though it maybe evil, it is still entertaining and well worth to talk about! Be the tv's freind but do not let it enslave your thoughts, perceptions and principles.
6 comments:
I agree with you totally. The media can influence our lives very easily. It is a very powerful element that shape our thoughts, behaviors and etc. I would say that it is very difficult for us to guard against the 'bad' influences as you can see these influences is everywhere in today's society.
Joyce W
Hi Amos!
I see you have incoporated many elements of communication in one entry. I like the way you used a cartoon image and moved on to blogging about perception, idols of the cave etc..
Sometimes, media comes on so strongly that we blindly follow whatever is broadcast without seriously thinking whether it is right or not. Most of the time, media is bias towards a specific organization, hence shaping our mindset in a very extreme manner.
Media can be a good source of updating ourselves with the latest news, however we should still exercise some basic cautious-ness over what is being promoted over media.
Media is a controlled form of communication. It's being controlled by what the government think is right. Hence, it's right to say that media shapes our perception of things. However, if you consume the different media forms such as the internet, you can identify certain fallcies that the media provides. So, it is up to the individual to accept the "facts" given by the media.
They say that history is written by the victors. In this context, the media controls what you see on television.
While I do agree that TV does have its influences, I think that it is not more influential than other sources such as your parents or friends.
However, the thing is that since TV is viewed by many people, it is easy to influence many people with the same ideas when compared to like peer influence.
I believe how susceptible one is is not limited to TV. If a person were to be gullible enough to believe everything on TV, he or she would probably be gullible when with friends as well.
Nevertheless, it is undoubted that TV is a big influence in peoples lives. When the US invaded Iraq in the 2003 Iraq War, one of the first things they did was disable the TV stations. Don't you just love all those World War 2 TV propaganda?
Media plays a large role in shaping our culture and stuff like that. This is what we always hear in school, at home or even at work. Thus, I agree that consciously or unconsciously we are affected by it.
However, we should not believe in everything we see or hear from it. Since Media plays such a large role, it is able to manipulate us in wanting us to believe whatever it portrays.
Hence, we should always keep an open mind and not be enslaved to it like what you have mentioned!
according to AC Nieslen, a media statistics research company, the average person spends about 8 hours 14 minutes watching TV betweem 2005-2006, compared with 7 hours and 15 minutes a decade ago.
this shows how mush time we spend watching the idiot box.
unfortunately, i think that the wide spread use of TV media to disseminate information in bad for us. notice hot the news of today incorporates many scrolling texts, and little boxes with share prices and such. comparing with the news of older days, they were cleaner and more focused on the newscaster.
this shows that we have been bombarded by stimuli to the point where we cannot focus on the topic at hand. without other stimuli distracting us, we would quickly change channels or loose focus.
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