Following Media's Example

People who claim media does not affect them really bother me. They will be the first to say that they are not influenced whatsoever by things they see in the media, as they tug on their Dunder Mifflin t-shirt and shrug their shoulders saying "whateves". Clearly media has gotten to them a little bit more than they assume. The amount of media that the average person watches is astounding. I found a website that had a bunch of different statistics: http://www.csun.edu/science/health/docs/tv&health.html So from all those hours of TV, not to mention all the internet thrown in, the media definitely has a powerful influence in our lives. With numbers that high, how could we not be affected by the media? Every time we sit down in front of a TV, computeror video game, we are being fed images of pop culture. How can those images and stereotypes not impact the way we look at the world?


Most of the time, this media influence is not harmful. Its not great to have so much of it infiltrating daily life, but it alone can't kill you. Its when people, kids specifically, get so entranced by the stuff they see, and expect to be able to imitate it. There have been countless examples of kids copying violent moves they saw in movies or video. One tragic case in particular ended in the death of a young girl (full story below). The boy threw the girl on the ground in a body slam move and then proceeded to beat her, not once thinking about the consequences"During the trial, the defense argued that the 170-pound boy did not mean to kill the 48-pound girl and thought he could body-slam people and they would walk away unhurt, just like his wrestling idols on television". The problem is that people can't separate the difference between whats in the media and in real life. Two pro-wrestlers can easily throw each other around without hurting the other too severely. A teenage boy cannot do the same to a 12 year old and expect the same outcome. We need to be so careful at what we're taking in, especially when we're comparing it to our own world.




http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/03/09/national/main277536.shtml