Does the media reflect reality or create reality?

     

    The media reflects reality but it is more of a powerful source, which creates reality.

The media has power.  

     This statement is true as the media controls what people read and how they are informed. Newspapers tell us that smoking is bad, however films portray smoking as cool, as the main character (which many people think of as role models) for example James bond participates in this activity. Many if not all media publications have their own view. This influences them to write bias review on worldly issues.  By adding my opinion to this article can make the reader feel that I am giving a bias review, that is not the case. Although many media publications enforce bias opinions they do include an incite to the issues that are present in todays society.

   The media reflects the world, but by exaggerating worldly issues it shapes the views of society and create a new reality, for example many Muslims are being persecuted because of the reaction the newspapers and other media publications have given to the suicide bombers. Another example was the inflating news reports on the epidemic of the swine flu. Many news reports made out that swine flu was bigger than what it was. They used rear stories to scare the reader, causing them to have a different view on this epidemic virus.

 The media inject ideas into society, they control what people think is acceptable and how people react. stuart hall’s theory suggest that the media is a powerful source that creates reality. His theory talks about how people are represented in the media. Hall was concerned with media power, including how it propagates social values.                                                               

      "The mass media play a crucial role in defining the problems and issues of public concern. They are the main channels of public discourse in our segregated society". -stuart hall                  

Stuart Hall suggests 3 ways in which we may read media texts:                                                    

 1. The preferred reading – where an audience will read a media text in the way in which the director intends for them to read it                                                

2. The negotiated reading – where the audience may choose to believe parts of the media text, but not all                      

3. The oppositional reading – where the audience oppose the representations and views of the media text.

This can determine how people react to information provided to them by the media.                                  

    There are many factors that can determine how people react to different new, for example the age of the audience, the gender, ethnicity, and cultural background. The media use this to their advantage as it allows them to isolate certain groups and manipulate the audience into feeling either positive or negative view towards them.

   Going back to stuart hall's theory, In 1971 he made an influential appearance on BBC television, where he criticized media portrayal of blacks. He noticed that when blacks were being shown in the media, only stories that followed the stereotype of a black were being shown, however there stereotypes did not show a correct interpretation of black people.

          "When blacks appear in the documentary/current affairs part of broadcasting, they are always attached to some 'immigrant issue': they have to be involved in some crisis or drama to become visible actors to the media."

Although stuart appearance on the bbc made people question the media, this issue is still the case. Many media publications show stereotypical black in movies that are related to gangs and crime, and this is not only with blacks, but others such as muslims and arab countries.   

   Many media icons such as celebrities are shaped into tools, the media can use to get information across. many celebrities use different persona in the media, these personas create view on how people are represented when in fact they are not what they seem.   

   Most of our information is gathered by reading books, newspapers, magazines, internet and television. We are living in an age where information is at our fingertips and can be accessed from any remote place on earth. In a world where we have this much control, many of the devices we gather our information from can be manipulated to make us think and react to things in different ways.  

In Conclusion the media have a lot of power over their audience, and if used wrongly it can create reality rather than reflect it.