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  1. #1

    Does media really have an effect?

    I had a dicussion with a friend about ancient bigoted work and stories. My friend clear view was that in essence celebrating them and letting them live on simply reinforce the continuation of things. However i dont believe so, we stopped the debate when i brought the point that this friend and most people including myself, dont believe video game makes you violent? So if Media cannot make you violent, why would to make you anything else?

    I read a lot for fun, im not gona claim im an expert on the issue. But as far as i could learn, an adult mind is very hard to change. Most of the time so hard even truth shown in front of a person is not enough to overwrite the part of your brain that rationalise everything you do and think. Only massive shock is enough to change someone opinion. Influence is like hypnosis, it only works on someone willing. So no matter how aweful a work, it wouldnt turn someone that believes the opposite of it, to suddenly believe it. Only when you are open to such value can you be influenced. Nobody is immune to propagenda, however you are all immune to propagenda that goes into direct conflict with your beliefs as an adult.

    So what is the real effect of media then? As far as i can tell all it does is reinforce what your mind already agreed to. Russia bot didnt make people that wouldnt vote for Trump vote for Trump. It made people that would have voted for Trump feel more justified to mobilise and take the time to vote. Playing GTA 5 didnt make you a mass shooter, you were simply a mass shooter playing the game. Reading meinkauf doesent make you racist, you are a racist person reading meinkauf. The media is justifications for what you already agree to. People are trying to use it as a crutch to remove accountability for various things.

    If media can really change someone mind on a single thing, then it can change your mind on ANYTHING. You cant go around and pick and decide which one can or cannot.

    If someone can tell me im wrong with clear examples, id actually like to be able to read a serious piece about it?
    Last edited by minteK917; 2019-11-27 at 09:50 PM.

  2. #2
    Flat earthers and anti-vaxxers weren’t born that way. Of course media influences you. Some people are easier influenced than others, but we are all affected. Why do you think commercials exist and marketing is big business? Playing a violent game won’t make a docile person a violent killer, but it can push someone over the edge that is already close to snapping. It also makes people more numb to pain and suffering, if you are confronted with violence from a young age.

    So yeah, not sure how you can think media doesn’t influence you.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Amerissis View Post
    Flat earthers and anti-vaxxers weren’t born that way. Of course media influences you. Some people are easier influenced than others, but we are all affected. Why do you think commercials exist and marketing is big business? Playing a violent game won’t make a docile person a violent killer, but it can push someone over the edge that is already close to snapping. It also makes people more numb to pain and suffering, if you are confronted with violence from a young age.

    So yeah, not sure how you can think media doesn’t influence you.
    You are describing a kid perspective. An adult mind does not easily snap, most of the work i read points to the total opposite. When you buy something out of a commercial, the commercial work wasent to change your mind, you were already disposed to buy it. It simply made you aware of the product and its offer and differentiate it from its competitors. If you hate coffee, theres no amount of coffee commercial thats gona make you buy coffee.

    So again how does it influence you, if you already agree to these things? How is someone violent, becoming violent because its playing a violent video game an influence? Giving you the push to something you already would do, is not really an influence, it did not change your character.

    However if you are correct, then why are people always argueing violent video game does not make people more violent? You cant pick and choose which one work or doesent.

    An adult value is not easily shaken at all, requires massive trauma to change. Your Flat earther is a good exemple. You arent born one no, but your childhood and lack of proper parenting made you a person which values made you a flat earther, someone that seek conspiracy theories everywhere. And just as i explained, you cannot change there minds when you try. So they are infact immune to the influance of normal media telling them the earth is round. If influance was such an easy tool on adults, then the vast majority of what they hear everyday is that the earth is round, by the logic that more of X = more influance, nobody could be a flat earther for long.
    Last edited by minteK917; 2019-11-27 at 10:08 PM.

  4. #4
    Some people desire some sort of support in that which they want to believe. And "facts" that they can dig up in the media of their choice helps them.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Shadowferal View Post
    Some people desire some sort of support in that which they want to believe. And "facts" that they can dig up in the media of their choice helps them.
    Yes, but thats the point, they already believe it. Its like they say, your minds already made up before you even make the choice.

  6. #6
    It really starts with trust. If you trust the system, you will follow mainstream beliefs (and media can be a part of that). if you don't trust the system, you will look for alternate beliefs.
    TO FIX WOW:1. smaller server sizes & server-only LFG awarding satchels, so elite players help others. 2. "helper builds" with loom powers - talent trees so elite players cast buffs on low level players XP gain, HP/mana, regen, damage, etc. 3. "helper ilvl" scoring how much you help others. 4. observer games like in SC to watch/chat (like twitch but with MORE DETAILS & inside the wow UI) 5. guild leagues to compete with rival guilds for progression (with observer mode).6. jackpot world mobs.

  7. #7
    Media manipulates people by leaving out or emphasizing details.

    Just look at the posters on this forum that is only reading English news from western media about countries here.

    https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...1#post49282332

    dpa international provides clear and unbiased coverage of the world’s biggest news stories. Headquartered in Germany, we offer an independent European perspective. Our journalists report from more than 100 countries for clients all around the world in the media, business and governance.
    As an example of it.

    This neglected to say that they were planning overthrowing and seeking foreign support for it. Not so clear and unbiased then is it?

    Then when I post what they were doing, they call it state propaganda because it doesn't align with the media they read.

    @bungeebungee and @Freighter can attest to this about their countries too, people just get manipulated by media in their countries about it.
    Last edited by Katie N; 2019-11-28 at 08:33 AM.

  8. #8
    I'm not so good with words, so I'll provide a Wikipedia link instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

    Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media is a 1988 book by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, in which the authors propose that the mass communication media of the U.S. "are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion", by means of the propaganda model of communication. The title derives from the phrase "the manufacture of consent," employed in the book Public Opinion (1922), by Walter Lippmann (1889–1974). The consent referred to is consent of the governed.

  9. #9
    Those comment sections below each news article provide support, and with strict moderation, can provide an echo chamber for the viewer.

    You bet it has an effect.

  10. #10
    Do you think that the fast food culture is normal and healthy?

    There is your answer. With enough propaganda and time you only have to control the critical mass to reach your goals. You can make people hate specific race, color, religion or even just the nationality or make them eat dog food and feel great about it.

    Its frightening that people don't understand how propaganda works, the last 100 years in history books had some gruelsome practical applications of it.
    -

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by minteK917 View Post
    Yes, but thats the point, they already believe it. Its like they say, your minds already made up before you even make the choice.
    That's not really the way to think it, the media puts associations in your head of certain things your mind wasn't made up about in cases your mind is already made up it simply solidifies it. Let me give you an example when you hear electric car you automatically think Tesla even though there are other brands out there. In a way the media makes up your mind for you on topics you are ignorant of. Let's take another example medicare for all which is painted as too costly and awful but private insurance costs way more and is worse but the media paints Americans as happy with their insurance hence public opinion drops.

  12. #12
    What the hell kind of question is this?

    Media influences almost every single aspect of modern, western culture.

    How you look
    What you eat
    What you wear
    What you drive
    Where you work
    What music you lsten to
    What films you watch
    How you vote
    Your religous choices


    It's far, FAR harder to think of things that they don't influence!

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Neenaw View Post
    What the hell kind of question is this?

    Media influences almost every single aspect of modern, western culture.

    How you look
    What you eat
    What you wear
    What you drive
    Where you work
    What music you lsten to
    What films you watch
    How you vote
    Your religous choices


    It's far, FAR harder to think of things that they don't influence!
    then its settled, they make you violent too.

  14. #14
    I am Murloc! shadowmouse's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by minteK917
    Reading meinkauf
    I reread my copy of Mein Kauf recently. I feel like I'd be ready for Black Friday.
    With COVID-19 making its impact on our lives, I have decided that I shall hang in there for my remaining days, skip some meals, try to get children to experiment with making henna patterns on their skin, and plant some trees. You know -- live, fast, dye young, and leave a pretty copse. I feel like I may not have that quite right.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Amerissis View Post
    Flat earthers and anti-vaxxers weren’t born that way.
    Eh, they may well be.

    Disposition that is.

    But the insinuation that we are born pro vaccine round earthers is hilarious.

    Quote Originally Posted by minteK917 View Post
    then its settled, they make you violent too.
    Nah that would be more like, can media make you eat tide pods. It works on like 10 people. You have to overcome a serious social inhibition or common sense.

    As an aside, I think it was Tibet that banned TV for a long time. When it was introduced there was indeed a significant crime wave.

    https://www.theguardian.com/theguard...kend7.weekend2
    Last edited by Afrospinach; 2019-11-28 at 04:10 PM.
    The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Afrospinach View Post
    Eh, they may well be.

    Disposition that is.

    But the insinuation that we are born pro vaccine round earthers is hilarious.



    Nah that would be more like, can media make you eat tide pods. It works on like 10 people. You have to overcome a serious social inhibition or common sense.

    As an aside, I think it was Tibet that banned TV for a long time. When it was introduced there was indeed a significant crime wave.

    https://www.theguardian.com/theguard...kend7.weekend2
    Then why are people trying to convince themselves video game does not increase violence in children? When it even would in adults according to people answers here? They "cant" make you violent, but somehow they can make you racist?

    Or the answer is simpler then that, you can consume any media, even if you read all the racist stuff as a teenager, if your parents were raising you not being racist shits, you will read it as aweful things on display and not something to emulate, because your values are opposite of the media you are consuming.

    Influance is described as a change of character. Does adult consumed media, change adult characters at all? Beliving earth is flat is not a change in character, someone really paranoid of authority its their own character, the media telling them the earth is flat is simply giving them an idea they can buy into. Notice how flat earthers rarelly only have one conspiracy theory they support.
    Last edited by minteK917; 2019-11-28 at 05:25 PM.

  17. #17
    This kind of stuff is already pretty well explored. You're comparing two different aspects of media, and trying to say they are the same. An obvious counter-argument would be how those different types of media work with your brain. Not only that, the general argument surrounding video games is whether or not video games make someone more violent, while the one that goes with media is generally how propaganda, lies, etc change your brain.

    Your whole conclusion is based on multiple false premises, so that is that.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Lemonpartyfan View Post
    This kind of stuff is already pretty well explored. You're comparing two different aspects of media, and trying to say they are the same. An obvious counter-argument would be how those different types of media work with your brain. Not only that, the general argument surrounding video games is whether or not video games make someone more violent, while the one that goes with media is generally how propaganda, lies, etc change your brain.

    Your whole conclusion is based on multiple false premises, so that is that.
    You mean...news being sold as reality and truth isn't the same thing as video games being sold as fictional entertainment? H-how could that be?! How could such difference possibly matter! ^^

    Try explaining that to people who want to draw a false equivalence between the two based on some personal agenda.
    Quote Originally Posted by Jtbrig7390 View Post
    True, I was just bored and tired but you are correct.

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    Quote Originally Posted by epigramx View Post
    millennials were the kids of the 9/11 survivors.

  19. #19
    Well, no country is rioting about the real big issues, like polution, war and world hunger. Everyones obsessed with people like Kim Kardashian and Justin bieber. Yeh id say media works.

  20. #20
    Old God Vash The Stampede's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by minteK917 View Post
    Russia bot didnt make people that wouldnt vote for Trump vote for Trump. It made people that would have voted for Trump feel more justified to mobilise and take the time to vote.
    This whole Trump and Russia business is nothing more than propaganda by the Democrats because they don't want to admit that Hillary was a poor choice. They also don't like Bernie Sanders either. Elizabeth Warren has a vagina and nobody is subsisting over her like they did with Hillary, because she has similar policies to Bernie. The Democrats would rather you believe that Russians brain washed you into voting for Trump, by brain washing you to believe that's true. The reality is that a lot of Bernie bros were upset that Bernie didn't win and just didn't vote at all.
    Playing GTA 5 didnt make you a mass shooter, you were simply a mass shooter playing the game. Reading meinkauf doesent make you racist, you are a racist person reading meinkauf. The media is justifications for what you already agree to. People are trying to use it as a crutch to remove accountability for various things.
    Think for yourself, and don't let others do the thinking for you. You can play or read whatever it is you want, because anyone with half a brain knows that it's important to hear both sides of the argument. Sometimes you need a contrast to differentiate from good and bad. Hopefully you're not a terrible person and realize that killing people is wrong and that Hitler was a dick.
    If media can really change someone mind on a single thing, then it can change your mind on ANYTHING. You cant go around and pick and decide which one can or cannot.
    Media can influence that decision, but you're not some robot without a thinking mind. As an adult, you should be smart enough to know the value of thinking for yourself. Media does work to an extent, otherwise commercials wouldn't be a thing. That's what commercials do, they condition you to associate a product with something in real life. Soda is to Pepsi as Socialism is to Bernie Sanders. If you agree with this statement then you aren't thinking for yourself. Pepsi is sugar water and Bernie isn't socialist. People have a hard time breaking things down into their constitutional parts, and would rather have a familiar label they can understand quickly without putting the time and effort that is needed. Media can influence but by having an ad-blocker on your web browser and not watching TV, you essentially disconnect yourself from the biggest source of media influence. A infomercial on Facebook or on TV is no different.

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