Is the World Flat?

Another week, another response post. This week, we looked at comm theory from psychological and sociological views, basically paralleling our two theory classes: Interactive Media Strategies, and Theory and Audience Analysis, respectively. My first question looked at the early days of theory, and how much is still relevant? Well, the bottom line is, human nature doesn’t change all that much. However, collective thought does. There was a time when humanity was sure that the world was flat, the universe orbited the Earth, and the insanity was called by demons in your head. Although science has made tremendous strides in all of these areas, we still possess the same psychology and human nature. For instance, its not as if everyone conducted these experiments and all concluded that the world was flat, etc. There was an authority that told them it was so. Unable to see any curve on the Earth, would we not also logically agree?

Today, we learn about these communication theories, yet they come from the authority of a textbook, not from our own study. Yet, we can still identify why these theories seem true – we find truth in our own experience. Like those who did not see a curve in the Earth, today we understand the Uses and Grats theory because we too can identify uses and gratifications in our own lives. So when we look at mass communication theories, our knowledge is informed by a broader sociological and authoritative source, and then confirmed by our own psychological thought process. Even when this information is scientifically wrong, our minds are influenced by society to have a natural leaning towards the collective thought.

Let’s consider Agenda-Setting Theory. Agenda-Setting Theory tells us that the mass–news media have a large influence on audiences by their choice of what stories to consider newsworthy and how much prominence and space to give them (thanks Wikipedia). For example, since I titled this article “Is the World Flat?” I brought your mind to reevaluate this assumption. Of course it isn’t, but there mere fact that I made that the title directs our thought process. This is closely integrated with what I was just discussing. The idea that the mass media can direct the collective thought over a particular subject means that our minds will be inorganically led to placing importance on that subject.

But really, with out the influence of mass media, how do we ever determine what is important? We do this by measuring how much this subject will affect us. Yet, what if there is an invisible, scentless, poison gas seeping into our home? We can not identify it, so does this make the subject unimportant? Sometimes our minds need to be nudged towards something for us to realize its importance. So obviously, there is a balance that we, as media-savvy students, need to find. On one hand, we have all the information the media gives us. On the other, all the information that we gather ourselves. Neither are sufficient enough for us to live fully-realized lives, but we need to be able to discern all the information that is thrown at us.

Overall, be careful where you get your information. Some sources may have an agenda, and some (like ourselves) may just be blissfully ignorant.

Tags: agenda setting, communication theory, information, response