After analyzing the class readings and watching "The Truman Show" I think social media can be very influential. For example, everybody that was watching the show had an idea that Truman was living the perfect life: the American dream, office job, big house with white fence, your typical cliché. People were glued to their televisions watching as much of the show as they could, they were attracted to everything that the show was advertising. The way show was portraying Truman's life made people want that type of life and the show became part of their lives. Although the people felt like being part of the show because it was presented as if it was real, in reality it was only a script and Truman was only a puppet subject and his world was a lie.
In the article "I know the truth" by Jeffrey Kluger, author talks about how the media can influence peoples' opinion and alter perceptions. One of the examples was media informing the public that Muslims were planning to build a Mosque right next to the fallen towers of 9/11. But as the article reveals, this was not the correct information. Going deeper into the story and gathering more facts truth is that what they were trying to build was a Muslim center for the people with offices, gym and after school programs. The media portrays Muslims like as if they were all terrorist when it is only certain individuals that feel hatred towards America. But because of the information that media relates to people is how the public thinks. Not always information released is correct, but there are few people who bother to check the facts.
Media is unavoidable, it is everywhere: TV, internet, buses, trains, billboards and even our smart phones. At times the media fools us into believing that we need things and valuing things that are not really important in our lives. For example if you do not have the latest phone people would look at you as if there was something wrong with you, when in reality just ask yourself do you really need a smart phone with the internet. The media changes our perception on how we look at things. A lot of things that we decide to purchase are not necessary things that we need but things that we were convinced we need.
A lot of people I know view Muslims very differently after 9/11.
In the airports when people see a Middle Eastern person they get automatically more alerted, even I was caught up in the media frenzy at the beginning because of the media portrayal of them after the 9/11.
In the end it is media that makes people behave and think the way they do. Not a lot of people are willing or able to research the facts for themselves and decide what is the truth. Sometimes we are too lazy to look for the truth, or we simply do not want to know the truth because we know it might be inconvenient. So we just take the easy path and believe whatever we are told to believe.
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