The World, The Self, and The Mindset
Disaster is naturally compelling to humanity. Think about how many people slow down to view a car crash or rush over to the sound of sirens to investigate the situation. The media recognizes the human allurement to catastrophe and therefore constantly fills the mass media with stories of disaster for higher ratings and more viewers.
As I was reading a few blogs, I realized interesting commonality between the thought processes of some bloggers, a realization that the media typically portrays negativity as a way to grab peoples’ focus. Through the three blogs I analysed, I was able to produce an idea of the evolving worldview centralized in the changing negative perceptions of: the world, the self, and the mindset of the individual.
The first blogger, http://bb11tl.wordpress.com/ states that when growing up, he was attracted to fictional shows portraying heroes and people saving the world. As a result, he professes that this influenced his decision to want to become a police officer. Mr. Barron states, “Then as I got older, what I watched changed and what I saw on the television was not news of heroic deeds, but news of tragedy. My young and naive sense of justice was abruptly impacted by the media.” He goes on to say how overexposure to television as a child was a major influence in his decisions at the time.
By combining an overexposure to the media with the negativity they put out, there is a juxtaposition between the naiveté of a child and his desire to seek justice and his tainted view of society through constant exposure to tragedy in media. As a result, we see an evolved worldview for the blogger. Initially, the child is optimistic in seeking justice for humanity but the latter shows an obstructed view of justice and demise of faith in humanity.
In another blog, Mrs. Field focuses on how the media brings about a negative impact on her worldview and sense of self: “I still get down from time to time knowing that I’m too tall to be a runway model, too thick to wear the cute dress that Zooey Deschannel wore on the cover of Cosmo… and that my skin is too pallid to even bother trying to put cover-up on every day.” http://veronicatmeow.blogspot.ca/2013/09/1f25-post-1-media-impact.html#comment-form
I find it interesting how she continues to use the word “too.” This assumes that the media sets boundaries and limits to the ideal vision of beauty and a certain individual must be in-between said boundaries to be an embodiment of beauty. The negativity in this sense comes from those who do not abide by the guidelines posed by the media as they begin to view themselves in a negative light.
In terms of the final blog, I find the author focuses on the mindset of the individual and their sense of individuality. The blogger states, “We sometimes become so attached to media’s standard of living, it influences individuals negatively… media has subliminally overridden the value of “thinking for ourselves” … Society has adapted to the world of materialism and consumerism.” http://divyaasharma.wordpress.com/
The author states that the individuality of the person is rejected because the media puts out positive and negative reinforcements of how we should interact with our world. Ironically, what we see as positive in the media is, in reality, negative, as seems to be suggested by the blogger, such things as consumerism leading to a materialistic worldview. Humanity begins to lose sense of their individuality and values as their mindset switches into a more capitalist perspective.
The bloggers suggest that the media is very significant in the evolution of society’s worldview and more so in a negative manner. Through my investigations of these three blogs, I have realized that the media is negatively affecting worldviews in three distinct ways, through perceptions of the world, the self, and the individual’s mindset.
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