How media shapes You!

What was that one book or movie that inspired you to become an astronaut, made you want to fall for someone or filled you with the excitement of wanting to become a superhero - slinging webs or launching yourself into the sky with those ion thrusters (repulsor as Tony likes to call it)?

Media by definition is the channel by which information is conveyed. Any piece of paper inked with someone’s thoughts or ideas, any well crafted theatrical play, a song describing some event, books, movies, TV shows, video games all comprise what’s know as media. And believe it or not, it influences you in more ways than you’d like to admit.

The evolution of media has been a fascinating journey, transforming the way humans communicate, over the ages. Initially, communication was limited to one-on-one interactions, relying on face-to-face conversations and handwritten messages. The development of the printing press, invented by Gutenberg in the 15th century, revolutionized the way people communicate, as it enabled production of printed materials. Ideas could now reach a far wider audience. This development gave rise to books, newspapers and other printed media, broadening the reach of information. With the advent of the digital age, humanity has undergone yet another transformative shift in communication. Digital devices, including computers and smartphones, have become widespread tools for communication and media consumption. Photo boards and microblogging websites have emerged as popular platforms, allowing individuals to share images, thoughts, and updates with a global audience instantly. Netflix communicates more ideas to more people in a single day than Shakespeare did in their entire lifetime (of course, his work has been passed on for generations even after his death; not accounting for that).

If you look at various kinds of media that you consume, you’d notice that there are some forms that require your active attention to get meaning out of the piece and some that do not. Here, we would refer to this distinction as the medium being either active or passive. At first glance, it would seem that any media that does not require our active attention can be categorized as passive media such as watching a movie, reading an essay or scrolling through TikTok; and any media that demands our cognitive or motor attention should be classified under active media such as playing a video game or construing a poem. However, it is more nuanced than just that. Someone who is not in a habit of reading, even if they have received formal studies in the language of the book that they are trying to read, has to make active efforts to comprehend what the author is trying to convey. It must have been difficult to watch a movie in a foreign language with subtitles on for the first time. However, with time, you have adapted to consuming that kind of media, making it almost a passive task to make meaning out of it. But how does this affect you? This phenomenon does not merely apply to the channel of communication but to the ideas being shared as well. If one keeps consuming a certain kind of media that conveys a certain idea, the media consumption gradually becomes passive activity, and the information it presents shapes the individual’s ideology. The more your feed is filled with cat videos, the more probable it is that you will choose a cat over a dog as a pet. The greater the presence of videos on your YouTube homepage with political propaganda from a certain wing, the higher the chances are that you will support that side. The higher the number of disheartening songs in your Spotify playlist, the less likely you are to move on from your severed relationships. Opinions about politics, policies, relations, religion are all propagated via media. When you consume the same idea again and again, it sets expectations and norms that you’re highly likely to inherit.

Ideas and their propagation guide our lives. They create the belief systems that control our individual and societal actions. We depend on media sources for information and entertainment. The information we receive from these channels, knowingly or unknowingly, constructs our worldview. Media consumption competes with other sources of human interactions —such as family, friends, and school — not just in terms of time spent engaged with, but also in helping us develop values and form ideas about the world around us.

Media has facilitated widespread dissemination of ideas. Today, people are not limited by ideas that are bestowed to them by their immediate environment. They are not limited to their niche for information. By providing information from all sorts of avenue to individuals, media has helped people break status quo. Ideas that have been in place in a society unquestioned for ages, now witness challenges from the younger generation, who are influenced by the media they consume.

It may also influence viewers’ attitudes and beliefs about themselves; it may lead them to have introspective thoughts about their own beliefs, which might differ from what is being presented in the media. A number of us are ready to distinguish what’s being predisposed to us from what we believe in. Many folks simply obey, unaware that a lot of our opinions are a result of influence from the media we consume and not our own.

Watching Galli Galli Sim Sim (or Sesame Street) is an example of how kids can learn lessons about racial harmony, cooperation, kindness, simple arithmetic and the alphabet through media. Some public television programs also stimulate visits to the zoo, libraries, bookstores, museums and other active recreational settings, and educational videos can certainly serve as powerful learning tool. Whereas watching Family Guy could possibly imbue racist and sexist ideologies. Although the show is a satire, an unaware audience might inherit such ideals. Some parents discourage their children from watching Doraemon due to concerns that Nobita’s life, characterized by excessive convenience, might convey unrealistic expectations. However, the reception of ideas and information from media or any other source is not unanimous, and the extent to which one is influenced is ultimately a choice individuals make for themselves, as advocated by Adlerian Psychology. No kid would love to face troubles as Nobita did.

Media consumption also takes time away from physical activities. Individuals who are confined to a room playing video games for hours on end, are less physically active and more likely to eat high fat and high energy snack foods. Consequently, such a lifestyle may contribute to health issues in these individuals.

On 15 April 2013, as hundreds of runners crossed the finish line at the annual Boston Marathon, two bombs exploded, ten seconds apart. Three people were killed that day, including an eight-year-old boy; hundreds were injured; sixteen lost limbs. As the world mourned the tragedy, news organizations broadcasted graphic coverage for months. Footage of the moment of detonation, and the ensuing confusion and smoke, were broadcast repeatedly. Newspapers were filled with haunting images: blood-spattered streets, grieving spectators and visibly shaken victims whose clothing had been torn from their bodies. 

As it happened, a group of researchers found themselves with the data on mental wellbeing of nearly 5,000 people, collected just before the tragedy took place. Some of those participants were ones who experienced the bombings first-hand. So, they decided to conduct a study on how the incident had affected the participants’ mental health.

Who do you think were affected the most?

Well, the study confirmed the obvious; the participants who witnessed the incident first hand were seen to have a significant effect to their mental health. But here’s the catch. Another group had been even more badly shaken: those who had not seen the explosion in person, but had consumed six or more hours of news coverage per day in the week afterwards.
Oddly, knowing someone who had been injured or died, or having been in the vicinity when the bombs went off did not result in as high levels of stress as consuming graphic footage on television, for weeks.

This highlights how media has greater impact on our health, behaviour and being than we like to acknowledge.

Media has the power to propagate ideas. This ability naturally makes it the medium by which people convey their thoughts and sentiments. However, media does not merely reflect societal attitudes, it helps shape them too. Media, in its various forms, can inadvertently disseminate societal norms, expectations and ideas, influencing views and biases. The diverse landscape of media creation reflects the vivid perspectives that exist in the society. People from various social, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds contribute to this collage of expression, creating a diverse array of narratives.

People leverage media platforms not only to express their viewpoints but also to wield influence over the masses, manipulating perceptions and win agreement. News sources, at times, convey misinformation, engage in manipulative practices and propagate ideas with their own biases.

Media also acts as a tool of radicalization. Radicalization is the process by which an individual or a group comes to adopt increasingly radical views in to favor a political, social, or religious idea. But where do these ideas come from and how do they spread? Media sources empower actors who wish to propagate their ideas and influence masses to agree with them. Thus, shaping such radical views in society.

In social media, algorithms guide what lands on an individual’s homepage. Your activity, search history, preferences, all shape your recommendations. However, it is not a simple case of you choosing what you consume. As an example, let us consider a scenario where you have no information about the riots at Gaza. You interact with one post mentioning anti-Palestine ideologies to get to know the side. It is likely that the algorithm recommends you more of the same; resulting in, you supporting the side without ever looking at anti-Palestine ideologies in a fair light.

This effect also highlights what are known as echo-chambers, environments where a person only encounters information or opinions that reflect and reinforce their own. If you’d like to be convinced of a thing, Google, YouTube, Twitter and a multitude of media sources will happily find you convincing evidence.

Limbic capitalism, coined by David Courtwright describes business systems that target the consumers’ limbic desires. “Limbic desires” refer to the emotional and instinctual cravings or urges that arise from the limbic system, the part of brain associated with emotions, motivation, and behavior. In layman terms, these desires are the ones that we inherit from our animal ancestry. These desires often pertain to basic needs such as social connection, security, pleasure, and emotional well-being.
Corporations and media creators today, utilize media channels to target your basal desires. Appetizing food videos, get rich quick schemes, videos that sell you shortcuts to your dreams, image boards with thirst traps, even when poorly crafted get more attention than mediums that do not attempt to stimulate your limbic system. And since, consuming such media comes with low cognitive load, paired with the fact that everyday human decisions are more emotional than rational, we tend to consume more than we are content with. Such media is directly or indirectly used to profit out of.

Media also serves as an escape for the individuals who feel dissatisfied with reality when they are hurt or threatened. To meet their psychological needs and to compensate for their face-to-face interactions individuals choose to consume media.
Recent developments in media include the emergence of short-form video content. Studies have shown that such content might be responsible for lowering your attention span. Paired with the tactics of targeting limbic desires, these elicit unwanted emotional responses and a more frequent shift in attentional focus, which if left unattended, in the long term may lead to various mental health problems. With conscience of controlling your attention you may try to limit your media consumption habits. However, resisting the temptation and completely cutting off media consumption may cause will power fatigue, leaving you with less energy to perform the tasks that you find worth carrying out.

“History is written by those who win”

This saying aptly encapsulates the contrasts and complexities in historical narratives. The striking divergence in the accounts of the 1965 Kargil War in India and Pakistan exemplify the above saying. In India, the war is often portrayed as a an act of defense against Pakistani aggression, emphasizing the heroic efforts and sacrifices of the Indian armed forces in reclaiming the strategic peaks of Kargil. On the contrary, Pakistani narratives, as described in their textbooks, tend to depict a different perspective. According to these accounts, the Pakistan Army is credited with conquering several areas of India during the conflict, painting a picture of successful military operations. This stark disparity in narratives reveal the biases in portrayal of events, in the media.

Who knows, had Hitler emerged victorious in the war, he’d have been our hero.

Civics and political studies taught us many progressive (as it is termed to refer to the left wing) ideas. However, in your neighborhood or even at your own home, you may still observe an adherence to traditional norms.

Recently, I visited a friend’s place for couple of days. They are three siblings, two brothers and a sister (let’s call her Ann). My friend is the eldest (son) of them. I observed that only Ann was handling the household chores, and there were no expectations for the boys to partake in those tasks. She was even fetching them water, when they were thirsty. Even so, there was no hesitancy visible on her face; honestly, she looked quite happy to help cook and serve food. And it is certainly not the case that she skipped her civics lesson on equality. One must ask how was Ann content doing the tasks that were assigned to her as part of gender role. Why did she not ask for equal opportunities? (The following reasoning is only a premise. Anyone is welcome to critique the same. Fuck it. It’s my essay.) Our parents did not inherit the same values on gender equality as we did. And Ann chose to inherit her values from her parents rather than the ideas from a book. Resulting in the harmonious behaviour she presents.

Media is a tool that facilitates propagation of ideas. It is our agendas, biases and pure chance sometimes, that determine what ideas we accept, communicate or hinder. On one hand, it provides a platform for individuals to express and share innovative thoughts. On the other hand, media can serve as a barrier to the acceptance of new ideas and limit the embrace of unconventional perspectives.
(The argumentation here only revolves around propagation of ideas and NOT what ideas are objectively right.)

With the ongoing discussion on how media conditions us, I would like to share a personal account of how a particular piece of media had a huge impact on my thoughts and being. This serves as the original inspiration for this essay.

A couple years ago, I realized the cause of a peculiar trait of mine. I like to view situations from many different perspectives. But why? Why not just accept the information that is being predisposed to me?

The following is the most probable cause.

I must have been in my grade 5th when I watched the movie titled ‘World War Z’. In a world freshly ridden by zombies, Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) is a veteran United Nations investigator who attempts to investigate the cause of this zombie outbreak.

In the described scene, Gerry is brought to a secure location in Jerusalem after narrowly escaping a zombie attack. He is aware of Israel’s strategy for dealing with the crisis, which includes construction of a massive wall to protect Jerusalem and the implementation of a policy to isolate and quarantine any potential outbreaks. He visits Jurgen Warmbrunn, a high-ranking Israeli official, in hope to find answers.

Here’s how their exchange goes,

Gerry asks Jurgen how was Israel prepared for the outbreak. Jurgen mentions that Israel had received a communication from India mentioning that they are battling against “rakshas”, which in this context meant zombies.

Gerry: “Jurgen Warmbrunn, a high-ranking official in the Mossad. Described as sober, effective and not terribly imaginative, and yet you build a wall because you read a communique that mentions the word “zombie”?”

Jurgen: “In the 30s, Jews refused to believe they could be sent to concentration camps.”

Jurgen: “In ‘72 we refused to fathom we’d be massacred in the Olympics.”

Jurgen: “In the month before 1973 we saw Arab troop movements, and we unanimously agreed they didn’t pose a threat. Well, a month later, the Arab attack almost drove us into the sea. So, we decided, to make a change.”

Gerry: “Change?”

Jurgen: ”The 10th man.”

Jurgen: “If 9 of us look at the same information and arrive at the exact, same conclusion, it’s the duty of the 10th man to disagree. No matter how improbable it may seem, the 10th man has to start thinking with the assumption that the other 9 are wrong.”

Gerry: “And you were that 10th man?”

Jurgen: “Precisely.”

The concept of the 10th man truly fascinated me. I enjoyed discovering reasons behind situations. The idea of looking at them with a perspective different from the rest, only fueled this curiosity. This encouraged me to approach information critically, analyzing it from multiple perspectives rather than accepting it without scrutiny. This reflection taught me to refrain from forming opinions solely based on second-hand information. However, accepting this idea wasn’t without its drawbacks. It brought not only the desired characteristics. Little did I know, with time, the curiosity would inadvertently fall into the realm of skepticism, where it was impossible for me to accept any idea as truth. This also greatly impeded my decision making ability. When faced with a choice, in search of reason, all the options, however conflicting amongst each other, seemed the right choice.

It is somewhat incredulous to realize that a single idea from a movie, I had watched as a teenager, had such a profound influence on my behaviour, thoughts and being, later in life.

Fun fact: This was actually the first movie I ever watched in a foreign language. (I am not an English native)

What piece of media affected your life in ways you couldn’t have imagined?

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