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Media, Culture, Limited Sample, Limited Mind, and the Human Experience
I just wrote this as a recent culmination of my thoughts as of late, partially in response to some things I've read as well. This was for my English midterm this week, I'm not going to debate any points, just thought I'd share it..
Media, Culture, Limited Sample, Limited Mind, and the Human Experience
The literal translation of the word philosophy is: the love of knowledge. The love of knowledge is something that seems to be missing from our modern culture. The desire to know all, to understand all, to understand ourselves and others, is truly the love of knowledge. But instead of pursuing deep knowledge, we find many of our core conceptions of the world today are not derived from experience or the pursuit of knowing. Instead of drawing on real life experiences many of our ideas are formed by what is told to us by the mass media. One way to understand how the love of knowledge is suppressed is to think of the phrase "Limited Sample, Limited Mind." When our experience of the world is limited and we rely on others to explain the world to us we find our knowledge is also limited. When we draw conclusions regarding important issues without really sampling what the world has to offer we are left with a "limited" understanding of the world around us. This is destructive to our world. Limited sampling of the real world, cause us to stereotype people because we are not in real relationships with them. It causes our behavioral expectations to be constructed by others. When we know ourselves and others primarily through what others tell us, we are left with knowledge of race, class, culture and religion that is characterized by segregation and isolation. One possible remedy to seeing the world in such a limited way is a reformed system of education that fosters authentic human experiences.
Television is one tool of the media that has a profoundly limiting impact on how we know the world. It is said, art attempts to mirror life. Television is a form of art that has tremendous power, but instead of mirroring life it defines it. Television's vivid portraits of relationships and family life, for example, set a norm for how people are to behave. Television broadcasts what are considered acceptable and not acceptable interpersonal behaviors. It puts forth a norm of how people of different races and classes should exhibit emotion, dress, or be in relationship. Even the most subtle and personal of behaviors like sexuality are all modeled on television. Television is a medium by which almost all are capable of being reached across not only the country but across continents. A global television culture is emerging that sanctions certain behaviors. Instead of learning how to be in relationships from actually being in relationships, people today may be learning the ways of relationships from television. The countless hours people spend watching television, limits the real life sample that people are exposed to. As a result their minds are limited. Human experience is narrowed by what is depicted on television. As life mirrors art, television has a tremendous influence on human behavior, for the better and in many cases, for the worse.
When people are exposed to a limited sampling of real life and real relationships they can be subject to accepting stereotypes depicted in the media. Television and other forms of media by their very nature are only able to portray people and relationships in generalized ways. They can only telecast a very small piece of real life experience and data. Racial stereotypes, class stereotypes, and religious stereotypes are generated in the mass media because sound bites convey ideas quickly, but they don't reveal the complexity of real life. For example, when a person who has never come in contact with an African American person depends on television or movies to define African Americans they have only shallow perceptions. When the only understanding or image they have of an African American is from the media, they learn from seeing a characterization and not by experiencing a whole person. A prevalent theme across media for African Americans is that of a life of poverty, crime, and violence. Having never experienced interacting with an African American person, this becomes the expectation of this person for all African Americans. Such limited knowledge limits both the perception of others and in many cases the perception of oneself.
Media, although not malevolent in its nature is an extremely powerful tool in conveying ideas to the masses. If the general population of a culture believe that a certain people should act a certain way, people who are expected to behave or meet certain criteria to define themselves, generally do. A child who is raised in poverty who is told by everyone that they are confined to a life of crime and violence becomes a self fulfilling prophecy as one's fate is already determined at birth by the world around them. With no experience and no other knowledge other than what they are told, they become trapped and powerless in their own experience. The media has such tremendous influence in creating personal expectation, that people get caught up in fulfilling what is expected of them causing their desire to grow, to understand, to learn, and to know, to get pushed aside.
Just condemning the media for its limiting impact on people will not move us forward. After identifying the problem it is important to think of a solution. One possible solution is education. A kind of education that is not just for making people learn skills to earn money, but a kind of education that deepens the human experience can counteract the limiting affects of the media. A reformed educational system that has as its goal to deepen a love of knowledge, to expose people to real life experiences and to learn the authentic stories of others can be an anecdote to the small mindedness that comes from media's influence. The roll of education should not only to be to provide us with the necessary tools to function within jobs years later, but to imbue us with intrinsic motivation to better ourselves, the world around us, and to know through experience. Schools should be idea environments where students are surrounded and immersed in different cultures, to learn through being and experiencing. Education can has as its purpose to foster growth in all aspects of humanity. Education can help individuals to define one's self through experience.
When people are exposed to limited samples of real life then they are left with limited perceptions of the real world. Such limited perceptions foster stereotypes of race, class and religion. When people rely on the media to dictate norms and behavior the human experience is diminished. The strong influence of the media is fostering a destructive culture and is suppressing the natural urge to pursue a love of knowledge and engage in the complexity of the human experience. In order not to succumb to this power, one remedy should be considered. The remedy would be a new educational system that doesn't focus on skills that enable someone to make a living, but fosters a love of learning. A new educational system could nurture the human spirit and the human experience. When people are engaged in a learning deeply about themselves and others then we can have a world of widespread understanding in place of limited minds.
Last edited by Sambo234 : 01-22-2008 at 05:30 PM.
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