Correct me if I'm wrong, but my take on the reading this week is that the power of suggestion is very strong in media. Because of this people in reality may believe a suggestion or partial of a person or company. This lead me to two thoughts.
One is that as a was reading this I kept thinking of the Matrix movies. One guy has to learn that reality was not reality at all and that he could bend the truths if he believed in it. Though this is probably not the greatest example the movie suggest that perception can be changed by see and believing. Since this is a movie and we know that it is not reality we are aware that we can't stop object and slow down time, but as we read in the article it is because we are exposed to it. Children may watch these movies and believe that they can fly or run up walls, when in reality they can't. Movies are just one example of media that leaves the viewer with the belief of an alternate reality. Another example is commercials. I get a big laugh still when I see a Burger King commercial and the burger is so thick and put together well, when in reality to order one of these burgers only to get this squished thing that is falling apart. Another one is commercial about cleaners. You see that it works so well on television only to get it home and find out it doesn't work as well as lead to believe.
My second thought that because we know this and have lived with it we should be able to separate truth from "suggestion," but we still fall into the media trap. My thought then is our belief of suggestions an optimistic hope that life is easy and happy go lucky and everything is good or is it like the reading implies, where our brain's are to far behind media. Either way media will be present always so we need to learn to work with media and use it to help our understanding or the "real" world.
This needs to be kept in mind for me as I explore software to use in my fifth grade class. I will need to examine the software and make sure that it encourages the children and keeps them happy, which means the software I find and use must have different levels of difficulty to make sure that the user doesn't get frustrated and not want to use it. Also I need to make sure that the pictures and images represent the real world and not fictitious one.
Reference
Reeves, Byron, and Clifford Nass. 1996. “Ch 1, The Media Equation,” pp. 3-18 in The Media Equation. Cambridge University Press.
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1 comment:
The Matrix is actually a great example for the media equation.
Taken to an extreme, if you put people within a completely mediated reality like the Matrix, they will interact with it exactly as they would interact with the real world.
That is, UNLESS they conciously choose to see past the mediated reality.
If you're watching a Zombie flick, your heart will race and you will jump when frightenned, unless you conciously override that part of your brain that is fooled by the flickering lights :)
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