How much do online media affect our thoughts?
Sunday, October 4, 2009 by Wu Hao
For many of us, now online media, such as internet, probably are the major way of accessing news and viewpoint on news. It is a fact that online news provides more various perspectives than traditional media, since they were less controlled. It is natural that many people feel that they think these online media are more authentic, and their points of view were more affected by this online media rather than traditional media. However, considering the ways that news affected people are not only consciously but also unconsciously, I would like to question this conclusion and argue that we trust the traditional media and affected by them more that we think we are, whereas what the online media provide us is satisfaction of being agreed rather than influence.
Actually I have mentioned similar idea before in the tutorial; back then I have listed the news of Michael Jackson’s death for example: when I first saw this news online I doubted the truth of this news, and it is the fact that I saw it again on TV stopped my suspicion. Professor Goode responded me that this is a gossip and it does not affect my opinion. Maybe it is the example I chose was inappropriate, but after the tutorial I have thought it twice and wanted to make a further argument.
First of all, the major traditional media could affected us even when we do not agree their viewpoints, due to we unconsciously have the limited trust towards them. What I mean the “limited trust” is the fact that when the traditional media report an event, even their point of view seems ridiculous, we would believe such event or at least something similar has happened and we will started to create our own opinion on this event. For instance, if the major media reported “there is a crime in city A and the suspect is Arabian male, he could be a terrorist “, we might think the terrorist idea is completely bias, but after similar news appeared several times in a very short time, even we still think the terrorist idea is wrong, we may unconsciously gain negative feeling towards Arabian or at least think city A is a dangerous place. Yet, for online media, this “limited trust” is much less powerful. Due to the fact that we actually know information online is less controlled, when we found some unbelievable report online, we suspect it or sometimes simply do not believe them at all.
Furthermore, online news, such as google news, provides the choice of selecting news. This means when accessing the online news, people are more likely only look the report that agree with them and please them but ignore those ones which provides alternative ideas. In this case, the online media did not affected people’s ideas;they do not put new thoughts in people mind or inspire them. They simply offered people the satisfaction of being told “Yes, you are right”.
Actually I have mentioned similar idea before in the tutorial; back then I have listed the news of Michael Jackson’s death for example: when I first saw this news online I doubted the truth of this news, and it is the fact that I saw it again on TV stopped my suspicion. Professor Goode responded me that this is a gossip and it does not affect my opinion. Maybe it is the example I chose was inappropriate, but after the tutorial I have thought it twice and wanted to make a further argument.
First of all, the major traditional media could affected us even when we do not agree their viewpoints, due to we unconsciously have the limited trust towards them. What I mean the “limited trust” is the fact that when the traditional media report an event, even their point of view seems ridiculous, we would believe such event or at least something similar has happened and we will started to create our own opinion on this event. For instance, if the major media reported “there is a crime in city A and the suspect is Arabian male, he could be a terrorist “, we might think the terrorist idea is completely bias, but after similar news appeared several times in a very short time, even we still think the terrorist idea is wrong, we may unconsciously gain negative feeling towards Arabian or at least think city A is a dangerous place. Yet, for online media, this “limited trust” is much less powerful. Due to the fact that we actually know information online is less controlled, when we found some unbelievable report online, we suspect it or sometimes simply do not believe them at all.
Furthermore, online news, such as google news, provides the choice of selecting news. This means when accessing the online news, people are more likely only look the report that agree with them and please them but ignore those ones which provides alternative ideas. In this case, the online media did not affected people’s ideas;they do not put new thoughts in people mind or inspire them. They simply offered people the satisfaction of being told “Yes, you are right”.