Does The Media Merely Reflect Society Or Is It Instrumental In Constructing It? (Mrs Whittaker)

Media is all around us 24/7 and is a key factor in every body's life and personality. There is no hiding from media, it forcefully embraces us into it's world. The media presents our world (the real world) in an over the top, ellaborative way which injects itself into our minds; causing an influential effect on many media consumers.

As you may already know, everyone enjoys watching TV, but you have to consider, do shows like "Eastenders" and "Big Brother" just merely reflect today's society or are they creating a strong influence on the consumers? Personally, i think that soap operas like "Eastenders" blow everything out of proportion, creating illusions of the real world. In addition, reality shows like "Big Brother" try their hardest to show us an authentic re-creation of the real world.

Eastenders attracts millions upon millions of viewers, simply because it has influenced viewers into believing in their world - that it exists. In Eastenders every Easter, Christmas and new year's, there is a "powerful climax" where a character dies or leaves, and yet "hypnotised" viewers are still drawn to it even though they have seen the exact same storyline unfold every year. This is because Eastenders has created an illusion that has warped the viewers minds. "It takes a rather special sort of person to follow soaps. You have to be highly intelligent to understand them and as thick as a brick to want to." - Alan Coren (Author and a regular panellist on the BBC radio quiz). He is basically saying that although people who watch soaps are intelligent, he is expressing that they must be foolish to accept the illusionary images that soaps perceive of today's society.


Worldwide reality show "Big Brother" is another show that draws in plenty of viewers (although viewers have decreased massively over the years of Big Brother's existence). Big Brother (founded in 2000) has attracted viewers simply because we are a society of nosiness, and we love nothing more than to spy on people and their lives. Big Brother is a house containing a maximum of roughly 16 people competing to win the cash prize for staying the longest in the house. As the contestants are meant to be "real" people, an illusion of us (the viewers) as being "god" is created. "I would rather skewer my own eyeballs out of their sockets with a blunt bodkin than I would watch them." is Stephen Fry's Opinion of reality TV, showing that he is not fooled by the illusion that reality TV creates. Reality TV tries to portray "real life" as clear as possible, attracting consumers who are "under control" by the shows illusion, thus making the viewers want to be like another person they have seen on TV.

In Conclusion, I think that yes, the media is instrumental in constructing todays society as we all base our lives and antics, around things shown to us on TV. Without the media, there would be no structure in everyone's lives and in consequence, the society would be unstructured.