Media Content and Realities of the Social World

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Media Content and Realities of the Social World

Media images never simply present the world direct, they are always a

construction, a re-presentation, not a transparent window on to the

real. The media give us ways of imagining particular identities and

groups which can have material effects on how people experience. This

is partly because the mass media have the power to re-present, over

and over, some identities, some imaginings, and to exclude others, and

thereby make them unfamiliar or even threatening. Besides, the Media

use bias and stereotypes to represent the world which are not always

true or “real”.

Should media content attempt to reflect the realities of the social

world?

Seemingly media should reflect the society. However, this premise is

not agreed upon. For many people, media are an escape from the

realities of daily life. Therefore, how “real” media products are is

irrelevant to many people. Nevertheless, it is not necessary to

believe that the media should accurately reflect society in order to

compare media representations with the social world. Gaps between

media content and social reality raise interesting questions that

warrant our attention.

What are the problems in comparing media representation to the

external world?

Representations – even those that attempt to reproduce reality such as

the documentary film- are the result of processes of selection that

invariably mean that certain aspects of reality are highlighted and

others neglected. Even though we often use the “realness” of the

images as a basis for evaluating whether we like or dislike particular

representations, all representations “re-present” the social world in

ways that are both incomplete and narrow.

If we had only news programs and documentary films to represent

happenings in the social world as fairly and accurately as possible,

the genre would cease to exist. Science fiction film is likely to

diverge significantly from contemporary social life. Fantasy products

such as science fiction films hold the potential for teaching us

something about our society.

Actually, no representation of reality can ever be totally “true” or

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