Paranormal Beliefs And The Media

As long as one can remember, paranormal beliefs have always existed in human society. They are living in every man’s childhood and in every corner of human’s life. From the burning belief about Santa Claus’s gifts under a Christmas’s tree in the morning to a scary game about Bloody Mary and her coming back from the dead, it seems that people cannot help but draw themselves to these stories. Even when these beliefs fade, there would be a new one that eventually shows up. No matter how much science has progressed, the belief in paranormal phenomena still remains in society. Eventually, the question about paranormal phenomena seems pale in comparison to the human’s undying belief about such things. It is really hard to pinpoint an exact cause

There is no doubt that media is the most influential social institution in the society. Therefore, human’s belief and behavior can be generated and influences greatly by the media. According to a study about the relationship between televised messages and paranormal beliefs, media is responsible for “encouraging people toward uncritical acceptance of paranormal claims,” and “unduly influence people” on their belief “by giving excessive attention to reports of paranormal activity, and by encouraging uncritical acceptance of the veracity of these reports” (Sparks). The media has shown its role in people’s paranormal belief as an influential factor and an encouragement for such belief. In fact, the media influences the public so well that people uses “stories in the media as the reason for their beliefs” thus in the case of paranormal belief about horoscope “at least fifty newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times and The Indianapolis Star publish disclaimers next to the daily horoscope column” just to clarify “the accuracy of the astrological predictions” to the people (Sparks). This information highly emphasizes people’s dependence on the media, and also the media’s essential contribution to paranormal belief. Additionally, the study also shows the influences of television on people as the rate of television viewing is ‘positively correlate

A paranormal phenomenon explains the mysterious things that happen in life. This would include: monsters, like Big Foot, UFO, ghosts, psychic powers, and the belief in God and devil. Given that there are a lot of different types of paranormal, one may find that a belief in a certain kind of paranormal phenomenon often varies based on the biological distinctions of human. Gender is one of the examples as research has shown that while women are “more likely than men to believe in the devil, heaven and hell, and creationism,” men are attracted to the idea of UFO. Additionally, women will most likely believe in “the paranormal and supernatural aspects of life” as well as believe in “religious and spiritual aspects of life” (Williams 13). This illustrates how gender can influences paranormal’s belief and encourage certain kind of believes. Moreover, one can also consider other biological approaches include age group, and ethnicity. According to scholar Annodah Saide, people’s belief in the paranormal can be determined through their ethnicity and age as differences in these things can lead to different perspectives of paranormal belief. For example, looking at the demographic traits, it shows that, in age group, young people often believe in ghosts while old people often believe in telepathy (Saide). Research has also shown that African American often “more