Manipulated Media (Blog 1) By Troy R

Manipulated Media

"All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values" - Marshall McLuhan. 

Today in our society, many media organizations change the "truth" of a story to persuade the viewers standing on topics. This quote by Marshall McLuhan states that media interprets the stories and retells them but with a twist that is not always  one hundred percent true somewhat relating to propaganda since they tell the audience to give them a specific view on a topic. 

Media Changes The Story...

Media has affected many people views on topics in the past and in modern day society, some examples of this are the presidential debate where the media is siding with a specific candidate (Hillary Clinton) and persuading the audience (specifically Americans) her greatness. Another example of this propaganda is the situation in Africa. They manipulate the audience and try to show that the African people need our help which is good however they produced a stereotype that all Africans are living this way so people in rich countries feel guilty. The last point I will make is that media determines what to put in and what to leave out, it is common in everyday life to read some bended information produced by the media. As a student school is a prime example of this, they give us textbooks with information that the government put in to give us an opinion. Odds are they left a bunch of information out because they did not want us to step out of line with another opinion that they did not support.

Why The Media Persuades Us...

The media persuades us to get what they want. Whether it be a specific president, money or anything else they add their own personal twist so we envy the thing they're trying to promote. Most of the time they are greedy and do not do it for the people, but for the individuals at the top which brings me to my next point, our media now-a-days is controlled by a small percent of people. These people are rich for a reason and they often share the same opinion since they are living the same lifestyles. They persuade us (the people) to benefit them even more because at the end of the day if they can make a quick buck adding to their millions, they're going to do it.

How Media Persuades Us...

Media spreads the artificial perceptions by using many different methods. Depending on what audience they want to affect, they use different methods such as now-a-days they spread propaganda to children with anything that will keep their focus and interest such as television or some books. As for adults of this era, they are easily persuaded by the news whether it be written or on television. Furthermore adults get most of their opinion from these sources and half of the time the media changes the stories or over-exaggerates them. A personal experience of them using this is in the Trump versus Hillary debates they produced a list of how many times the candidates lied, they showed that Hillary beat Trump in a landslide and now my mother keeps saying that Hillary is the better candidate because of this point that has been repeated numerous times to brainwash the people that Hillary will be a better president. They do not talk as much about some of the beneficial points both candidates made but instead about who lied more.

Media Is Manipulated

No matter what we do, media will always be there and be spreading their artificial perceptions and arbitrary values on topics to all of the people around the world.  Marshall McLuhan exposes the media with his quote about how media can and will twist the stories to get what they want.