Discuss Reactive Measures of Media (Class Activity)

The media has had a strong hold on us not only as consumers but also as individuals for a long time. Since becoming one of the dominant forces in our culture it has been an influential force in conditioning our actions, beliefs, and values. It is important to understand how our role as consumers of the mass media is shaped and the effects that it has on the way we react to events and society as a whole. It is better for a person to understand the effects process of the media and how that causes them to react in their everyday lives to the situations they face, the people they encounter, and the decisions they make so that they become less affected by the false reality portrayed by advertisers. What that means is that it is better for us to be proactive about the media and understand that there are a number of factors contributing to the effects process than to solely be reactive and accept what happens in simple terms (eg. good vs. bad, light vs. dark, right vs. wrong). Both what we see and experience should factor into how we react to the media and the rest of society.

When a person engages in the reactive measure of the media, he/she is simply reacting to the immediate exposure to an image or sound without putting together all of the pieces of the puzzle. Effects are not the results of single occurrences or events. In fact, there are many contributing factors that contribute to the formation of a greater effect that needs to be processed by people on a greater scale. For example, in chapter 6 "Proactive Perspective on Media Effects" by Potter the game of Russian Roulette is used to explain how numerous factors contributed to the death of a young boy who was playing the game with an actual (real life) loaded gun. The initial reaction of the public was to point their fingers at the media and blame the incident on the violence presented by the images shown on the television screen etc. As an effect of being reactive, the individuals failed to realize that the media alone was not responsible for the young boy's death. Other factors such as the loaded gun being present in the household, the unaware parents, and so forth contributed to the tragic occurrence. Yes, the young boy most likely saw the game being played in a movie but that single image cannot endure the blame on its own.

It is a natural reaction for a person to want to point fingers and place the blame on a force (such as the media) that they do not feel responsible for. Once a person understands that there are differences between being proactive and reactive they can act accordingly as a media literate individual. People have an idea embedded in their minds about what is socially acceptable, which provides them with a baseline for handling the effects process of the media. For instance, who put forth the idea that the media alone was responsible for the boy's death? This reaction occurred because with time, the media has become a scapegoat for society's problems; no one wants to take the blame for their own actions so might as well blame the main influencing force. The person that is usually blamed is usually not at fault because their are multiple influences that produced the final outcome.