Blog 7: Pictures in Our Heads

Ever since its creation, television has had a profound effect on society. Television is a influential source of entertainment and a window to the happenings around the world. The works of George Gerbner, Shanto Iyengar and Donald Kinder asked the question, "What exactly is television showing us and how does it change the way we think about the world around us?"

Gerbner conducted a study that observed the portrayal of the world on television programs and linked people's views of society with the amount of television that they watched. The results showed that the heavier viewers had a skewed perception of what the world was like while the lighted viewers remained more realistic. Gerbner concluded that the more one watches television the more it influences her perceptions of society.

Iyengar and Kindler conducted a study in which they had multiple control groups that watched programs that were specifically edited to emphasize a particular issue in the country. After a week of testing, the results showed that each group was more concerned with the issue that was emphasized in the programs they viewed. Ivengar and Kindler's experiments supported Gerbner in that television greatly influences your opinions but added that it is not just how much you watch but what you're watching that influences your personal views.

Television is a great source of entertainment and knowledge but it can sometimes be misleading. The material that is shown is not always reality. In order to avoid being brainwashed by these images we must resist these pictures on the screen to become "pictures in our heads."