As the American public, we seem to believe everything that we see. Here, this fan obviously thinks that she knows how to win a "reality" TV show because of what she has seen during half an hour segments of edited film.
In class, we learned that in actuality, the contestants on Survivor don't actually spend all their time doing what we see on TV. They are usually sleeping because of lack of food and water, and what is on TV has been edited for ratings.
The book discusses automaticity, which is the idea that the brain filters media messages. There are triggers that allow information to come through and there are also traps that make people "more susceptible... to negative effects of the media". One of the traps is a false sense of feeling informed. This quote is a definite example of a person feeling wrongfully informed about something on the media.
After reading this quote, my immediate reaction is, "Oh, this poor woman believes everything she sees on TV." When it comes to Survivor, the person with the advantage is the person who can survive the longest in the elements. An audience that only sees the edited finished version of a show has no advantage over people who have lived the experience of being on the camera.
1 comment:
I think you had some really good points. The people who actually lived the experience of the show before are the ones going to have the advantage, if anyone does. All the fans know is how those people react - they have no idea how they will react to the situations they're put in, because likely, the fans have never been in those situations before. The favorites, on the other hand, have.
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