Too Cynical for Reactions

Ultimately, one must let oneself be influenced by the media, and using the media as reason for one’s actions simply is absurd. The media can, however can have an impact on a person’s decisions and even contribute along with many other aspects to how a person reacts to situations.

After conducting an exercise out of James Potter’s Media Literacy, I have decided that I am a bit too cynical of media to let it have a tremendous effect on me. I considered how his 13 factors could be present in a violent movie and if they would increase the probability that I might react violently.

The basic point of the exercise was to look at 13 factors that could increase or decrease the potential of reacting to a form of media. I first thought of a violent movie and then an emotional/sad movie.

After plugging in the factors for each movie, I realized that I tend to have little reaction based on a movie. Sure, if I am the same age as a character or I’ve been in a similar situation, I relate better to a movie, but in general my reactions are very passive. Had I watched Saw with the motivation of looking for new ways to kill people, I may have been more likely to exhibit violent effects. Movies, though, are just movies. They are meant to entertain and little more than that.

Personally, I am too passive and rather scared of violent movies for me to be very affected by violent movies. I tend to not watch them in general simply because I don’t usually find them entertaining. I do react to sad or emotional movies like A Walk to Remember.

I do have a threshold for sad forms of media. It does not take much for me to cry, but my reactions seldom go further than the act of crying; I do not go out and mimic what I have seen in movies. A perfect example of my reactions to movies is Sweeney Todd. While this movie was very violent, the only parts I reacted to were the sad ones at the end of the movie. I left the theatre with slightly wet eyes, but nothing more. I did not see any reason to react to the movie; it was only a movie.

I do not have many direct or indirect effects of watching media. The reason for this is that I am simply too skeptical to messages I see in the media. My lifestyle and developmental abilities in general leave me trying to see all points of view that are brought up in any form of media. Even the most one sided media demonstrations can offer an opportunity to learn about anything. People who are affected entirely by the media are simply unable to make decisions on their own.