Media Effects Theory
The Difference Between the World Through Media and the Directly Experienced World
This question asks what kind of gaps or differences exist between the world we "know" through news, SNS, movies, documentaries, etc., and the world we actually visit and feel with our five senses. It explores how media selects, emphasizes, and distorts reality, shaping our understanding of the world. From the differences between the "rawness" and "uncertainty" of direct experience and the "edited story" provided by media, it also leads to the fundamental question of what reality is.
The view that media always distorts and simplifies reality, and direct experience is the true foundation.
The view that media provides knowledge and perspectives not obtainable from direct experience and enriches the world.
The position that reality itself is constructed by media, language, and social interaction, and the boundary between media and direct experience is ambiguous.
The approach that describes the difference in "how it feels" between media experience and direct experience as a first-person phenomenon and questions its meaning.
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When you actually visited or got involved in a place or incident you saw in the news or on SNS, did you feel a difference in impression?
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What kind of gap do you feel between SNS photos/videos and actual landscapes or events?
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How did you feel when you actually went to a place or met people reported as "dangerous" in the media?
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What do you think about the difference between the "ideal life" seen in movies or dramas and your actual life?
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Do you ever notice yourself judging the culture or people of a country you have never directly experienced, based only on media?
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Do you think virtual reality or metaverse-like "virtual direct experiences" are approaching real experiences?
This theme is for dialogue to continue updating one's worldview by going back and forth between media and direct experience. Rather than placing one above the other, it aims to build a more three-dimensional and certain "your own world" by utilizing the tension between the two.
- Hyperreality
- A state in which "more real than real" created by media surpasses actual reality. A concept proposed by Baudrillard.
- Simulacrum
- A chain of copies without an original. The phenomenon where media imitates reality and reality itself becomes an imitation of media.
- Primary Experience and Secondary Experience
- The distinction between experiences felt directly with the five senses (primary) and those obtained indirectly through media (secondary).
- Filter Bubble and Echo Chamber
- The phenomenon where algorithms or homogeneous communities isolate users from diverse realities and reinforce biased worldviews.
Today, is there any new information or place you learned about through media that made you think "I want to actually go there"? Why?
If you could never touch media for the rest of your life, how do you think "your world" would change — narrower, or wider?
As you listen to the other person talk about "the world seen through media," quietly imagine the gap with "the world they have directly experienced."
- Will virtual travel replace real travel?
- The difference between the temperature of the air felt locally and the news of disasters or conflicts
- The emotions when actually visiting a place seen in anime or books as a child
- The wall between the "other" seen in the news and the "other" actually met
- Does an "experience" in the metaverse remain as a memory?
- The divergence between the "ideal self" created by media and the "true self" gained from direct experience