This week in class we discussed theories in which are believed to have effects on humans from forms of media. The main focus was the Gerbner Theory. The theory examines long-term effects from television. The main point of the theory is that people begin to have a sense of “living” in the fictional world of television, and begin to align their real life with it. For example, a regular every day human that watches a significant amount of violent TV will be scared of going out into the everyday world, as if the acts they are seeing will potentially happen to them.

I found this theory really interesting. The fact that one can become so entrenched with the fictional world, that they start to have fears based around what they are viewing for their own leisure. It is easy to see something repeatedly in a show and maybe have the thought in your head “Wow, that would be insane/scary/cool” but it is another to have a legitimate emotional issue with it.

The other interesting and also stomach turning show we watched in class was The Big Picture. It was a compilation of clips from human behavior experiments to show how humans react in new/different situations. The Stanford experiment by Zimbardo was fascinating to see how average people change and adapt based on a simulation. Zimbardo set up a fake prison in Stanford U’s basement. He then collected volunteers to be either prisoners or guards. After about a day, one guard specifically became infatuated with the power and ran with it. A prisoner had a mental breakdown in a couple days, even though he knew it was simulated. The guard just became really wrapped up in his role, despite knowing he was not actually a prison guard.

I was really shocked that people can know they’re in a simulation, and become into their role so much, that they basically believe it as real world. The guard was interviewed for the show and he even acknowledged that he knew it was fake and he just simply got carried away. It is hard for me to imagine that I would crumble to the power I hold in an experiment, let alone real life. However, being the prisoner in that situation would not be enjoyable, especially if I had no offenses, I would not want to be dehumanized.

The effects of media on society theories sound quite outlandish and hard to believe. The human behavior experiments shine a different light on the matter. Humans, some more than others, are very susceptible to change in behavior given a strenuous situation. The lady in the McDonalds strip search interview said it best, “You never know what you would do unless you’re there.”