Smiley Face - 2/22

Reality, I feel, is based on the perception of the consensus. It is the masses who are able to shape reality and do so through the use of media. There are many 'fake' portrayals of reality whereby it is clearly not a real phenominon, for example a show described in one of our CMC 200 classes "Big Brother." The "Big Brother" phenomenon in England, stretches the concept of the activities of the real life - what they show is not reality and everyday. The show is of eleven housemates in a house constantly being watched by camera's from every angle. Ever move they make or action is videotapes and edited until it is broadcast to the nation. It perhaps its media's fault to mast reality, it is their audiences desires for reality to be masked, and it is the interest of the media corporation to feed to its audiences desires - therefore as a result reality is conveyed as inadequate and this 'hyperreality' (in my definition as sense of an extended over elaborated version of the real) is then glamorized to feed our, the consumers, needs and anxieties. Then again, most of what Media shows is a distortion of reality based on the concept that the media feed to their publics interest. Media mirrors the role of Disney, as described in class the other day. Disney is a physical example of media - how both seek an optimum world. Disney's optimum world is one in which its people are happy and content all the time. The media wish to create a more fearful world so that its audience are more likely to instill trust into their corporation to make capital as well as their lowered likelihood to challenge the information being presented. ○ I feel that we respond to the simulated reality differntly depending on how it is presented. When you go to Disney it is presented as the real, yet it is so exaggerated it is obvious that it is not real. When the media take something and exaggerate it yet keep it within the bounds of reality it is harder for the viewer to distinguish between reality and hyperreality.