Blog 31

My idea for my commonplace paper is to describe the situational manipulation media displays and the affects on society. Perez Hilton, TMZ, D-Listed, and any chic magazine will show tons of gossip about celebrity lives. The E! channel also does this, with shows like Fashion Police, Chelsea Lately, and The Soup. These examples all attack celebrities by manipulating different situations, which leads to the audience looking down upon them. This also leads to the celebrities living up to their demented reputation given by the media. I highly doubt Lindsay Lohan was a drug addict when she was younger, but through the exploitation of the media, I believe she developed in a more distorted way than if the media hadn’t been a part of her life. One of the biggest signs of manipulation through media can be shown during campaign season. We are shown multiple commercials for a certain politician where the only material to the commercial contains hits on the other side. This affects us as a society when it comes to voting time. If people go into the booth and vote without knowing BOTH sides’ views, our country could end up with the lesser of the two politicians as leader. If you watch the news, you’ll have to get through tons of crime stories before seeing the news piece you wanted to watch. News channels show the criminals. This leads to criminal profiling and ecological fallacy. If you see a person on the street that looks like one of the people you saw on the news story, you might suspect them being a criminal themselves.