Running head: THE MEDIA AND ITS EFFECT ON PERCEIVING REALITY 0

The Media and Its Effect on Perceiving Reality

Jonathan Fjeld

Minnesota State University, Mankato

12 December 2019
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Introduction

Have you ever wondered how the media shapes our perception of reality? I have.

This curiosity is what sparked my research, which began as a means of looking into how

social media can cause anxiety for people and being a mass media major viewing how mass

media impacts people. After some time to think about the subject and where to take it, I decided

to go broader and look at the media’s role in society as a whole. I wanted to see how the media

shapes our perception of the realities of our communities we live in and the World we live in.

Most people get vital information from the media concerning relevant topics such as education,

healthcare, and our community. People also get vital information that shapes the way they see

people and places which has an impact on how we treat others and the places they’re from. From

this perspective, I came to look into positionality, surroundings and emotions and how they play

into what media we take in and what we accept as factual. How does positionality and your

surroundings affect our perception of the media and what’s believable? Furthermore, what

impact do emotions and your upbringing have on our perception of the media and what’s

believable? I looked to inquire with a variety of people about the concepts of positionality,

emotions, and surroundings and what their positionality, emotions, and surroundings are. I

theorized that with different surroundings and positionality comes a different perspective on

issues and the stories that are being forth by the media. In my studies, positionality and

surroundings were effectively independent variables affecting dependent variables such as

emotions and how reality is shaped from it.

From there, I looked into how community and things that are familiar to a person has an

impact on the media they take in, what messages they trust, and as a result what they accept as

true. I also looked at people’s media consumption and what similarities and differences there are
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between local and non-local media and if there’s any aspects local media could take from non-

local media to be better, and vice versa.

Literature Review

Previous research has focused on how the media shapes the way we see ourselves & the

places we find ourselves in and how the media shapes the way we see others & other places

around the World.

Looking at how at how the media shapes the way we see ourselves and the places we find

ourselves in and the people we’re surrounded with, Cupchik’s work looked at how we put

ourselves out on the Internet for others to see and how we pick and choose the way others see us.

He used ethnography through observations while also explaining his academic background and

the value of emotions in stories. (Cupchik, 2011) The study on the narrative ecology of the self

was focused on similar topics with how people relate the media to themselves and different

dramatic concepts people use to paint the picture of who they are. People were found to use

aspects of story development used in movies to speak to their lives and all were able to identify

stories that were salient, but not necessarily meaningful, to their lives. This study used

convenience sampling and interviews were conducted for it (Breen, Cairney, McAdams,

McLean, 2017). Lazaoriu’s work looked at how the current changing media landscape is re-

shaping the way we see ourselves with technology emerging to create new media forms that are

opening people up to new viewpoints and breaking their biases (Lazaroiu, 2008).

Looking at how certain factors within the media shape the way we see other places and

people elsewhere in the World, Orezeata’s work was focused on how the media has been limited

in the past and present by factors such as money. From this research came the conclusion that

money in media resulted in less media freedom and therefore skewed news and a skewed
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perception of reality for people (Orzeata, 2018). Berg’s work looked at how rhetoric works

within the media to cultivate messages that have a lasting impact in what people say and believe

(Berg, 1972) Ali’s work went one step further by looking at seven newspapers during the week

of 9/11 to see if the media had a hand in the post-9/11 anti-Muslim rhetoric that existed at the

time, as an example of seeing how the media shapes people’s perceptions. Ali looked at several

British and Pakistani newspapers to see how they each perceived information from the same

sources. Subsequently, this research found that western media was more pro-war and fell in line

with propaganda and hegemony frameworks that often shape people’s biases. As a result, it was

concluded the media did have an indirect hand in the post-9/11 rhetoric that Ali was looking into

with the study (Ali, 2012).

The interview research questions that formed from this research were:

RQ1: How does positionality and your surroundings affect your perception of the media

and what’s believable?

RQ2: What impact does emotions and your upbringing have on our perception of the

media and what’s believable?

Working off of my research and interview findings, my survey research questions were:

RQ1: How can the media have more of a community-focused lens to make stories more

relatable and the source(s) more trusting?

RQ2: How do societal, political, and socioeconomic factors play a role in this?

Interview Methods

To get a good idea of the ways that media shapes people’s perceptions of reality and how

their emotions, surroundings, and upbringing plays into it, I decided to interview three people

who had different backgrounds, but were in close proximity due to time constraints
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The first interview was the shortest, clocking in at 10 minutes and 15 seconds. It was

conducted with Shari, a 51-year-old Caucasian female from a working middle class background.

The second interview was 23 minutes and 42 seconds. It was conducted with Leah, a Caucasian

female professor at Minnesota State Mankato who’s is in her early-to-mid-50s and is from an

upper middle-class, academia background. The third interview was 30 minutes and one second

long. This interview was conducted with Sean, a 21-year-old male Caucasian college student

from a middle-class background.

The structure of the interviews was mostly structured. The questions were prepared ahead

of time and I aimed to not insert my personal opinion into any matter. Furthermore, each

participant was asked largely the same questions in the same order, with the only exceptions

being some follow-ups that built upon the respective interviewee’s responses. Most of my

questions were also open-ended, which differs from a structured interview schedule. This was

done because the research looks to delve into the experiences the participants have had in life in

the context of their emotions, upbringing, and surroundings/positionality.

The questions asked in the first interview focused on how their political views,

socioeconomic status, and positionality played a role in their lives throughout the years with how

they view stories within the media. What was also focused on was how those concepts shaped

discussions with other people and how those concepts shape what media they consume.

Furthermore, interviewees were asked to think of how discussions go with others on those topics

and the likelihood of fact-checking and questioning what they hear from people, based on their

political views and socioeconomic status. Some of these questions were follow-ups that were

originally not scheduled to be in the interview but pertained to the topic closely. Going forward,

the base questions would focus more on socioeconomic status and political views growing up,
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the impact it has on the stores they read or believe and impactful media messages to them, as

well as how they take in local news vs. more-broader news, if they take in local news from other

places and a Likert scale of 1 to 5 regarding the extent in which they believe the media has

shaped their perceptions of places and any examples of such instances. The specific interview

questions can be found within the appendix section.

Survey Methods

The survey was highly structured with 15 participants being surveyed. For each of the 15

participants, there were 13 survey questions for them to answer. Eight of the questions were

multiple-choice and the other five were open-ended. The first four questions focused on the

demographics of the participants and all but one question was multiple choice. The remaining

nine questions consisted of five multiple-choice questions and four open-ended questions.

Demographics questions focused on not only each participant’s socioeconomic status

growing up, but also their current socioeconomic status, political leanings, and occupation. The

survey was curated on Qualtrics and posted to several college student-centered Facebook groups,

which meant that student status was also accepted as one’s occupation.

Unsurprisingly, all but one participant identified themselves as being an undergraduate

student. The non-student participant identified themselves as being an administrative assistant

and three students described themselves as not only being a student but also having a distinct

occupation. One student described themselves as being a CNA, while another student described

themselves as being a pharmacy technician, and another student described themselves as

working on-campus.

Regarding socioeconomic status growing up, six participants identified with the middle

class, while five identified with the working class, three with the upper-middle class and one
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with being poor. Six participants also identified with currently being in the middle class

socioeconomically while six identified with being poor, two with the working class and with the

upper-middle class. Nine of the 15 participants lean middle-left politically while four participants

are in the center and two lean far-left.

Interview Findings

When looking into what I found from the interviews, there were certain ideas I was

looking for. These ideas focused on how our positionality and surroundings affect our perception

of the media and what we believe, and also how our emotions and upbringing also impact that.

The three categories reflect these ideas. The categories that my codes were divided into were

surroundings, emotions, and upbringing. Surroundings focused on how it affects the way the

subject has used the media as a means of perceiving reality. Emotions focused on what’s elicited

from the media in perceiving reality. Upbringing meant how early interactions with the media

worked as a means of perceiving reality. Upbringing and surroundings are related but the former

of the two deals strictly with one’s early life and how it affects them later in life.

Surroundings was found to be the most commonly occurring code category of the three.

What was found is a background in education leads to greater questioning of the media. The

media can also be used to get an understanding of others who come from a different positionality

and face different realities, such as Leah looking into the topic of healthcare.

Tying upbringing into surroundings, familiarity with news figures leads to a sense of

community, like in the case of Sean feeling like he had known a news anchor he grew up

watching even though he had never met the person. Limited media options was also a factor that

Leah noted as having created a greater sense of community throughout her upbringing than it has

today with more media options.

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“When it was limited to just a handful of stations everybody was watching the same thing

and so your conversations could be very focused on, you know, everybody watched that night's

episode of Emergency, or that episode of whatever the big TV show happened to be so you

would have more of a centralized conversations…And so I think that created a little bit more of a

sense of community because we watched the same things.”

Reading books and taking in well-vetted and researched media at a young age, and

growing up in such an environment, can be correlated to critical-thinking practices recurring as

an adult.

Regarding emotions, stories that raise opposing views can elicit strong emotions and we

have a natural inclination to react strongly to opposing views but there’s a perspective to be

gained from listening to those views. However, people react with a strong emotions and

annoyance toward news outlets that avoid staying neutral or constantly focus on one topic, and

not on the most important topics.

What’s been found is that a sense of community, specifically familiarity and relatability,

is important in being able to engage people with the media and to tell about the most important

topics. Local news provides this due to being close to where the news is taking place and

understanding the context around it. However, when technology limited the amount of national

and international media was available, there was a sense of community there that is noted as not

being as present in such media today.

Survey Findings

When doing my survey, I was looking to see how a community-based and people-focused

lens I found within local media could be used to make non-local stories more relatable and more
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trusting and if they were doing so already. I also looked further to see if societal, political, and

socioeconomic factors play a role in that as well.

The first question asked was “List three news issues that are most important to you. What

are 2-3 ways that the media does well at engaging with those issues?”. Regarding news issues,

climate change and the environment, gun control, healthcare, politics and international news

were among the most prevalent topics. Regarding engagement with the issues, answers varied.

One response stated that funding of Planned Parenthood, gun control, and the treatment of

immigrants were heavily talked about and the media gave facts and updated stories about the

most recent events involving those issues. Another participant stated that the media covers

stories pertaining to environmental protection, tech giant regulation, and human rights in ways

that readers can understand. Other participants responded by saying that the media shows both

sides of issues, highlights bills in consideration regarding issues like abortion, and updates the

public on celebrity happenings.

The second question asked was “List 2-3 things that help you stayed engaged with media

content”. Several responses listed social media and content such as pictures and stories on

platforms such as Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook. Content such as television news broadcasts,

local newspapers, Saturday Night Live, phone notifications, and podcasts as other forms of

engagement. Some participants also listed communicating with others and having a personal

connection as forms of engagement while others listed colors, catchy phrases and titles, jingles,

and interesting content.

The next five questions were closed-ended. The first was “On average, how much time

do you take to read a typical news article? (500-1000 words)?”. 11 of the 15 participants selected

“2-5 minutes” while the other four selected “5-10 minutes.”

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The second was “On average, how much of a news piece or story do you take in before

you continue taking in the rest?.” One participant selected “0-10%”, five selected “10-25%”, six

selected “20-35%”, two selected “35-50%”, and one selected “50-60%”.

The third was “Are you more likely to take in media content that favors your political

leanings?”. One participant selected “Definitely yes”, six selected “Probably yes”, six selected

“Might or might not”, one selected “Probably not”, and one selected “Definitely not”.

The fourth was “On a scale of 1-5, how much do you trust local media sources?’. Two

participants selected “2 – Somewhat distrust”, three selected “3 – No distinctive trust or distrust”,

nine selected “4 – Somewhat trust”, and one selected “5 – Strongly trust”.

The fifth and final closed-ended question was “On a scale of 1-5, how much do you trust

non-local media sources?”. Seven participants selected “2 – Somewhat distrust”, three selected

“3 – No distinctive trust or distrust”, and five selected “4 – Somewhat trust”.

Regarding the question, “What are 2-3 aspects that you like about local media? 2-3

aspects that you don’t like?”, most responses were positive and focused on how local media

tends to be more relatable. Relatability came up in responses such as “Friendly sounding

reporters on TV who are involved in the community”, “Region specific”, “I like that I know the

areas/businesses, etc. they are discussing”, and “Hometown stories”. Some critiques included

“the Mankato Free Press tends to have several spelling and grammatical errors in their articles”,

“I wish it covered more and do not always think the writing is as polished as larger news

sources”, and “I wish it could also include more stuff about the world”

The question “What are 2-3 aspects of non-local media that you like? 2-3 aspects that you

don’t like?” saw responses focusing on bias in the news and one-sided and sensationalized
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reporting with answers such as “Interesting, I care about it, but some stories are clearly biased”,

“I don’t like how they pander toward one political ideology most of the time and how they use

loaded language to make their stories more sensationalized”, and “I feel like a lot of times media

sources are just looking for a headline that’ll make them money so they stretch the truth” being

given.

Responses weren’t all negative, however. They also included “I like getting a wide range

of news from around the country”, “Variety of content and the amount of content”, “I like the

global outreach of them and the resources they can use to make their stories more informed”,

“They talk about more broader events that are more important and related to politics. They talk

about more topics and have more credible stories, they are easily accessible”, and “Covers more

and generally has well-edited writing”.

What was found in the survey findings is that local media is perceived as more trusted

because of how it is familiar and engaging with the community that they are within. Non-local

media is viewed as more biased because of the presence of one-sided reporting and biases, but

also because it’s harder to confirm what’s true and really happening when what happening is so

broad. This is why community is important in engaging people with media and the issues

because it enables a trust and understanding within people that people can refer back to when

taking in media pieces.

Conclusion

What was found from the interview is that your upbringing has an impact on the way you

treat the media. Growing up in an education background leads to a greater questioning of the

media. Community is more easily established when people are subject to more limited options or

options that become widely familiar to people. This comes up in the case of Leah growing up
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with three stations and familiar news anchors on each station and Sean growing up feeling like

he had known a news anchor from only watching them and never meeting them.

A sense of community, specifically familiarity and relatability, is important in being able

to engage people with the media and to tell about the most important topics. With the growth of

technology, local news provides this more due to there being fewer sources and being close to

where the news is taking place and understanding the context around it. Technology has led to

more national and international-level outlets available to cover the issues with a number of

different perspectives and views, rather than on a local level where there are only a few outlets

covering the issues with one straightforward perspective and view. As a result, local media

embodies what national media used to be in that there are only so many outlets around to where

there’s an emphasis on giving the story as it is and not necessarily competing against other

outlets to get the story out first.

Both the interview and the survey were limited by time. I had only so much time to

conduct interviews and widely distribute the survey. The interviews were also limited by

uncertainty over the direction of my research. I knew I wanted to discuss upbringing and

surroundings with my subjects, but I didn’t know to what degree I wanted to discuss it in the

context of media consumption. Furthermore, with the survey, I missed some questions that

could’ve been integral in getting to the point of seeing what could be fixed within the media and

what people would like to see in broader media that would give it a more community-focused

lens. I would’ve enjoyed asking about what specifically people want to see fixed within local and

non-local media and asking more specific questions, such as what news outlets they take in and

what stories have stuck out to them in the past.

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Going forward with this research, I want to take a hard look at the psychological aspects

of our thought processes to see if there’s something more there. I also want to ask some of the

questions that I failed to ask in the survey and interviews. Getting more personally involved in

my research will be the future direction for my research in order to get a greater understanding of

what I’m trying to get at with my research. I want to study and consume more pieces of media to

gain greater insight into what impact the media has on my perception of reality. Some methods

may be to have an independent variable consist of certain news outlets to consume in a given

week and the dependent variable be my reaction(s) to news stories and how I perceive it in my

daily life. I also want to look into doing studies where people view several different articles and

then are prompted to give responses that fall within the context of how positionality and

emotions impact what they perceive and accept as true about those stories and the issues covered.

This will truly guide my research toward being more about the media and its effect on perceiving

reality, and help my research find more of a direction than what I’d found this past term.
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References

Ali, M. (2011). 9/11 in British and Pakistani press: a comparative study with regards to myths

and realities of hegemony and propaganda. Global Media Journal: Pakistan Edition,

4(2), 59–79. Retrieved from https://aiou.edu.pk/sab/gmj/GMJ Fall 2011/Article_7.pdf

Berg, D. M. (1972). Rhetoric, Reality, and Mass Media. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 58(3), 255.

https://doi.org/10.1080/0033563720938Berg, D. M. (1972). Rhetoric, Reality, and Mass

Media. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 58(3), 255.

https://doi.org/10.1080/003356372093831223122

Breen, A. V., McLean, K. C., Cairney, K., & McAdams, D. P. (2017). Movies, books, and

identity: Exploring the narrative ecology of the self. Qualitative Psychology, 4(3), 243-

259. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/qup0000059

Cupchik, G. C. (2011). The digitized self in the internet age. Psychology of Aesthetics,

Creativity, and the Arts, 5(4), 318-328. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0024820

Lazaroiu, G. (2008). NEW MEDIA VERSUS NEWS MEDIA. Economics, Management and

Financial Markets, 3(3), 76-84. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.mnsu.edu/login?

url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1032546324?accountid=12259

ORZEAŢĂ, M. (2018). The Independence of Mass Media -- at the Border between a Stated Goal

and Reality. International Journal of Communication Research, 8(4), 304–313. Retrieved

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Appendix
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The questions asked in the first interview were as followed: What was your background

of you growing up in terms of socioeconomic status and political leanings? What were

discussions of politics and the news like growing up with other family members? How has your

socioeconomic or political status impacted what stories you read or believe, or engage with?

What media messages have been most impactful for you in your life in either growing up, being

an adult, or “middle ages”? How often do you talk about the news with other people? If you do

talk with people about the news, how do those conversations play out and go? Are you more

inclined to believe someone who has the same political views as you, or different? Would you

say that’s the same for socioeconomic status? If you do hear something that you believe is false,

odd, or strange, how likely are you to fact-check that? Do you take a different approach to local

news vs more-broader news? Do you ever take in other forms of local media, outside of your

area? (Followed up with: Do you think that helps you get a greater understanding for an area?)

On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being not so much to 5 being yes quite a bit, how much do you allow

the news/media to shape your perceptions of places and people?