Paper for Intercultural Communication
How society tames our desire to know?
With fast development of media technology, this is never the time of panel scarcity, and we have stepped into an era of overloaded information. Therefore it seems to be accepted as reality that audiences are acquiring more freedom to choose/decide what they need/want even make media products themselves.
That is superficially right while the hidden agenda set by others never disappear. That is to say, what people interest in is not always out of self willingness, but instead, is being influenced or set up by others. Then what’s the operational mechanism supporting the hidden tame process of society?
Of course Media is not the only way for people to get to know the world, however, this has become an indispensible choice. Beginning with media is easier for us get to know the whole topic: how society tames our desire to know?
I come up with 3 aspects in answering this question.
First, Society tames our desire to know by utilizing a psychological mechanism-Spiral of Silence.
When talking about pop culture, there is often a premise that the so-called “pop” should be something accepted by most of people. Thus, whether or not being included in the scope of “pop” can lead to a group clarification. This may result in the phenomenon that when confronting with choice between “pop” and alternatives, people tend to choose the former one so as to gaining a valid position in the pop camp, or called majority. This can be sometimes defined as peer pressure which leads us being obedient to mainstream.
There is a mass Communication theory called “the spiral of silence” which is quite similar with the phenomenon I mentioned above. Spiral of silence theory describes the process by which one opinion becomes dominant as those who perceive their opinion to be in the minority do not speak up because they fear isolation from society.
It is more understandable when we using “spiral of silence” theory to explain the phenomenon in
With fast development of media technology, this is never the time of panel scarcity, and we have stepped into an era of overloaded information. Therefore it seems to be accepted as reality that audiences are acquiring more freedom to choose/decide what they need/want even make media products themselves.
That is superficially right while the hidden agenda set by others never disappear. That is to say, what people interest in is not always out of self willingness, but instead, is being influenced or set up by others. Then what’s the operational mechanism supporting the hidden tame process of society?
Of course Media is not the only way for people to get to know the world, however, this has become an indispensible choice. Beginning with media is easier for us get to know the whole topic: how society tames our desire to know?
I come up with 3 aspects in answering this question.
First, Society tames our desire to know by utilizing a psychological mechanism-Spiral of Silence.
When talking about pop culture, there is often a premise that the so-called “pop” should be something accepted by most of people. Thus, whether or not being included in the scope of “pop” can lead to a group clarification. This may result in the phenomenon that when confronting with choice between “pop” and alternatives, people tend to choose the former one so as to gaining a valid position in the pop camp, or called majority. This can be sometimes defined as peer pressure which leads us being obedient to mainstream.
There is a mass Communication theory called “the spiral of silence” which is quite similar with the phenomenon I mentioned above. Spiral of silence theory describes the process by which one opinion becomes dominant as those who perceive their opinion to be in the minority do not speak up because they fear isolation from society.
It is more understandable when we using “spiral of silence” theory to explain the phenomenon in