Factors that Influence Media Effects

Many television viewers don’t realize there are factors that influence media effects on their lives. According to Wikipedia, “a media influence or media effect refers to the theories about the ways the mass media affect how their audiences think and behave.”

I decided to an exercise to see how these factors influence the effects media has on me. Recently I viewed the movie Flight 93. This move has several emotional and violent aspects to it. I realized throughout the movie I felt tense. Once the movie was over I felt empathy towards the victims and anger and aggression towards the Arabs who hijacked the plane. However, the next day all the emotions I had felt went away. Factors that influenced me to feel aggression and racism were my knowledge structure, my lifestyle, state of mind, sociological factors, Content of the message and motivations.

I believed that everything I viewed in the movie was realistic. My lifestyle or lack of real-life experiences, lead me to be more affected by the movie. My state of mind was thinking back to the tragic events of 9-11. I was feeling angry and empathy for the victims and their families before I even started the movie. I feel that sociological factors and motivations had an influence on my feelings of this movie because I was always taught to stand up for myself and to help others in need. While viewing the movie I just wanted to be on the plane and help those who were in need. I feel that the factor of motivation had an effect because I viewed this movie wanting to know what events took place on the plane. Lastly, the content of the movie was violent throughout the duration of the movie which was about two hours.

There were factors that removed me from feelings of aggression and anger. My cognitive ability to understand that it was just a movie I was watching and that I was not personally experiencing the dramatic event. I know my own personal locus or how media affects me. Therefore I was able to identify that the emotions I felt were caused by the movie and not caused by real-life events. My developmental maturities brought me back to reality.

Some may believe that media has no effect on a person behaving violent, but several people do. The factors that provoke an emotion may vary from different types of media. I have learned through my studies and continuance exposure to the media that it is important to know about these factors, what they mean, and to understand how media affects you.

In the future, I’d like to gain more real-life experiences so I don’t get caught up in the media and believe everything I view is realistic or true. I’d also like to use the media more as an information source rather than for entertainment. I’d like to change the ways in which I use and view media and decrease the amount of time I view media.