In my communication 277 class, we are talking something very interesting on media exposure and its effects to the audiences and society.The professor talked about 6 general effects theories, and today I will apply two of them to one of our daily medium exposure. I will show you how the media exposure can influence our thoughts and feelings based on the theories: one is exemplification, and the other is catharsis.
In my journal today, I will choose the scene showed on TV on the day that Chicago was announced losing the right to host the Olympic Games: on the TV show, audiences can see a lot of supporters cried and complained about the failure.Then, I will use the two theories to show you how this exposure can influence audiences.
To begin with, I will show you how the theory of exemplification explains this exposure's effect. Firstly, according to professor's lecture, exemplification theory indicates that media exposure examples in news, and then it will make audience recall the news in the future, which will be used in beliefs and judgment about issues; in many cases, these judgment and beliefs are extreme and incorrect.In this case, some people saw that these people cried and blamed to the President Obama's ego which led to the final failure. They watched it, and this exposure will influence the audiences impression and beliefs in the future. Next time when they are facing the decision whether to support Chicago again as the host city for the Olympic Games, they will think of this failure, and dare not to run the same candidates competition. Also, it maybe influence the impression of the President for the audience. They will recall of this exposure, the complaints' blame when they vote for the president's new policy. As you see, the exemplification effect could cause cognitive changes for audiences in the long term on different persons.
Another theory is catharsis, which means we audiences will feel better after we see people in the media exposure crying and suffering.It is obviously in this case, the opponents or some supporters for the other host cities will feel so happy and even be more proud when saw these people's frustrations exposed to the media; in the mean while, those who support Chicago to hold the Games will also feel their suffers are released a lot by watching there were also other people felt the same feeling as they did.So they will not feel so upset anymore. Therefore, Catharsis theory shows us the exposure may cause affective changes in short term for the audiences.
All in all, experts in communication field try to use and create different theories to explain how media influence our daily life and our perception of the society.These theories are both interesting and useful for us. After taking this class, I just become to think more when I am receiving media messages from the world.
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