Table Of ContentCOMMUNICATING
LI Ν R Ε A L I Τ Y
COMMUNICATING
U N R E A L I TY
Modern
Media
and the
Reconstruction
of Reality
G A B R I EL W E I M A NN
Sage Publications, Inc.
I International Educational and Professional Publisher
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Copyright Ο 2000 by Sage Publications, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weimann, Gabriel, 1950-
Communicating unreality: Modern media and the reconstruction of reality /
by Gabriel Weimann.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-7619-1985-6
ISBN 0-7619-1986-4
1. Mass media—Influence. 2. Mass media—United States.
3. Mass media—Social aspects. 4. Mass media—Psychological aspects.
5. Reality. I. Title.
P94 .W45 2000
302.23—dc21 99-6520
00 01 02 03 04 05 06 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Acquiring Editor: Margaret H. Seawell
Editorial Assistant: Renée Piernot
Production Editor: Astrid Virding
Editorial Assistant: Karen Wiley
Typesetter/Designer: Marion Warren
Cover Designer: Candice Harman
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xii
PART I The Reconstruction of Reality
1. Living in a Mediated World 3
2. The Debate Over Media Effects 15
3. Cultivation and Mainstreaming 39
4. The Psychology of Cultivation 59
PART 11 Mediated Realities
5. The Mean and Scary World 79
6. Sex and Sexuality 123
7. Death and Suicide 167
8. The World According to MTV 191
9. Portrayal of Groups 213
10. Images of America 243
11. The Unreal War 279
PART III Cord usions
12. Virtual Reality: Virtual or Real? 323
13. Communicating Unreality 359
References 391
Author Index 427
Subject Index 43 7
About the Author 441
Preface
L
ong before the introduction of mass media, before communication
scholars started to realize the power of mass media in shaping our
perceptions of reality, the Greek philosopher Plato presented the notion
of reconstructed reality in his famous Allegory of the Cave. "Imagine,"
said Plato, "the condition of men who had always lived deep within a
dark cave. There is a fire burning in the cave, and it glows so strongly
that it casts shadows on the opposite wall. The people in the cave are
chained so they face the wall and the shadows. They cannot see the
actual figures moving in the cave but only the puppet show of shadows
on the wall." Plato added sound effects to his shadow show. "Suppose,"
he said, "that the people moving in the cave talked freely, but the
chained men could hear only the echoes from the walls and imagine that
these were the original voices." Plato's lesson was simple: The chained
men in the cave, exposed only to shadows and echoes, would believe
that these reflections were reality. Sooner or later, they would develop
shared interpretations of the shadows, give them names and meanings,
and hate or like some of them, but always accept them as the real things,
not their distorted reflections. The sounds, images, and movements
reflected on their wall shaped their perception of reality.
Suppose that one of them was set free and he could see it all: the
wall, the true figures, the real movements, the reality. He could learn
how distorted his former perceptions were and recognize the true
reality. "But then," asks Plato, "what will happen if we bring him back
to the chained men, still facing the shadows on the wall? What will
vii
viii COMMUNICATING UNREALITY
happen when he will try to explain to his former companions that what
they were all seeing was not reality at all?" Plato was convinced that the
chained men would laugh at him and reject his ideas of the "real" reality
out there.
The wall in the cave was replaced by the screens of television,
movies, and computers, by pictures and text in newspapers and maga-
zines, by the sounds of recorded and transmitted voices and sounds on
radio sets. We may not be chained, but nevertheless these media "walls"
are our main source of information about the world out there.
This book attempts to break away from the cave, to gather and
analyze the findings of numerous studies about mass-mediated realities,
and then to return to the cave with the evidence. Equipped with data
from various research areas in many societies, cultures, and domains
there is, I hope, no real threat that the "return to the cave" will end as
Plato predicted: According to him, the returning man, trying to con-
vince the others that they were not seeing true reality, would eventually
be killed by them.
In Chapter 1, we look at the nature of a mediated environment and
the early recognition by Walter Lippmann that the media shape "the
pictures in our heads" of the "world out there." We examine the growing
dependence on the mass-mediated presentations and interpretations of
events, processes, and occurrences, especially in the "global village" we
live in, where the technology of modern communication systems has
made the world shrink and national or cultural boundaries collapse. In
Chapter 2, we examine the lingering debate about the power of media
and their impact on our attitudes, values, emotions, and opinions. We
examine the evolution of research in the area of media effects. First, we
consider what media effects means, then, we briefly trace the evolution
in scholars' perspectives on media effects, and finally, we examine
selected processes and theories by which media effects are thought to
occur. Chapter 3 is devoted to the notion of cultivation and the related
concept of mainstreaming. We examine the nature of these processes,
the methodology used to study them, and the differences between them
and other media effects. In this part, we also learn about the "debate
over cultivation": Cultivation studies have been criticized on conceptual
and methodological grounds, including response biases and problems
with the measuring instruments. Finally, this chapter looks at cultivation
studies after two decades: It has been over 20 years since the first
Preface ix
cultivation findings were published. Since then, many studies have
explored, enhanced, critiqued, dismissed, or defended the conceptual
assumptions and methodological procedures of cultivation analysis.
Where is cultivation theory?
Chapter 4 looks at the psychology of cultivation: What are the
various psychological processes that lead us to accept media realities?
Who are more vulnerable to the media's cultivation? The chapter
reviews the research attempts to identify cognitive trait variables affect-
ing cultivation, subprocesses or stages in the cultivation process, and the
intervening impact of psychological factors such as memory accessibil-
ity, critical consumption of media, personal involvement, and personal
experience. The subsequent part examines evidence of the cultivation
process in various areas and various societies and cultures. Chapter 5
starts with the Mean World Syndrome. Modern media, such as video
games, computer networks, computer games, Virtual Reality, Internet,
and others—and, of course, television and movies—have become popu-
lar sites for experiencing, watching, and even activating aggression in
various forms. Gerbner argued that we live now in a "charged environ-
ment," in a huge "cult of violence." This chapter looks at two questions:
How mean is the media world, and what is the impact of violent media
and violent contents on perceptions of the world as dangerous, mean,
and violent.
In Chapter 6, another dimension of reconstructed reality is exam-
ined, that of sex and sexuality. One of the most studied and documented
areas of reconstructed realities by the mass media is that of the portrayal
of the sexes and its impact on popular stereotypes of sex roles. The role
of the media in sex role socialization has become an area of considerable
concern and the topic of many studies during the recent decades because
of the women's movement's interest, the convincing findings on bias
and cultivation within this domain, and the emerging recognition that
the media play a crucial role in diffusing, preserving, and cultivating
images of sex roles. This chapter reveals the sexist patterns in various
media contents such as commercials, TV series, movies, magazines,
advertisements, and children's media. How do these mediated images
of the sexes affect our perceptions of the sexes, their roles, traits,
similarities, and differences? This chapter also looks at the impact of
the media on the image of thinness and their impact on eating disorders,
especially among women. Finally, the chapter reports the findings on
