Just thought I might as well do an "official" sign off because for one thing, I am currently bored and another, I am done the report, and have received my mark. The mark I received was an 83% over all. Not too bad considering the time I finally concluded my report.
The report was finished at about 2:00 in the wee hours the day it was due. I consider myself somewhat lucky with the mark. Although the problem with concluding a report that close to the time it is actually due, is the lack of time to make corrections to the Oh so obvious mistakes you've made. One large one being the justification and the other- I forgot to include a copy of my survey in my method section. With those two components alone, properly edited, the report could have reigned in better marks. But 83% is still, not that bad.
All in all, the report had it's errors. The Hypothesis was neither proven, nor disproven. Actually, the primary research disproved the hypothesis and the secondary Proved it beyond hesitation. That was bad point number one. Trying to find correlations was another near impossible task. People were all over the place. And the survey, was not all that hard to figure out, yet people still put numerous answers, which would even have been tolerable if they'd numbered them in order of some sort. I WAS RIGHT THERE TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS! The people that filled out the survey online did it very well, and they didn't even have the option to ask help. I know I wrote the survey within a break between classes. That is what the teacher gets for his absurd due dates. Anywho, That is all on the rant of the survey.
Here is a quick summary of the juicy excerpts
My hypothesis, media elevates anxiety and negativity within society as it uses fear as a tool to attract viewers. Media uses fear as a tool because fear sells stories. Society is attracted to dwelling on the negative. The colours used in news reports- red mainly- stimulates a certain recognition that red is emergency, passion, bad, and so forth. Not only does media like to use fear, but it likes to manipulate the stories with it. I decided to see if others in North America felt similar
I chose to survey individuals because I wanted to get input from the general population. The survey was meant to see if people thought that media was manipulative, and if these individuals themselves were attracted to fear or suspenseful things. The survey was simply a series of sixteen questions. Eight of the questions are the ones detrimental to the hypothesis. The other questions were general information; such as age, male or female, and finally, distraction questions. I began the survey with the general information questions. After than, I spread the rest of the survey out between the two types of questions in the hopes of not leading the person filling it out directly to the hypothesis. After the survey was created, I posted it online at “Bigger-Picture.blogspot.com”. There, I got three hits on my survey. From there, I went around to my classes at school and to some random people on the halls of the school, to fill it out. I also had one individual email their responses back to me. Two questions were not formed as yes or no answers. For one question, the surveyed were given a choice of six occupations to choose from and asked if they could pick any one, what one would they choose. Two occupations were dangerous ones and the rest were somewhat mundane in comparative terms. For my results, the two dangerous ones, CIA/FBI field agent and Soldier, were grouped together as a “dangerous occupation” and the others were simply “not dangerous” occupations. Similarly, the surveyed were given a choice between five movie choices. And asked to choose what they would prefer. Dark, Scary and War were grouped under “scary/ suspenseful” on the tabulation chart and funny and romance were no to “scary/ suspenseful”.
Results:
I looked at the people that I surveyed to see if there was a correlation between those that watched a lot of news and anxiety. Even those that watched a lot of television.
It was interesting to see how almost everyone mistrusts the media. Further, 55% of the total people surveyed wanted a risky occupation as opposed to 45%.
Further, with those surveyed only 90% of them believe that media misrepresents stories. So when you watch the news, it often manipulates the stories to appeal to people’s want for upsetting stories through fear or just basic negativity. Further, “reality” no longer means real. Reality shows are structured to bring the viewer action and drama. In addition, when a movie claims to be based on a true story, some go assuming that Hollywood is actually bringing you a true story. The story has been manipulated to fit the trends.
Finally, I wanted to see if people were drawn to the scary or suspenseful jobs if they had an opportunity to do them- 55% said yes. Above is a break down.
For scary movies, I wanted to see if people were lured in by scary movies. Apparently, 52% of the people surveyed preferred to watch scary movies to suspenseful.
I chose to research this topic of fear and society in correlation with the media, because personally, I know that I live by the news every day and it takes a mental effect. My Email inbox is filled with mail from New York Times, New York Post, CNN and so forth. I currently have a blog dedicated fully to world news. I wanted to see if anyone else was as consumed by the news. Stresses that once seemed menial are elevated due to media. There are ever changing forms of media and the tactics used by the news media to keep one’s attention are interesting to watch. They stem from the colours used to express the immediacy and importance of a report to simply having a background that is constantly moving to try and keep one’s attention. Once again, with world events and tensions growing, sometimes I can even feel my own sleep disrupted by thoughts of what is happening. New technologies make the world seem like an even smaller place than ever before. That is why I felt this topic an interesting and important one to approach.
The tabulation chart above was simply a culmination of the important findings from the survey. My findings did not support what I had hoped. I did fine out that people enjoy a good Hollywood fright, but other than that, my findings were sporadic and unsupportive. The first chart simply indicates how many of those surveyed were males and how many were females. Further, when looking at the second chart, you see, of the 36 people that believe the media misrepresents the stories, all of them watch Television and 23 still follow the news. This, I found interesting because even though the data collected through my survey shows that the people don’t often feel anxious, and close to no one felt that the anxiety they did feel was in part, do to the media, they did feel that the media was misleading. Yet, they continued to watch the news and other forms of media. This information did work towards my favour because though it did not prove my original idea that media is leading people to anxiety, it did show a trend in people’s willingness to adapt to the misleading information put forth by the media. Further, when asked what occupation they would prefer, more than less chose a dangerous one. Not by a noticeably large difference, but nonetheless, danger is attractive. Finally, when asked to choose between a scary theme or suspenseful movie, again, the majority chose to indulge their senses in a Hollywood fright, suspense or war movie, rather than romance or comedy. I was hoping to see a greater number lured by suspense and horror than comedy. Once again, the difference was only 8%. The data collected in my surveys were not confidently back up my hypothesis, however, it did not work against it, either. It gave a different twist to my hypothesis that rather than looking at the anxiety it caused, rather, how it still was attractive to people- even those that realised how manipulative the media is.
The conclusions I drew from my survey were indeed different from the interpretation I was getting from my secondary sources. The idea that “motivation comes from a place of fear” (“99% Inspiration” 2005), was something that I thought would be supported by my findings. However, through my survey, that idea was not supported. When I was at the point to finally look through my data that I had collected, the number of people that had seemed to be attracted to fear was significantly lower than expected. When reading the document released by the DoJ in Canada, I surmised my results would reflect similarly what was found in theirs. One statement in their document was pointing out the fact that “Crime sells newspapers” (“Taking the Pulse of a Nation”, 1994). I found that out of the population that I surveyed, only 58% of them were drawn to suspenseful images and media. It is over half, but I did expect more. Further, one of the articles looks at how ordinary objects such as “a plastic knife is no longer an ordinary utensil...it is a means to mass murder” (“Fear Not”, 2005). This goes on to show how the secondary data was supportive. Out of the 39 people that I surveyed watched television, of that, 23 of them stayed current with news. When asked if they felt “anxious”, only 15 people responded “yes”. Thus, my hypothesis was not supported by that question and it goes against all I have read to this point in my secondary research.
Many, if not all, of the secondary sources seem to support my hypothesis, my own set of questions did not. This leads me to believe that perhaps I should have asked different questions, different people, or perhaps try to set up interviews with various news agencies or even, psychologists. These finding help to see how many people are watching television and how many follow the news. It was interesting to find out how little, people trust the information that news agencies are reporting. Although the information gathered from the surveys did not support nor deny my hypothesis, it pointed out where the minds of the young people (14-24yrs) are today when it comes to the media, the news and their views both.
Well, I hope you enjoyed a VERY short version of some excerpts. The overall thing was about 16 Pages. I am happy 'tis over.
Tah tah one final time.
Fox
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