Blog #2: Project plan

The question that I am going to be researching is “How does the media affect the way we think?”. In this blog post I will be talking about steps I will make to research this question.

Some questions that I will be further diving into will be…                                                          

How does the media portray certain groups and how it can negatively impact the way people think of them? How does herd mentality affect the way we think? How does the media affect the way children think?

How does the media portray certain groups and how it can negatively impact the way people think of them?

The media often portrays certain groups such as racial and ethnic minorities and people with disabilities in a negative light that contributes to harmful stereotypes about them. This portrayals do not only affect how other people see them, they also affect how they see themselves. These can lead to low self-esteem and can affect the mental health of these groups. I hope that this question can help people recognize these negative portrayals and understand how they affect the groups they portray.

How does mob mentality affect the way we think?

Mob mentality is when one is persuaded to conform to certain views of a large group and often neglects their own individual views. Mob mentality is rooted in the fact that more often than not, we just want to be liked. If you have a certain view, you may worry that the people who disagree with you will not like you. Likewise, when you see a large group of people on social media have the same opinion, you may feel pressured into thinking the same as them without questioning why you would do that. This question is an underlying way to how we think and may even be how you think yourself.

How does the media affect the way children think?

Compared to Generation Alpha, most of us grew up in a less technologically advanced generation as them. When I walk home I can see children in elementary school with phones however, I only got my own until 2 years ago. This new generation has every form of media at the tip of their fingers through their technology. The media can negatively affect children with the lack of supervision on things like body image, creating aggressive and anti-social behaviours, shorten attention span, etc. The things we learn as a child are harder to unlearn as we get older and grow used to them.

    2.  Here are 5 sources that are gonna be useful to my research

https://web.archive.org/web/20210303220008/http://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/397/sheep_in_human_clothing__scientists_reveal_our_flock_mentality

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200512-how-the-news-changes-the-way-we-think-and-behave

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02435/full

https://online.king.edu/news/psychology-of-social-media/

https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2212/Media-Influence-on-Children.html

3. Who does my question impact?

Every single person I know consumes some form of media daily, it’s what makes up most of our entertainment. To books, movies, social media, TV shows, they’re every where in our lives. With the effects of the epidemic, we were told to stay in our homes. This created a surge in the time we spent consuming media daily, especially social media. In a study, 61% of Generation Z and Millennials consumed more content on social media during July to October 2020. The percentage of consumption was predicted to increase in 2021 with the average increasing by 9 minutes. Therefore, with media consumption becoming higher with each year and media being at the tip of our fingers, it impacts a whole lot of people. I hope with my project I can help people understand how the media helps us form opinions and even question some of their on views.

Aleah V.