【Society, Media and Politics】(3) Media Environment and Communication Foundation

The appearance of the world in the human brain, if viewed from another angle, may be a reflection integration of imagination and inference. For something that has not been experienced, the feeling is only triggered by the impression of the event in the mind. The source of this impression is the mass media. It is the news that they stack up with a pile of fact fragments, and there is a big value framework behind it that people's thinking should be embedded in.

The pictures presented by the media can be replayed and emphasized repeatedly, making people gradually lean on the preset thinking framework. By the time the public accepts this framework as part of their thinking, the virtual becomes reality. The media creates feelings that are more real than reality, and generates various feelings. For example, when seeing reports of fires, the media said that it may be due to rat bites that caused the wires to catch fire. Attention to open flames, circuits, and rodent infestations will increase, anxiety will also increase, and behavior may change.

Because it can create a virtual world, the mass media also has the ability to transcend time and space. The words described or broadcasted pictures can transcend time for people to see what happened yesterday, and it can also virtualize what happened tomorrow; it can transcend space for people to see The war to the other side of the earth can also be a virtual picture of the center of the earth or the universe. Anything that happens in any time and space can be instantly brought to the front of the media, forming a complex political, economic, social and cultural flow of information.

In such a complex information flow situation, the public has been pulled into the framework of "globalization", and whether willing or unwilling, they have become virtual "present" audiences. Therefore, the anxiety caused by all kinds of risks in different places and at different times will affect the public's sense of risk one after another, and the entire public society has become a risk society. The so-called global village is also a risk full of unexploded bombs and a sense of unease everywhere. village. This large community is formed by means of mass communication.

The so-called mass society refers to a society in which most people are integrated, relying on media communication and communication networks to maintain close contact with the various ministries in it. Such a society can also be said to be a media society. All social events, social life, and social relations are highly influenced by the media, which penetrates the society in an all-round way and exerts ubiquitous influence.

But with the rapid and powerful development of technology in the media, it is only natural that there will be excesses. Everyone is a media person to be communicated, and their views on the world, personal way of thinking and personal consciousness are deeply imprinted, which makes people unable to understand the real world without the media. The media sets preset issues, making the possible feeling of risk appear to be "highly likely".

All risks are of unpredictable nature, so the concrete and imaginary direction of risks will depend on the media. But also because of this, the information of the media has considerable risks: firstly, the event actually existed, secondly, it was caused by possible mistakes in the media’s communication, and thirdly, it was caused by the media’s political choices and judgments. Among them, the difference and risk amplification of the third type may be higher.

Risk issues are often political issues. Just because the media can manipulate the construction and shaping of a sense of risk, it is also a wrestling field for manipulating public opinion to create a sense of risk. The media's reasoning, symbolism, and metaphors produce, manipulate, and displace risk. That is to say, in many cases, the sense of risk is virtual and manipulated, which is beyond the imagination of the crowd.

Perhaps the authenticity and seriousness of the risk has never been limited, and it is the media that "makes it real".