DIGITAL DISTORTION

DIFFERENT FEATURES OF MEDIA MANIPULATION

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Communication Distortion for Students


“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place”
– George Bernard Shaw

It’s estimated that 800 million people worldwide are using Facebook and connecting through Twitter, Instagram, and other social media sites. The majority of users on such sites being students and young adults. These such users have become a heavily researched subject over the past few years. The topics popularity and innovation allow communication to grow at a rapid rate. This addictive high of social media and the compulsion to keep all platforms up to date have combined to make it harder than ever for today’s students to create their own unaffected online persona.

While studies haven’t revealed social media to be the societal evil that some have played it up as being, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t influencing our lives. For example, it affects how we as students act and think, often in ways you may not even realize. This is causing some very real effects on us and the way in which we communicate with one another. This is alongside being manipulated into believing and seeing content that isn’t real or appropriate for our self-esteem.
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Cookies: A Constant Manipulation

“Until you realize how easily it is for your mind to be manipulated. You remain the puppet of someone else’s game.”   ―  Evita Ochel

When you visit a website that uses cookies for the first time, a cookie is downloaded onto the device. This is whether it be a laptop, tablet or smartphone. The next time you visit that site, it checks to see if you share relevant cookies. The information contained in that cookie is then sent back to the site reflecting a similarity.The site will then register that you have been there before. It may possibly use this to tailor what pops up on the screen such as advertisements.

Cookies are used to track a user’s behavior online. These third party cookies provide marketers with your private information (without your knowledge). This can benefit online users as products which appeal to their consumer needs. They are revealed to the user without the need to search. But is this considered a persistent form of ‘virus” and an invasion of our privacy? Do we really want to see what appears?…

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Distorted Social Media: Do people really live like this?

TRAVELLING – IT LEAVES YOU SPEECHLESS, THEN TURNS YOU INTO A STORYTELLER.”  – IBN BATTUTA
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With the online realm of Instagram ever growing, do we really know the people posting? It’s most likely that there is the world behind the camera that we as followers are completely unaware of. Social media can make us as users feeling more emotionally connected to one another through the content in which others post. You share interests, maybe hobbies with someone and there is an instant connection between you even if you’re complete strangers in reality. But how much can we really tell from a picture posted?

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Why are we allowing social media to define us?

We all watch and are constantly being watched in media. We form our own identities, our own personas, having as a guiding principle the opinion, the values, the (gossiping) interests of others.”    –Nicos Hadjicost

When you’re obsessed with social media and keeping it updated, there is a possibility of losing touch with the actual world around you because the fine line between online and reality becomes so faint. We spent so much time cultivating appearances and relationships online that we allow them to influence the way in which we present ourselves. Together, we all influence one another to create this online universe where everything so perfect when in reality it’s oh so different. Sadly, we have become a culture in which users are obsessed with presenting a curated image in which we are showing friends or the public a happier or more accomplished version of ourselves. From updating Facebook statuses to posting Snapchats with the newest filters, social media has, in fact, made us all such anti-social beings….

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The Media: Mind Readers or Mind Feeders?

There’s a danger in the internet and social media. The notion that information is enough, that more and more information is enough, that you don’t have to think, you just have to get more information – gets very dangerous.”    -Edward de Bono

Mass media is a major determinant of our national discourse. Media institutions select what news to report, what issues to cover and what images we see. Therefore they manipulate, distort and affect what we as the public sees as important. These media outlets use cropped angles, staged imagery and bias commentary to sway public opinion.

They state that their platforms are designed to tell the public what they need to know and want to see, instead they tell us their preference. What to think about images, world issues and stories that affect a significant portion of society. From news to television shows, social media to movies, an image of what the world should supposedly be like is implanted into the subconscious mind of the viewer….

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