The Looking Glass

         It is undeniable that media affects society; therefore, social psychology, which deals with society and its movements, is dependent and interested in the information gathered by or pertaining to media. This dependence in media can be attributed to the inherent need for copious research in social psychology, while the interest of this field is mainly due to the way media affects the society it is studying, not to mention how media has affected the way by which this society is studied.
         Wallbott’s article on the relationship between media and social psychology strengthens the notion that media indeed has a great effect in the many aspects concerning this field. One forms the impression of media as a viewing glass after contemplating on the entirety of the article. It can be paralleled to a glass because a glass lets one see things in different ways depending on the quality of the glass. It can be concave, convex or flat, transparent or translucent; and this difference in shape distorts or enhances the way one views certain things. It is very much like media that either emphasizes, underestimates or merely present something to its receiver.
         Media can be a transparent glass that aims to present unadulterated data in its purest form as much as it can. It can also be translucent. It presents facts but does so selectively so that there is a distinct blur when one perceives the data. It can be concave or convex, depending on whether one wants to emphasize something such as a politician’s good graces or when one wants to underestimate something such as the rising inflation rate of the country. The media is a glass that shapes society’s perception in one way or another. Even the escapist who prefers his solitude has an indirect contact with the outside world because of the media around him, books, magazines, radios, TVs…
         This effect on perception is mainly the reason why media strongly linked to social psychology. Media not only allows society to be society by its means of connecting people but it also determines how this society reacts and regards its constituents as well as its external environment. This is important because this allows one to explain why society is the way it is now. Of course, media only has so much mechanisms and forms such as how angles can influence how people see others, either in a negative or positive way; how fiction and non-fiction in television translates to peoples’ personal lives; how violence is presented and how such presentation affects people; etc.
         One can mention several different ideas and theories from Wallbott’s article but it only comes back to one generalization- media affects people. The article in itself, a form of media, has affected the way people see media itself. It might be bad or good but in the end, it is the way people utilize this media that matters. Media is a mere medium, a sort of bridge for information. The ideas going through it will initially come still from people. So, in the root of it all, it is still the individual who is responsible for the way the world is and will be.