How much of your life is truly affected by television and the media?

Question

How can you be an individual when you are programmed by the system to act a certain way (who are you really?)

Answer 1

I don't watch Television.

The only media contact I have is reading the Newspaper, News on the Radio when I drive to/from work or if something catches my eye on the Yahoo Homepage News when I access the internet... and I rarely believe what I hear or read on those sources unless I hear it confirmed through another source...

Answer 2

i think that is a great question without a definitive answer at this point in time. lots of leading philosophers, esp, some of french, have been grappling with the whole problem of message, subtext, connotation, etc. there is a cool short book called "on television" by bourdieu which actually takes television and media through an interesting analysis.

we are products of environment which includes information from all sources. certainly the relationship between thought and language is direct. culturally we probably are reinforced by everything from the music we listen to, to advertisements, or maybe even national or ethnic identity.

it does not make us any less individual to have all these factors at work. maybe the best analogy would be to seeds of different types,  they all may be dependent on sun, rain, soil, air quality, temperature, and they will be shaped to some extent by these differing things. however, different seeds will grow into different plants.  

Answer 3

TV has not effect on the way I act.  The tv to me is the window to the world.  It is not a boob tube to me.  I learn history,cooking,sports,laugh,learn about animals, learn some new music, see I not that bad off (by comparing my life to reality shows and the life forms on them).  I live my life my way and make not excuses for who I am, what I do, and how I go about do to do living.

Answer 4

Speaking for myself, precious little: I will check the financial channels in early morning to decide my panic index for the day, avoid every speech by GWB as irrelevant, tune into PBS for political exposes and science specials and some Brit programming (Top Gear). Daily Show and Colbert Report for a dash of reality.

Flat-screen HD TV's offer little return on expense: bad programming is the rule, and making the picture bigger does not make it better. I'll keep a 19" tube TV 'till it burns out 8-10 years from now: cable grants me HD already, and it is used 2-3 hours a day, if that.