T.V./Movie impact on our behaviour/Identity in society

Most of us have grown up watching tv or movies in some shape or form be it in black & white or colour, it has become a major part of our lives so much so that it has an impact on our behaviour and Identity in our lives.

When I’m talking about behaviour I’m not talking about if you watch a show such as 24 where there was killing in most episodes so now because you watched the show you will now go to go out and kill someone. As there have been studies done that prove that is false. The way tv/movies affect our behaviour is in ‘important ways such as shaping our thinking & political preferences, which can have an effect on our cognitive ability. While that is Mostly good it does have a negative aspect to it being less to do with the content and more to do with people having an unhealthy balance by not leaving themselves time to do other enlightening things.

A study done in the New York Times talks about how show can affect people’s cognitive ability in a positive light. The show they used as a case study was the show Sesame street. The show begin in 1969 and was made to help preschool kids improve their literacy and emotional skills. The study was done on a few seasons of the show and the results found that it helped to improve the kid’s over 90% of the time.

One of the biggest ways that films & T.V. influence our behaviour & identity is that it gives us the opportunity to “fantasise & try inspire them about who they want to be”. Look at the following movies/shows from different genres to see the different ways that it can influence us. The first one is the show “Exploration” with Steve Backshaw, who is a naturalist & made this show with the entire reason being to show & inspire the next generation that there are still places on earth that haven’t been explored yet, while also introducing the public to species of animals that are not well known. Through watching a show like this it could inspire people to become more involved with different wildlife groups such as W.W.F. or simple taking an interesting in doing the extreme sports that he overtakes throughout the series, such as abseiling or white water rafting. A second example that somebody could take inspiration in there day to day lives is in the film the wolf of wall street because after everything the main character Jordan does he still landed on his feet so people will be inspired to copy his actions of being arrogant & greedy hoping that they two will be successful.

Of all the movies and tv’s shows nothing has a bigger impact on us than how we consume our news. A good example of this can be found in America, where there is a big divide between Fox news and every-other news outlet. This is because fox news is know to be very conservative and will spread fake news to fit their stories and views. Look below at the two video’s one from Trevor Noah explaining Fox News reaction to the Las Vegas mass shooting at a concert, while the other is a video from CNN.

Seeing the clips above it is really easy to see how people’s behaviour & the belief’s that they have can be influenced by the choice of news they watch. This can really be seen in the opinions of trump as if u only watch fox u would think that trump us the best thing since slice bread and that he is never wrong, this is completely the opposite to what can be heard on any other news media outlet.

As you can see from the reasons above T.V. & Movies do in fact play a role on people’s behaviour & people finding their identity in life.