unit 9How Mass Media Affect Our Perception of Reality

Unit 9

"Mass media" is a deceptively simple term encompassing a countless array of institutions and

individuals differing in purpose, scope, method, and cultural context. Mass media include all

forms of information communicated to large groups of people, from a handmade sign to an

international news network.. Being very pervasive in industrialized countries,they have a powerful

impact onhow those populations view the world,It is only the most local and personal events that

are experienced first-hand,Those in the larger community ,the state ,the country, and the rest of the

world are experienced through the eyes of journalists

“大众传媒”这个词具有迷惑性，它看似简单，实际上包含了不计其数的一系列机构和个

体，这些机构和个体有着不同的宗旨、范围、方式和文化背景。大众传媒包括所有达到大量

群众的信息，不管是何种形式—从手制的牌匾到国际化的新闻网络。在工业化国家，大众传

媒无处不在，它强有力地影响着人们对世界的看法。人们只能亲身经历当地的和个人化的事

件，而要了解大一点的社区、州、国家和世界的另一些地方，人们就得通过新闻工作者的眼

睛了

。

How Mass Media Affect Our Perception of Reality

before September 11

th

,2001,The U.S. mass media were focused on sports, the lives of

various celebrities, and a Congressman's relationship with a missing staff

everything changed. A skyscraper complex, militant group, and distant country suddenly

dominated mass media as people sought to understand what had occurred, what to make of

passenger planes turned into missiles, and who to trust for credible information on terrorism.

1.在2001年9月11日之前，美国媒体的主要焦点是体育赛事，名人轶事，以及某个国会议

员与一个失踪职员的关系等。然而，9"11之后一切都发生了改变。一幢摩天大楼，一个武

装组织，以及一个遥远的国家突然之间主宰了大众传媒。这是因为美国民众迫切想要弄明白:

到底发生了什么事，是什么让载人的客机变成了导弹，谁提供的有关恐怖主义的情报才是真

实可信的。

dramatic shift in media emphasis is an excellent recent example of how mass media

help to shape our shifting concerns and beliefs. Why could we have been so concerned about

celebrity lifestyles one week and so unconcerned the next? Why such a prior general disinterest in

an already notorious terrorist group, and in festering Middle East countries and cultures? Why the

sudden media shift from a Regularly-Criticized-President to an Esteemed-Leader-President?

2.这次媒体焦点的巨大转变是近期的一个好例子，它展示了大众传媒如何帮助我们形成迅速

变化的关注点和信念。为什么我们在这一周里对名人的生活方式如此关注，而到了下一周却

又对此变得漠不关心?为什么公众以前对一个早已臭名昭著的恐怖组织、对日益衰败的中东

国家和文化都普遍缺乏兴趣?为什么媒体以前对我们的总统总是批评，而突然之间又将其誉

为一位令人尊敬的、勇于承担责任的总统?

ic advances in mass communication and transportation during the past 50 years have

truly created a global village, a mass society. Things occurring anywhere are now quickly known

everywhere. Mass media both overwhelm us with information, and help us to sort it out.

3.大众传媒和交通运输在过去50年里迅猛发展，把世界真真切切地变成了一个地球村，一

个大众社会。如今，任何地方发生的事件都会迅速地传播到世界的每一个角落。大众传媒不

仅用铺天盖地的信息将我们淹没，也帮助我们对这些信息加以分类整理。

media seek a broad audience for a typically narrow (and often biased) message that's

typically embedded in entertainment or useful information/opinion. Mass media communication is

expensive, so it's funded through participant admissions/subscriptions and contributions, or

through sponsorships and advertising (or a combination of these funding sources). It thus must

provide something sufficiently valuable to its potential audience to gain that necessary financial

support.

4.大众传媒为典型的受众面非常狭小的(通常带有偏见)讯息寻求广泛的受众群体，这类讯息

通常嵌于娱乐或有用的信息/观点中。大众传媒的成本极其昂贵，所以它通过加盟许可/订阅

和捐款来获取资金，或者通过赞助和广告(或者多管齐下)来获取资金。因此，它必须为潜在

的受众提供足够有价值的讯息，以此获得必要的资金支持。

mass media have a “slow news day” problem. They have pages and time to fill, even

when events are mundane. A common solution at such times is to focus on sports and the lives of

celebrities (people who are well known for their well-knownness, as Andy Warhol once put it), or

to take something relatively trivial and expand it into something important. Think back to the

pre-September 11 focus.

5.大众传媒总会遇到这样一个问题—某一天没有任何值得报道的新闻。然而，即使这一天的

事件统统乏善可陈，媒体也得想法把版面填满，或把播出时间打发完。当此类情况发生时，

通常的解决办法是将新闻报道的重点放在体育赛事和名人轶事上(如安迪·沃霍尔所言:“名人

因众所周知而有名”)，或者在某个比较琐碎的小事情_L大做文章，将其包装成重要的大事

件。回想9"11事件发生前的热点，正是如此。

media encompass much more than print and electronic forms of communication (such

as magazines and television). Sporting events, churches, museums, theme parks, political

campaigns, catalogs, and concerts are also forms of mass media, although many people consider

them to be something other than mass media.

6.大众传媒并不局限于印刷媒介和电子通信媒介等形式(如杂志和电视)。尽管许多人不认同，

但体育赛事、教堂、博物馆、主题公园、政治活动、目录单和音乐会也是大众传播的媒介形

式。

U.S. Constitution underscores the importance of the open communication of information

and opinion in our democratic society by granting considerable self-direction to the various forms

of mass media. A marketplace mentality suggests that useful information and opinions will spread,

and the useless will disappear. A free-speech society can thus tolerate instances of false

information, stupidity, and vulgarity - assuming them to be a temporary irritant.

7.美国宪法赋予各种形式的大众媒体极大的自主权，以此来强调信息和想法的公开交流对民

主社会的重要性。从一种市场心态来看，有用的信息和想法将会得到传播，而无用的终将消

失。因此，一个言论自由的社会能够容忍虚假信息、愚蠢和庸俗—假设这些东西仅会扰人一

时，不会长久。

media are very competitive. Folks today have many options about the TV and films they

watch, the books and magazines they read, the cultural and religious institutions they attend. The

challenge for a media program is to get and hold the attention of mass media shoppers -- who are

channel surfing, browsing at a bookstore, checking out various churches.

8.大众传媒间的竞争很激烈。今天的人们对于所看的电视和电影、所读的书籍和杂志、所参

加的文化和宗教机构都有很多的选择。媒体面临的挑战是如何吸引并抓住大众传媒消费者的

注意力~一地们正在来回调换频道，在书店翻阅书籍，在教堂之间穿梭。

a stimulating competitive environment, a media program must score quickly. Since you're

still reading this column, the title and opening paragraph must have sufficiently caught your

attention so you continued. Emotional arousal drives attention, which drives learning and

conscious behavior - so it's important for mass media programmers to understand and present

content that will emotionally arouse potential participants.

9.在竞争激烈的环境下，一个媒体策划必须具备快速得分的能力。既然你仍在阅读这个专栏

的文章，一定是文章的标题和开头充分吸引了你的注意力，这样你才会继续读下去。调动情

感能够激发注意力，进而激发学习和自觉行为。因此，对大众传媒策划人来说，一件非常重

要的事就是了解并报道能够激发潜在受众情感的新闻事件。

basic biological challenge is to survive and get into the gene pool, so avoiding danger

and taking advantage of opportunities for eating/shelter/mating are cognitively important. Events

related to these needs are inherently emotionally arousing, and successful mass media

programmers understand this.

10.我们生理上的基本挑战是生存和繁衍后代，因此，躲避危险、利用各种机会来吃、住、

交配被认为是头等大事。与这些需求相关的事件本身就能激发起人的情感。成功的大众传媒

策划人都了解这一点。

complain about the amount of violence, sexuality, and commercialism in mass media,

but let's look at the issue from a TV programmer's perspective. Channel surfers will give a TV

program only a few seconds before moving to the next channel, so programmers focus on content

sequences with a high probability for emotional arousal - and program content and commercials

related to violence, sexuality, and food/shelter do attract and hold attention. Consider the recent

media focus on terrorist violence, the Taliban treatment of women, the food/shelter problems now

facing the families of those killed and Afghani refugees -- and the resultant widespread outpouring

of anger and support.

11.人们抱怨大众传媒中充斥着大量的暴力、性和商业行为，但是让我们从一位电视编导的

角度来看待该问题。浏览电视频道的观众关注一个电视节目的时间只有数秒钟，然后就会转

到另一个频道去。因此，电视编导们关注于内容的顺序，尽可能地激发观众的情感—而与暴

力、性、食物/住房有关的节目和广告的确能吸引并抓住观众的注意力。想想最近的新闻焦

点:恐怖主义的暴力，塔利班如何对待妇女，死亡人员家属及阿富汗难民所面临的食物l住

房问题—以及由此进发出的怒潮和大规模的声援行动。

rly, other forms of mass media, from churches to sporting events explicitly or

implicitly include these attention-getters in their programming (consider hell-and-brimstone and

sexual purity sermons and the appeal of church suppers; or football violence, cheerleaders, and

drinks-and-chips).

12.同样，其他形式的大众媒体，不管是教会还是体育赛事，均或明里暗里地包含了这些吸

引眼球的东西(例如炼狱般的折磨、关于性纯洁的布道以及诱人的教会晚餐等。或足球暴力、

啦啦队、饮料和炸薯条等)。

media thus exploit areas of strong emotional arousal to help shape our knowledge and

opinions - such as with our rapid media-driven increase in knowledge of the terrorists and their

victims. Osama bin Laden had previously been a peripheral media figure. The several thousands

victims had been invisible office workers until many newspapers published a series of anecdotal

obituaries of all of them. Police and firefighters across the country were suddenly elevated in

esteem - as was New York's mayor, severely criticized prior to September 11. A nation already

beset by a financial downturn had to become emotionally aroused to respond. Charities similarly

use examples of a few individuals in desperate straits to encourage contributions for a much

broader assistance program.

13.因此，大众传媒利用能够唤起强烈情感的信息领域来帮助我们构建知识、形成观点。例

如，媒体的报道让我们短时间内对恐怖分子和受害者方面的知识急剧增加，而在此前，媒体

对本·拉登鲜有报道。在许多报纸发布一系列带点轶事风格的讣告之前，那几千名受害者都

只是些默默无名的上班族，不为我们所知。和纽约市市长一样，全国的警察和消防队员突然

之间受到了前所未有的赞誉，而9"11之前，他们都曾备受苛责。一个深受金融危机困扰的

国家必须将民众的情感调动起来以应对危机。慈善机构同样会以少数几个身处绝境的个人为

例，鼓励人们为范围更广的援助项目捐款。

such manipulative potential over our affective processes, it's important to know who

determines the content of mass media. A relatively small number of large corporations control

much of our nation's print and electronic media (newspapers, publishing houses, radio/TV stations,

cable systems, etc.). Further, a relatively small number of media stars reach vast audiences -

syndicated newspaper columnists and cartoonists, radio and TV talk show hosts, late night TV

comedians. On the other hand, most newspapers include editorial columnists who disagree with

each other, and the Sunday morning political TV shows are characterized more by argument than

agreement. A major media organization that defines itself too narrowly risks reaching a limited

audience when they need a massive audience to survive - so this financial reality forces at least

some balance in programming.

14.鉴于媒体具有操控我们的情感过程的潜力，知晓谁在决定大众传媒的内容非常重要。为

数不多的几家大公司控制着我们国家大部分的印刷和电子媒体(报纸、出版社、广播电台/电

视台、有线电视系统等)。此外，为数不多的一些媒体明星，例如辛迪加报业专栏作家和漫

画家、广播和电视谈话节目主持人、午夜电视喜剧演员，也影响着大量的观众。另一方面，

大多数报纸的社论专栏作家们彼此间的意见都不一致，周日上午的政治电视节目的特点是争

论多于统一。一个主要的媒体机构如果定位过于狭窄，它将会面临观众太少的风险，而要生

存下去就必须拥有大量的观众—因此，经济现实迫使其在编导过程中至少需要一定的平衡。

nes and radio stations are perhaps the most successful narrowly defined mass media

formats - typically being upfront about seeking an audience who shares their narrow perspective

(e.g., Rolling Stone, Gourmet, Ms., The Christian Century, Sports Illustrated - golden oldies, jazz,

classical, rock music radio stations).

15.在狭义的大众传媒形式中，.杂志和广播电台或许是最成功的—其典型做法是直接地迎合

那些与其旨趣相投的受众(例如，《滚石》、《美食》、《女士》、《基督教世纪》、《体育画报》、

金曲音乐台、爵士乐台、古典乐台、摇滚音乐台等)。

Computer Age has revolutionized mass media. The Internet allows the universal

inexpensive publication of ideas, whether it's an email message sent to everyone on one's list or a

narrowly-defined website that's available to anyone. Desktop publication and advances in

duplicating technology have reduced the need for authors to go through a publisher.

16.计算机时代彻底改变了大众传媒。互联网让所有人无需太多花费即可发布个人观点，无

论是以电子邮件的形式送达邮件地址簿里的每一个人，还是发布到一个人人都可浏览的局域

网。桌面出版和复印技术的发展使得作者无需通过出版商即可出版自己的作品。

it's a cultural paradox. We're simultaneously experiencing the centralization of influence

in corporate mass media and the rapid expansion of populist mass media. Both pose dangers and

opportunities.

17.因此，这就构成了一个文化悖论。我们一方面在见证传媒业日趋集中的势头，而另一方

面又在经历着大众传媒向平民化方向迅猛发展的大潮。这两者都蕴含着危险和机遇。