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The Influence of Media in Our Attitudes, Beliefs, Values, and Behaviours

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The Influence of Media in Our Attitudes, Beliefs, Values, and Behaviours
The Influence of Media in our Attitudes, Beliefs, Values, and Behaviours
John William McGoff
Psychology 130
Camosun College

Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role that media plays when influencing our attiudes, beliefs, values, and behaviors. The popular TV show “Criminal Minds”, along with it’s advertisements, has been used as an example. In addition to the role that media plays in making this show desirable to watch, the paper also explores the type of persuasive appeal portrayed by the various advertising methods.

The Influence of Media in our Attitudes, Beliefs, Values, and Behaviours
The role media is a significant force in modern culture, particularly in North America. Psychologists are interested in how communities and individuals respond to a constant bombardment of messages from a multitude of sources including TV, billboards, magazines, movies, and so on. These messages promote not only products, but moods, attitudes, beliefs, and a sense of what is and is not important. For example, media makes possible the concept of celebrity; without the ability of movies, magazines, and news media to reach across thousands of miles, people could not become famous. From what I can recall, only political and business leaders, as well as the few notorious criminals, were famous before mass media. Only in recent times have actors, singers, and other social elites become celebrities. The question this paper attempts to answer is, how does media influence our attitudes, beliefs, values, and behaviours?
There is currently a very popular crime series aired on TV called Criminal Minds. This show is a perfect example of an opportunity to explore how and why we as consumers, find criminal activity, and the authorities methods of dealing with criminal activity, so appealing. Based in Quantico, Virginia, the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) is a subsection of the FBI. Called in by local police departments to assist in solving crimes of a serial and/or



Bibliography: There are no sources in the current document. This paper is entirely from my own observations, no references were used.

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