Media reality

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Media reality describes in journalism theories and media studies the representation of reality in the media . By observing reality, selecting those excerpts that they deem relevant, and presenting these excerpts to the audience, media construct a specific media reality. The media reality thus encompasses the entirety of the texts and images published by the media.

Due to the current influence of technical dissemination media on everyday life , the media are not only a means of acquiring knowledge and information, but also a decisive factor for observing events in society , the world and everyday life, and thus jointly responsible for the individual's perception of reality. In this respect, a culture of perception is always linked to the culture of the media . Because the world is no longer primarily experienced through direct physical contact, but largely through medial communication, one speaks of a reduced perception of media reality because, unlike primary reality, one cannot smell or touch it.

A distinction is made between media productions that consciously depict their own reality, such as is the case with feature films , and content that draws on reality that can be experienced, such as documentaries or news programs . The latter nevertheless makes it clear that the media can never completely depict reality, but only capture a section at a specific point in time from a specific perspective.

In The Social Construction of Reality , Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann speak of media reality in the following sense: “In a society shaped by mass media , reality is increasingly that which we construct as reality using media, then believe in it and act and communicate accordingly ". As a result, media, due to their ubiquity, have the potential to replace tangible reality with their own.

literature

Web links

  • Christian Doelker: Media and Reality. In: Medienpädagogischer Forschungsverbund Südwest (mpfs), 2016.

Individual evidence

  1. Christiane Eilders: construction of reality . In: Media A biz Z . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 978-3-531-14417-7 , p. 182 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-531-90261-6_80 ( springer.com [accessed July 2, 2020]).
  2. Peter L. Berger, Thomas Luckmann: The social construction of reality. A theory of the sociology of knowledge. 3. Edition. Frankfurt a. M. 1972, ISBN 3-10-807101-7 , pp. 18 .