Television and movies are the most common and well
distributed information delivery channels and have many ways to influence
people’s behavior. Among many methods, I believe the
following two are the main ways. One is manipulating the
unconsciousness of people and the other is setting intended agendas.
First, television and movies were commonly used during
the war time to promote propagandas. A
strategies, based on it is A strategy used was that
people unconsciously believe and mimic what they see and listen from TV and
movies. According to the result of a research, conducted by Harvard University, it is
commonly observed that people have a higher
tendency to purchase products that are exposed on TV than those that are not. Also,
there are a lot of reported crime cases that criminals confess they just
followed impressive scenes from movies. All of those phenomena have one thing
in common; that they are the results of manipulating people’s minds.
Therefore it can be said that television and movies affect the behavior of people by controlling (control은 조종하다는 뜻이니, 차라리 influencing / affecting 이런 표현들을 써주세요.) their minds.
Second, people desire to catch up with current trends and express their opinions about
them. The most common way to lead those trends
is to show it through TV and movies. That is why a number of companies sponsor
TV shows and films and gains chances to place their products. Once
products are exposed to the audience, they
spread out by the so called ‘word of mouth’.
This strategy is called setting agendas, one of the most powerful ways to influence people. For example, I have a friend
who is a huge fan of the Conan show. One day he
continuously talked about Chinese foods and Dr. Pepper.
I was curious on why he has had such a high fever on them and asked for the reason. In fact, the day before we met he
watched an episode of the Conan show, which
showed many kinds of Chinese foods and Dr. Pepper
drinking scenes. After hearing it, I could understand why he repeatedly talked about them.
On the whole, I believe I accurately demonstrated my
point of view on this matter with two concrete reasons and evidences. People
are vulnerable to be affected by what they are exposed to, and agendas are very
effectively set by information channels. Those are the ways how television and
movies influence on people’s behavior.