Research Information System
VI İnternational Conference Communication and Reality, Barcelona, Spain, 1 - 04 June 2011, pp.421-430, (Full Text)
It has been expressed that the media influences social life in different ways. There are varying opinions about magnitude and extent of such influences. Marshall McLuhan is the leading philosopher speaking the most striking words about influence of the media. McLuhan says that “The media has taken possession of our personalities. Mass communication devices affect our personal lives, political and economic lives in such extent that there is no aspect of us that they have not touched or changed”. Setting off with this observation, we face the questions of “To what extent are we manipulated? To what extent are we independent in our preferences? To what extent are we free in the society we live in?” Such questions may be elaborated in the philosophical context. The issue here is that whether the media degenerates societies’ freedom of understanding and comprehension or not. Modern media is thought of as a device that helps people in achieving knowledge freely. Unfortunately that is not the case. We are face to face with a mechanism that is in the effort of determining what we like and how we like.
Media is a reality based on visuality. Its fictiveness eases manipulation of societies. Especially news and magazine broadcasts influence comprehension of masses substantially. Recent emergence of the new discipline called management of perception is caused by the ability of mass communication devices to transform and reconstitute.
Whereas stunning development and progress having occurred in the media especially in the last century increase their influence on people’s decisions, face to face communication having started with the emergence of humanity never loses its importance. Especially in low trust countries like Turkey, it has been observed that reference groups (family, relatives, friends, opinion leaders, etc.) and especially face to face communication with people in these groups keeps its importance during the stage of decision.
In this study, especially the usage patterns of the social media in Turkey and a descriptive method for the effects of it on the human relations will be used. How much time people allocate to the media and personal relations and what meanings have been attributed to them will be examined.