Analysis Of Brooke Gladstone's The Influencing Machine

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Media, the plural form of medium, describes various ways in which we communicate in society. A phone call, email, radio, computer, news on TV, etc. are all forms of media. In our society today, the media plays a significantly large role in influencing society negatively, twisting one’s perspective of the truth. In author Brooke Gladstone’s, The Influencing Machine, she discusses how media is looked at as an “influencing machine,” that’s controlling the mind of its viewers. Throughout the reading, Gladstone guides her readers through perceptions of media and how it influences them to get readers to understand the truth about media and the manipulation behind it. In The Influencing Machine, Gladstone argues that the media focuses on putting out news that remotely threatens viewers. In the text she states, “emphasizing bad news is good business…world [seems] more dangerous…actually is.” It is good business considering that it keeps the audience on their toes and makes them think about what is going on. When you visit news sites or look at news stations …show more content…

If you’ve ever noticed, people tend to make comments about the media and the things they put out all the time, “the media is full of crap,” “everything they put out for us to view are lies,” and many more vulgar remarks, but you also notice that these people never seem to walk away from the media. Instead, they continue to go and constantly check the news sites and their social medias and this is because the media has taken control over them and their minds. Today’s society is extremely wrapped up in the media world, so wrapped up in it that if one even tried to give up on it they wouldn’t be able to. This example shows that media is like a drug and society is addicted to it, which further supports the irony Gladstone speaks

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