Magical Indeed!

That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.  

 - Doris Lessing

The visit to a small village (a displaced people’s rehabilitation village for that matter) was waiting with a plethora of knowledge and learning for us to go there and devour it. It was one of those trips which gives a better understanding about people and their surroundings. It can sometimes prove to be a boon in disguise that teaches us to appreciate whatever we have. 

How many of us wouldn’t marvel at the beauty of a luxurious place, a dainty bungalow in a rich locale with well-heeled picturesque décor? We often root our wishes for a dream home or an aspired status of living based on the ones we see all around us thanks to the many forms of mass media that keep bombarding us with images of lifestyles, ranging from Television soaps(where heavily embellished settings are a given!) to glossy magazines that give you options to change the colour of the paint for the coming season because the previous one is ‘outdated’ now and you must be updated with the latest colours, textures and fabrics or else you are not a good homemaker. No doubt it does give options for people who are looking out for changing the styles of their mundane homes, but sometimes it does affect one's mind in such a way that it makes him/her feel that if the house is not the way they showcase in magazines and TV Channels then maybe he/she is doing it wrong and maybe he/she needs to work better on decorating the house. 

This is the framework of the Hypodermic Needle Theory or the Magic Bullet Theory which suggests that the media has a direct impact on the minds of the people. Media messages are injected straight into a passive audience which is immediately influenced by the message. Since they do not have any other source of information, people end up thinking what they are told to.

New assessments that the Hypodermic Needle Theory was not accurate came out of election studies in "The People's Choice," (Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet) conducted during the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940 It was revealed that the audience was not entirely passive and that many people do remain untouched by the various propaganda that is often undertaken by the mass media.

The best example of this can be seen in the following picture – 

Curtained Cocoon

Ofcourse, they were not the ones with much money to refurbish their houses every now and then but much more could be done to make it look better which was in their hands. But that was not of prime importance to them. They seemed to me like a group that was not influenced much by the starry set-ups of the daily soaps or by the rich studio set-ups used in movies.

If I go on speaking about them, then probably I would have to keep speaking for a long time. This journey to the village was like being witness to a demonstration of media-theories in a real life setting.

I would always be indebted to the organizers of the trip as well as to the one because of whom I got a chance to finally segregate so many of my observations in one place .

 

Thank you.

-Divya Nambiar