With the media being more visual, especially nowadays, the 2000s generation, are experiencing a new version of creating their self. Or we can say finding their own being. I will examine the process of individuation.
The main questions are of course:
· What is self?
· How do we create our beings?
· Do we find ourselves or create them?
· Is this process in under our control?
One approach can’t explain those questions. Some multidisciplinary studies can be done. Those questions are related to psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, sociology, behavioral sciences and more.
Let’s look at our topic from some different perspectives.
Psychology: We, as human beings, have tendency to learn from our senses. From the things we see, hear, touch etc… and copy behavior patterns from environment. Of course, there are numerous effects of series on our psychology and creation of our reality. One of them is that we setting references points to our lives due to ‘lives we have watched’. Learning meanings of the words like ‘powerful’, ‘sexy’, ‘cool’, ‘loser’… and making comparisons with non real reference points.
Philosophy: Plato’s cave argument, is most relevant with our discussion. If, especially teens tend to learn from screens, who will be able to separate the reality and its representation? Like the people inside the cave, in Plato’s discourse, experiencing created reality like full of images through the wall, media has parallel effects.
Phenomenology: Alfred Schütz’s ‘phenomenological sociology’ is a key understanding for discussions about social interactions, individuals and effects. He examines the individualization process with fundamentals of phenomenology and examination of individual experiences in social life. How ‘real’ is behavior? Do we create some type of ‘behavior’ or we have them?
Sociology: What kind of behavioral changes observed in society due to mainstream series. Social interactions are affected by visual input? People tend to attach importance and value to luxury, celebrity, beauty. Series full of under one concept and stereotype, also affect our relationships. Ethnomethodology and N-ethnomethodology searches for society’s norms, unsaid rules and interactions.
Behavioral Science: When we look at the behavioral types that shapes our entire social and cultural life, we learn them fundamentally with three ways: from our family, from our neighborhood, digital Media ex: Tv Shows, Movies, Social Media nowadays. Due to my cultural observations, I would like to share two examples of how series change our behavior. In 1970–80s, American films and series were so popular in Istanbul, Turkey (of course higher-middle class). Then Turkish producers left their own Turkish style dramatic, love full, family movie style; and started making American-style productions. Where women were the chic- housewives, man are rich and powerful, teens were ‘cool’. Dallas type of family was producing in Turkey. Within 20 years, our high-middle class society, become addicted to that type of series and changed their observable behavior. In my daily life I can also observe the fundamental interaction changes.
Series also unconsciously sets some kind of reference points inside our minds.
It is now so easy to make people behave in some way by placing it into the series.
If you’re a firm that produces Gin, and want to increase buying, and win market against whiskey; place your product into a scene, which a nerd loser drinking whiskey and the popular guy has his Gin-Tonic.
Without examined mind, -and people being more relaxed and paying less attention while watching Tv- you will get it as drinking Gin is better than drinking whiskey.
