This wonderful film is too closely related to my major, so I took the strange title "The Outside World and the Picture of the Mind". This point of view comes from the book "Public Opinion" by American scholar Lippman. As for the latter part of the title, let me give you the bottom line: I haven't seen Haruki Murakami, please take it literally. The following content is relatively boring, because I am not a person who can be very good by retelling the plot.
The world of Truman, the protagonist in the film, is a huge studio. The director who adopted him gave an unedited live broadcast of his life to a television audience. He didn't know anything about it... When Truman and the actor who played his wife got married and took wedding photos, the two embraced intimately, but the wife smiled triumphantly at the camera and made a "success" gesture. From this, a proposition can be derived: hugging is a strange gesture - two people are so close, but they can't see each other's faces!
Truman's life trajectory is moving forward according to the director's careful arrangement - what a terrible "world"!
Goffman's book "Frame Analysis" proposes frame theory. He believes that for mass media, the frame is a kind of meaning-building activity, and in the social system, the news frame is the result of the interaction of news sources, social situations, news workers and other factors. Some scholars believe that the definition of framework can be divided into two categories, one refers to the boundary, which also includes the meaning of trade-off, representing the scope of the material; the other is the framework - people use this to explain the external world. Event material is selected and highlighted as news. So understandably, any information in the media is biased. And this bias is determined by the media, not the events themselves. This prejudice is also unavoidable when the event is "diffuse" to the public via the mass media, and the image of the event is really just the image of the event in the media.
With the advent of mass newspapers and electronic media, the function of journalism began to decline. The focus of communication has obviously shifted from reporting, criticizing, and forming opinions to reporting, explaining, and reflecting opinions, that is, from journalism to communication. All attention was paid to sensational news and insider reports.
What is the role of mass media in scientific communication, we must first understand its function in general communication. Generally speaking, media has two functions: explicit function and implicit function.
Explicit functions are mainly achieved through agenda-setting (agenda-setting, also translated as agenda-setting). Simply put, agenda setting refers to the media's intentional or unintentional construction of topics for public discussion and attention. This idea was first put forward by political scientist Bernard Cohen, who believes that the media is very difficult to make people think at this point, but very effective at this point of making people think. The main implication of the agenda setting theory is that the mass media increase the amount of coverage of certain issues, or highlight certain issues, which can affect the audience's perception of the importance of these issues. Agenda-setting theory argues that what the news media provides to the public is not the world as it is, but the news media's agenda—a selective coverage of what's happening in the world.
Related to this is an analysis of the implicit function of mass media. Adoni and Maini proposed a three-part model for the construction process of social reality: objective reality (reality consisting of facts, existing outside the individual and experienced as the objective world), symbolic reality ( Any form of symbolic expression to the objective outside world, including artistic, literary, and media content) and subjective reality (reality constructed by individuals on the basis of objective and symbolic reality). The mass media has changed people's understanding of reality, or more generally, people's views of the world, through symbolic reality. This is not the same effect as a change in attitude, a change in behavior, or a change in knowledge.
The idea of the social construction of media was first proposed by Lippmann, who proposed the concept of "the world outside and the pictures in our heads". He believes that the world outside our body is becoming more and more vast and complex, and it is difficult to directly perceive it, grasp it, and understand it. This requires the construction of an indirect environment that can be felt and suitable for experience, which is the so-called mental picture. This idea is actually similar to the cave metaphor put forward by Plato in "Republic". The implicit function of the media is to construct a mental picture—the media environment. Some communication scholars even declared: "We can't see the world itself, but the world that has been chosen and explained by the mass media."
Truman in the movie finally broke through the illusion and came to the end of "Truman's world", successfully planning and The director who alienated Truman's life trembled and spoke. At this time, he no longer paid attention to the ratings. His complex feelings for Truman contained the love of father and son. He persuaded Truman not to leave, because the outside world was even more unreal and perilous. However, Truman did not miss the "world within the door", and he stepped out with a longing for the future and a desire for freedom. Before leaving, he made his signature smile and his signature greeting to the camera and the audience for the last time, and then he left with no attachment.
When Truman left, even the people in front of the screen applauded him. However, in fairy tales, the prince and the princess always lived a happy life. No one thought about what if the prince did not like to wash his feet and the princess was obsessed with cleanliness. manage? Outside of "Truman's World", is there the truth he is looking for?
So we know that "the place you must go in your life" is Dali, eat white and black when you have a cold, Duo Cai colored cotton underwear feels so good when you touch it, Rejoice is so confident; every little girl who has experienced emotional twists and turns Old women regard themselves as "Sanshun"; every man who looks like a dog likes to ask you vaguely what perfume you use, but they don't know if you can distinguish between Givenchy and "Liu Shen"?
After the tentacles of the media have penetrated into every corner of life, are you looking for the real world? Is there a broader fantasy beyond the "Truman World"? I don't know, I pessimistically believe that the outside world is no more real than Truman's world, even, it is full of malicious deceit and filth.
Could the end of the world be a grim wonderland?
“Good morning, good afternoon and good night!”
View more about The Truman Show reviews
