Oschuari Carrillo-Fuentes

History 170 T/TH

December 15, 2015

Entertainment media is one of the largest aspects of the growing industry. Television,
movies, music, magazines, sports, are all things that revolve the average person 24/7 in our
society. Because of the impact they have on our everyday life they start to affect the way we
think and the way we see things. The affect they have on public opinion is so renounced that
people are now fighting to get correct interpretations on certain aspects. The more we revolve
ourselves around something the more we start to understand it and capture it, so our mind
automatically starts to form an opinion. When it comes to entertainment the media has a big
influence on public opinion because, it portrays the norms of a society when reality is not
concurrent, it justifies certain actions and lifestyles misleading to the audience involved, and it
affects the way you start to think about a certain topic.
Television shows from reality to dramatic to comedy all have the same ideal; which is
express a life that in reality one does not live. People watch television shows to escape the life
they live and open their minds to the situations occurring in these specific characters lives. The
more people start to watch television the more they start to confuse their own thoughts and they
start to believe the ideas that these shows are portraying. Your mind starts to interpret these ideas
and you categorize them into what you find acceptable. Great controversy arose when very
popular TV shows such as Greys Anatomy, House, and ERs negative portrayal of nurses
actually started to affect public perception and its also lead to a shortage in nurses. With a total of
about 50 million views combined a week these three shows are some of the most viewed in
America. These three medical dramas focus more on the heroic aspect of the physician

overshadowing nurses and other health care professionals. These shows undermine, insult, and
misrepresent the lives of registered nurses everyday.(1) Foxs medical drama house nurses are
barley background noise.(2) Greys Anatomy has more nurse characters but are only backdrop,
most of them are old and less attractive than the main physician characters.(3) On ER the
representation is more realistic. Nurses can be seen in the operating rooms and interacting with
patients.(4) The show's physician-centric approach has led to a continuing failure to give
viewers an accurate or complete picture of the vital role nursing actually plays in modern health
care.(5) These shows are making nurses look incompetent and needless. This has been affecting
the shortage in nurses because people believe the interpretation the media portrays; this doesnt
just occur with nurses but it occurs with everyday ideals that people believe that are being
portrayed wrongly. The world of television directly influences how people see the "real" world
around them. So says George Gerbner, a noted cultural critic and communications scholar.(6)
Another thing that these shows are doing is make you believe and expect a certain thing from the
job that isnt close to the real aspects of the job. On the one hand, the tube so over represents
and glamorizes the elite occupations that it sets up unrealistic expectations among those who
must deal with them in actuality. (7) The way the media portrays normal life is so far from
reality that it is affecting the opinions and these people.
As as society we allow certain justification to what we think is right and what we agree
with and what we think is wrong. If we inspect the life of the famous family, the KardashianJenner we will notice that the family has become richer and more powerful because of the
scandals they create. If we go back to the beginning of the familys fame, we will see that this
large amount of fame came from inappropriate acts Kim Kardashian performed and was recorded
doing. Because of this publication she started to receive more modeling calls and she also started

to receive more vulgar photo-shoots because of what had been released. The more she accepted
the more in the limelight she was, as well as her family. Their life is so scandalizing that she got
the opportunity to get her own reality TV-show, since the start of the show in 2007, the show still
airs and has millions and viewers. Although many people admire Kim for who she is and the
woman shes become many people still think that her actions should not be justified and her
lifestyle should not be acceptable. Dr Helen Wright, the head of St Marys School, an exclusive
girls boarding school in Wiltshire said, The hottest woman in the world? Really? Is this what
we want our young people to aim for? Is this what success should mean to them?(8) when
shown that Kim was on the cover of a magazine. She also accused Kim of making her fortune
from meanness, scandal and boundary-less living. Although the media does justify the actions of
certain actions and lifestyles, not everyones opinion is affected in a positive way. Here we can
see how Kims life is portrayed so much by the media that she was attacked by the paparazzi. (9)

Many aspects of the media affect the way you view a topic because they influence you
with glamor or news or scandal or authority. As the common folk that we are we take all these

things into consideration when we want to make a decision. We let it affect our opinion and our
way of thought. This would be fine, if the media influenced us by pumping us full of uplifting
and motivational stories of human achievement, peace and happiness. If we were told that the
world is a fun and exciting place, where people can achieve anything they put their mind to and
do whatever they want with their lives, then these messages hitting our subconscious would
create a naturally positive, productive and happy state of mind. (10) Our brains work by
absorbing everything we see, hear, and experience. If we are people are so wrapped up by the
entertainment business then all the choices we make in out life will be affected by it. This is an

image of our brain at work and how its wired. (11)

The media will forever be part of our everyday life. The entertainment system is a large
industry that only keeps getting larger and larger. Music, movies, tvshows, sports, are forms of
entertainment we will encounter everyday, it influences your subconscious even when you dont
realize it. Entertainment media will always have a big influence on public opinion because, it

portrays the norms of society when reality is not concurrent, it justifies certain, actions and
lifestyles misleading to the audience involved, and it affects the way you think about a certain
topic.

Endnotes

1. Bishop, Jacquelyn. "The Negative Images of Nursing Portrayed on Greys Anatomy,

House and ER and Its Effect on Public Perception and the Contemporary Nursing
Shortage." December 18, 2009. Accessed December 10, 2015.
http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1002&context=student_scholarship.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Waters, Harry. "Life According to TV." Accessed December 10, 2015.
http://www.csudh.edu/ccauthen/110F12/waters.pdf.
7. Ibid.
8. MailOnline, Claudia. "A Marriage That Lasted 72 Days. A TV Career Built on a Sex
Tape. And a Derriere a Million times Bigger than Her Brain. CLAUDIA CONNELL
Explains Why This Woman Is the 'world's Worst Role Model'" Mail Online. June 22,
2012. Accessed December 10, 2015. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article2162413/Why-Kim-Kardashian-worlds-worst-role-model-CLAUDIA-CONNELL.html.
9. Monde, Chidera. "Kim Kardashian Attacked at Paris Fashion Week Event." NY Daily
News. September 25, 2014. Accessed December 10, 2015.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/kim-kardashian-attacked-parisfashion-week-carpet-article-1.1952644.
10. "Media Influence - How Influenced Are You?" Media Influence - How Influenced Are
You? Accessed December 10, 2015. http://www.personal-developmentplanet.com/media-influence.html.
11. Conrad, Sean. "This Is Your Brian... This Is Your Brain at Work." September 16, 2011.
Accessed December 10, 2015. http://www.halogensoftware.com/blog/this-is-your-brainthis-is-your-brain-at-work.

Bibliography
Bishop, Jacquelyn. "The Negative Images of Nursing Portrayed on Greys Anatomy, House and
ER and Its Effect on Public Perception and the Contemporary Nursing Shortage." December 18,
2009. Accessed December 10, 2015. http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1002&context=student_scholarship.
Conrad, Sean. "This Is Your Brian... This Is Your Brain at Work." September 16, 2011. Accessed
December 10, 2015. http://www.halogensoftware.com/blog/this-is-your-brain-this-is-your-brainat-work.
MailOnline, Claudia. "A Marriage That Lasted 72 Days. A TV Career Built on a Sex Tape. And a
Derriere a Million times Bigger than Her Brain. CLAUDIA CONNELL Explains Why This
Woman Is the 'world's Worst Role Model'" Mail Online. June 22, 2012. Accessed December 10,
2015. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2162413/Why-Kim-Kardashian-worlds-worstrole-model-CLAUDIA-CONNELL.html.
"Media Influence - How Influenced Are You?" Media Influence - How Influenced Are You?
Accessed December 10, 2015. http://www.personal-development-planet.com/mediainfluence.html.
Monde, Chidera. "Kim Kardashian Attacked at Paris Fashion Week Event." NY Daily News.
September 25, 2014. Accessed December 10, 2015.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/kim-kardashian-attacked-paris-fashion-weekcarpet-article-1.1952644.
Waters, Harry. "Life According to TV." Accessed December 10, 2015.
http://www.csudh.edu/ccauthen/110F12/waters.pdf.