Presentation is key. As much as we know that content is the most important, the way in which something is presented is almost as, if not equally as important as the actual content.
Top Chef is one of my favorite shows on television. At first, I hated the show, because I didn’t like that I could only see the food and not actually taste it. As much as head chef Tom Collicchio tells me the meat is under seasoned, the beautiful presentation that I see on my TV screen tells me otherwise. And when the chef puts out what looks like orange mush at a high end restaurant, even if Tom says it’s delicious, to me, it’s still orange mush. However, over time I’ve grown to enjoy the show a lot. I’ve gotten over my frustration with not actually being able to taste the food and can trust Tom’s judgment.
After reading Bradley Gorham’s article “Considerations of Media Effects,” I am beginning to think that maybe trusting presentation or even someone’s interpretation of what I see may not be even close to the truth.
This article gives a detailed explanation to the way in which we receive information based on what order it is presented to us as well as the way in which it is presented. Using the ideas we already have preconceived in our minds about a topic, our schemas, we generally begin to “expect certain things once other traits of a category have been encountered” (Gorham 15). In other words, when I see a chef put carrots into a dish, I have an immediate idea of what a carrot is already in my mind. This taste is easily accessible because I have eaten many carrots and can instantaneously remember what they taste like. Known as a primed concept, the more I eat carrots, the more likely I am to be able to instantly remember what a carrot tastes like (16).
Later, as the chef adds more ingredients that I’m not as familiar with to the dish, the actual taste of the dish will begin to differ from what I am imagining in my head – one of the reasons I didn’t like the show to begin with. However, I can generally see that the dish would have particular flavors based on the spices that are added, the components of the sauces, and the meats and vegetables used. Although in the end I may not know exactly how this one dish tasted, I can get a general feeling for what it would taste like.
Or so my schema wants me to believe.
In the media world, we see images of people arrested for terrible crimes smeared across the news. Each time we see these images, we begin to create a preconceived notion as to what the next one will look like. With the emergence of crime shows, our notions are even more driven in. Like the treads that a sled makes after endless runs down the hill, the engrained images of what a criminal looks like. According to this article, these become the basis upon which stereotypes are created. When we see someone who looks like or reminds us of the person we saw on the news, we begin to associate that person with negative attributes like the criminal we just saw.
The same goes with the dishes on Top Chef. Although I’ve never tasted monkfish, I’ve seen it used so many times that when someone cooks it a certain way, or mixes it with a certain ingredient I can begin to assume what the judges will say afterwards. Not ever having experienced it myself shows that I am victim to seeing something that looks good and assuming it is or hearing that something tastes delicious and assuming they’re right.
Throughout the article, the author references numerous experiments that were done to show that the way we perceive the world depends on how it is presented to us. When it’s a person like us, we generally view them with more leniency than someone different than us. We build stereotypes based on those who are different than us from the media’s presentation of that type of person. Even if we don’t intend to, “the way our brains process information may lead us to think things we don’t even agree with” (Gorham 20). So when I see a similar storyline over and over and over again on the news, I begin to think that people involved in a similar storyline are going to be exactly like the people I saw on the news.
So as much as I know what carrots taste like, when a chef mixes them with monkfish, I can see the presentation and think it would be delicious, and hear that Tom Collicchio thinks it’s delicious, and everything can tell me it’s delicious, but until I’ve tasted it for myself, I can never know.
I think the media does a heck of a job telling us what to believe. Regardless of whether or not we know it’s true, hearing the same story over and over, seeing the same images over and over, and getting the same drone in our heads night after night on the news can easily lead us to believe that it must be true. We must be smart enough to see through the repetitious stories to find out if what we’re seeing is really true and find out what monkfish really tastes like before trusting someone else’s judgment.
After reading Bradley Gorham’s article “Considerations of Media Effects,” I am beginning to think that maybe trusting presentation or even someone’s interpretation of what I see may not be even close to the truth.
This article gives a detailed explanation to the way in which we receive information based on what order it is presented to us as well as the way in which it is presented. Using the ideas we already have preconceived in our minds about a topic, our schemas, we generally begin to “expect certain things once other traits of a category have been encountered” (Gorham 15). In other words, when I see a chef put carrots into a dish, I have an immediate idea of what a carrot is already in my mind. This taste is easily accessible because I have eaten many carrots and can instantaneously remember what they taste like. Known as a primed concept, the more I eat carrots, the more likely I am to be able to instantly remember what a carrot tastes like (16).
Later, as the chef adds more ingredients that I’m not as familiar with to the dish, the actual taste of the dish will begin to differ from what I am imagining in my head – one of the reasons I didn’t like the show to begin with. However, I can generally see that the dish would have particular flavors based on the spices that are added, the components of the sauces, and the meats and vegetables used. Although in the end I may not know exactly how this one dish tasted, I can get a general feeling for what it would taste like.
Or so my schema wants me to believe.
In the media world, we see images of people arrested for terrible crimes smeared across the news. Each time we see these images, we begin to create a preconceived notion as to what the next one will look like. With the emergence of crime shows, our notions are even more driven in. Like the treads that a sled makes after endless runs down the hill, the engrained images of what a criminal looks like. According to this article, these become the basis upon which stereotypes are created. When we see someone who looks like or reminds us of the person we saw on the news, we begin to associate that person with negative attributes like the criminal we just saw.
The same goes with the dishes on Top Chef. Although I’ve never tasted monkfish, I’ve seen it used so many times that when someone cooks it a certain way, or mixes it with a certain ingredient I can begin to assume what the judges will say afterwards. Not ever having experienced it myself shows that I am victim to seeing something that looks good and assuming it is or hearing that something tastes delicious and assuming they’re right.
Throughout the article, the author references numerous experiments that were done to show that the way we perceive the world depends on how it is presented to us. When it’s a person like us, we generally view them with more leniency than someone different than us. We build stereotypes based on those who are different than us from the media’s presentation of that type of person. Even if we don’t intend to, “the way our brains process information may lead us to think things we don’t even agree with” (Gorham 20). So when I see a similar storyline over and over and over again on the news, I begin to think that people involved in a similar storyline are going to be exactly like the people I saw on the news.
So as much as I know what carrots taste like, when a chef mixes them with monkfish, I can see the presentation and think it would be delicious, and hear that Tom Collicchio thinks it’s delicious, and everything can tell me it’s delicious, but until I’ve tasted it for myself, I can never know.
I think the media does a heck of a job telling us what to believe. Regardless of whether or not we know it’s true, hearing the same story over and over, seeing the same images over and over, and getting the same drone in our heads night after night on the news can easily lead us to believe that it must be true. We must be smart enough to see through the repetitious stories to find out if what we’re seeing is really true and find out what monkfish really tastes like before trusting someone else’s judgment.
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