the big picture i'm coming to southie and today will be talking about the relationship between reality and the mass media over the past few years the line between reality and what we see on t v and in the movies has become increasingly blurred shows such as the real world survivor and married by america promise a surreal look into the lives of individuals but are these shows a true reflection of reality today we'll be talking with media students from peter's township high school about the convergence of reality and entertainment well so me discussing the effects of this new genre media on our society some of these effects can be seen in the way that news media is covering the ongoing war and iraq so today on the show we've invited katie francesc matt arlie and amanda am actually following war very closely i feel that it's one responsibility as american citizen that our country is in a war we should actually follow what's going on what's happening to our troops over there no i don't watch the war coverage because i refuse to believe that we're actually at watched the highlights in the morning because the event starting the day is just too far and between i'll be watching the workers because of the bunker busters watching the war coverage at home because i just want to see what's going on because there's a lot of americans over there and i think it  i've been watching the coverage because the facts of this were definitely going to affect my life and my future so i don't see what's going to happen and what i can expect in a couple years from now i am watching the war because i think that this war is definitely going to shape our future groups i think it's kind of interesting that a lot of people that never watch the news beforehand are certainly glued to the t v now and especially when a lot of things that happen you know every day in local and regional or national news affect them a lot more than the vents that are going on on iraq and i think that it's kind of ironic that they be so focused on the war and not work home kind of where you're saying amanda losing perspective on what's really important that i thing that's different about this war and that we might want to bring up is just how you know there's a reporter is in with all these different like co ops and you know that they're getting involved in things that you know they haven't in the past and so like it has that changed like how you view like our current events and stuff like that i don't know if it's changed how i mean i guess has it gives you a different perspective on what's going on it lets you see what the soldiers see at the same time because it's almost being like broadcast like in real time of it but we've never seen anything that could parallel it at all and i think it's important to know a little bit that it is a reality it's not something you see in movies and it's real people who are dying and who are putting their lives on the line every day it's not just not just a game i think that's important as you watch that reality really starts to sink in where not only seeing like people you know we're not just seeing people like dying and bombing and stuff like that one of the some of the footage that just broke like over the weekend was you know the people and americans helping people tear down the statue of saddam hussein and like that sort of gave me insight as to like how these iraqis are feeling and you know how excited they are to you know finally be liberated and you know to have people with them so that also helps me you know get to get a different i had that i probably would be feeling so yeah yeah i think it's i think it's really important for you to see that for the american public to see how it's not just affecting them like how this war like directly affects them it helps you see like how how people in other countries feel how people how your soldiers feel how iraqi it's just i mean i think that's also critical in forming your opinion of the war yeah yeah well one thing that we are discussing is earlier is just that you know their reason why the news is on t v twenty four hours is for entertainment purposes because people get entertainment and information about the war so now that we have all these reporters in iraq when what are we getting like to you know what are we getting too much entertainment oh yeah i don't know i i don't want to get entertainment from this because obviously we're watching people die and all these so that's not something that we should be happy to watch i mean i think when we watch it in the movies we know that it's not real that's why movies are entertaining but i don't want to be sitting there and you know cheer when bombs were dropped you know it's not exactly some to be happy about and we all you know you may know you may have heard of the h b o movie live from baghdad like people from c n n made a whole career because they stayed in baghdad for the first gulf war and that's why we see so much coverage is because they realize how much profit can be made from war because everybody's going to watch it like you said twenty four hours a day it's constant coverage stefania business you know yeah and i mean whether people are watching for entertainment or not they're going to make money off of it because they know we will watch it and kind of look return to what we're talking about earlier do you think that because the media does have such a strong presence in the war right now and because you know we do we basically see very much what the soldiers are seeing you know or at least the aftermath of what would the battle do you think of the media it's kind of like cheapening the loss of life the fact that you know you can watch the simpsons and then click over and see you know dead iraqi soldiers and click back and see the simpsons again i mean good does that make you feel like it's not real or like it's not really valuing that kind of loss of human life going on  content on the contrary i think that it makes it more real because i mean otherwise you'd just be hearing about casualties and people dying and it wouldn't really have any impact until you see the people actually over there i disagree a little bit i can see  people we've lost and it doesn't even fill twenty to thirty seconds of time and i mean i know that you can't just sit there and talk about how many people are dying but the fact is when they just pop up a graphic that sense this is how many have died and they go on to something else just like that then it does kind of make it seem like you know there's not much importance to them so i see it but you know like i can also see teenagers like without that kind of stuff being on the television not just teenagers better dots to know having no idea what's going on i think sometimes people need that visualization or just you know one little thing that you know kind of puts things into perspective for them and i think for a lot of people that can do that so it's a good point where before lives air force reserve a real firefighting may be a part time job but it's often a time experience and just one of many exciting careers in the air force reserve call eight hundred two five seven one two one to air force reserves and beyond you probably think it's a little thing yet studies show that cockroaches are a significant factor in childhood asthma west nile virus lyme disease and something like this are transmitted by common pass and while some three hundred sixty five thousand homes will be struck by fire this year two million will be damaged by termites maybe it's time to take a closer look at who is sharing your home with you for more information visit pest world dot org welcome back to the big picture and kisha just tuned in what we're talking about today is the media and its relationship with reality and the blurring of the line between reality and media before we move on to reality t v one of things i wanted to bring up was the fact that up with this war we really do have an immediate kind of knowledge about what's going on i mean there was an incident where the u s soldier had thrown the grenade into the into the u s camp  and i mean some of the things like that we never would hear about or would even if we heard about what happened years or you know months after the fact i mean if i may five minutes after happen you know and even you know forces move into baghdad we hear about it you know two minutes after they cross the the c line and it's on the internet you know do you think that's a positive thing you think that's a negative thing or do you guys think i think it's positive i really see how it could be that negative i mean i think before it was just delayed news coverage and at least  updated and we do know what's going on i really see that being a bit of being the only negative product like i can see with that is the fact that when you have news like that that's trying to be is as immediate as possible there's a lot more room for error and there's a lot more room for you know well this has happened in that we take it back half an hour later and i think especially when you're doing the people's lives and doing spammers are people that are trying to get information i think it makes it more difficult for them and maybe more emotional for them like prime example you know yesterday or two days ago they were saying you know we think we finally killed saddam hussein we bombed this place but then you know and everyone thought you know saddam hussein's regime is is gone you know that that kind of thing but you know then a day later couple i don't know how long later two newspapers came out saying why our sources say that he's not and so now we're kind of like back to the drawing board again is easy and you know it's kind of reasoning even with the u s u s soldier that was that was a prisoner of war and was rescued the fact that her pair her family her parents could have found before the army would be able to tell them because of the you know because of the news coverage and because of the mass media and do you think that's something that's good or you think it's something that and that's situation that's a negative when you bring it up and  silly you don't want to watch your children die from t v and there are millions of miles away but i think it's good to know what's going on constantly but at the same time if they're telling us what they're going to do or what we're doing you know sometimes that kills the element of surprise and a lot of times that's necessary for you know military victories so hopefully it just doesn't lead to the point where we're giving it away oh yeah it's also  like saddam hussein's going to be watching you know our news too to see what's going on and what we're doing so i mean of course i'm sure they're trying not to give away too much information i'm sure they're doing a very good job at that but i mean he you never know what he can use and  go and write our government's not stupid either i mean we know a certain amount of things but they're not dumb enough to hand the entire media the whole war plan i mean like here you go why don't you show where you feel like i mean you know obviously stuff leaks but i think they're very i have pretty good comments are scared i'd be fascinated to figure out like the cooperation that the media has with the government as far as like you know what landmarks they're allowed to show or not allowed to show or how much information there are a lot of they got like i don't really know like obviously they don't tell them things that they that we're seeing it just doesn't feel real something about the fact that we there are so many movies that portray the same same type of thing or more the violence or destruction on the same level but it just doesn't have doesn't have the same sense of reality is in the past prime example we're talking about our media class not eleven that nine eleven came around and you know people are downstairs in the media room or watching the coverage and someone came in who hadn't heard about it and looked at the t v and the drama has gotten too real that the movie's in the more dramatic type of me that we're watching has gotten to be too much like reality it's not in the script anymore well going back to she's about nine eleven a plane flying into the side of building was never reality i mean that that was something that you would have always thought would be some kind of fiction or some kind of huge dramatic movie that really it was it was sort of the never happened before so that's a hard that's a hard caught to say that it was like drawn randy i think the package just kind of shows how much people know about current events as compared to reality t v shows american idol i think the question is taken from so what we want to talk about next is reality t v and how it's affecting our lives today so we want to question you the question we had for you guys was do you think that people are influenced by reality t v shows like american idol or real world or i mean even v shows that seem to be portraying reality i definitely think so and i think especially in like a younger generation who hasn't like lives to like experience things for themselves they look at they look at shows like the real world and they think that you know every there's always yeah i think i think that like influencing people i think people like katie was saying try to model their lives after that i think there should be some kind of drama i think they should be dating a hundred people are like causing trouble or not know what to do with their life or all these uncertainties reality t v shows is really feed into and feed into people's the void they have inside themselves and are trying to figure out who they are i think that just that just grabs a hold of that caused them to be like oh maybe maybe maybe i can be famous from the bachelor and i'll explain bring board my career i mean i  just think it's really it's really skewed people's perception of what what life should be like and i think it's really it's like life is not that glamorous like you know create party i they normal people do not live how the people live on those shows because i mean their characters and people can't make that distinction sometimes which is pretty strange  i mean how to how to build a healthy relationship and stuff but then there's are there are people who don't and not that not that this person has a but i do have a friend who watches dawson creek all the time and and you know she she really does blow things out of friend so yeah i think it does happen and i mean still admitted to but i'll admit it i watch reality t v you know i was a fair the bachelor rat and i think one of the things that made it so appealing was just the fact that kind of one for half an hour you could put yourself into the shoes of this trista girl you know who has got to choose out of you know thirty you know who is the perfect guy for her but reality you are not going to oh it's not like a fairy tale and i don't really like you and they break up like all those couples that are getting together and t v like they all break up they don't get may do whatever i think it's addicting like you're talking about certainly if you watch it because they want to see who's kicked off or who survivor all those shows always have some kind of elimination or something and because it is real people you can feel like you get so you can empathize with them or be happy they're gone i think you kind of that develops a following that brings up a good or good point i mean do you think people watch it because they want to project themselves into that kind of lifestyle or because they like to see someone that's you know that's that's kind of held up to fall or some someone feel you know i think a lot of people watch those shows because it's like an escape from reality but not only are you skipping from your own reality you're kind of escaping into a really positive reality like you know the bachelor would obviously be a dream but it's kind of like with movies we escape and we watch those but there's it's rare that we put ourselves in that character's shoes and say i wish i was that person but like with the bachelor you know like i wish i was that person you know i think i think these shows also natural progression in terms of art in terms of culture and where we're going and what i don't think it's healthy but i think it's a natural progression i mean culture and never necessarily healthy i mean if you look back and you kind of culture there's things that are positive but for the most part i think a lot of things have negative influences and i think this especially has been completely taken too far is going to have we can start to see the effects of it but as far as culture goes i think there's always that kind of influence that brings up a good point i mean how far really