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February 15, 2011

Media is a Lie



Nowadays, we can find a television show called reality show. Reality Show is a genre of television show which shows us an event that happens in our daily live. Events that showed us are about people finder, chasing a playboy or playgirl, spying a person and so many more.




This show always gets higher rating than the other show. Many people prefer to watch reality show than the other show. Many people get the effect of this show. People will think that their real world is like what the reality show showed.


One of the famous reality shows is “Termehek-mehek”. This reality show is presented by TransTV. This reality show present us how TransTV and the hosts help people to find their separated family, boyfriend, husband and so many more. The hosts, Panda and Mandala help their client to find the person whom they seek for a few days. They face so many problems, but in a few days they found the person.


This reality show is looked as a fake. First of all, in every episode, the hosts and the client always found a problem and conflicts. The conflict is caused a small thing. If we watched carefully, the conflict is always about a gang who don’t like the host and the client walking through their territory. Not only that, when they found the person they seek, the person must be in trouble such as a blind man because he gave his eyes to the client, the person was dead to save the client and so on. This is impossible.


Second evidence that this reality show is a fake is the process of looking for a person always ends in the fifth days. If we think carefully, we won’t get any information about the person we are looking for just only for five days. In this reality show, the hosts and the client always get the information easily.


The last evidence, in this reality show, the hosts and the client use TransTV’s car. The car has the logo of TransTV. This car is always used when they want to follow their target. The target doesn’t know if they are followed by TransTV. If we think carefully, a person who is followed by a person, they must feel bad or feel not comfort. But, the show is not present this feeling in the target. This is so impossible. What the writers found in this event make us want to explain it further.


Media is a lie. What is that supposed to mean? It means media have its own construction of reality that people believe. The fact is all things we have seen in media are not the real truth. John Baudrillard, one of the Media Theorist explained that Media’s Reality always ‘Hyper Reality’ (Reality that Hyperbole or more bombastic than the truth) that divide into 5 categories:

1. The truth reality: Reality that pure. The same as the fact.

2. Reality as the representation of reality: The fact that been representated into other media, for example true story that have been filmed or written into a novel, etc.

3. Simulacra or Simulacrum: Reality that have been shape into simulation, for example simulation room of outer space for astronaut to practice.

4. Fake reality: Reality that not reality. For example fake apple made from plastic. It looks like a real apple, but it’s not.

5. Hyper Reality: Reality that Hyperbole. Often used by media to attract it’s audience.

From those explanations, we know that a lot of realities that show in media still make people confuse if it is real or not. Some people believe it is real, but some others not. A lot of questions fulfill people’s mind about the reality in media.

At 1st until 8th November 2009, the students of Petra Christian University from Communication Department visited a lot of Television Enterprise such as SCTV, Trans7, and MetroTV for Excursion Study 2009 Program. They participated in Tapping Process of Kick Andy from MetroTV and Opera Van Java from Trans7 as the audience. Although the media told the public they are LIVE, but they are not. The audience (who are students from Petra) must wait for 4 till 5 hours to finish a show. People at their houses only watched half of it from the television, because there was a process called editing process. For examples, when the guest stars started to sing, they repeated until seven times. But, the media only showed the best performance.

From there, we could see that every scene had been arranged. Every person who included in the scene was given their dialogue and they had to do what the director said, even the audience. They must clap their hands at several moments that they had been told by the director, and laugh over some unfunny jokes to make the show looked funnier and entertaining.

From this event, we can see that media had treated us. Media told the public if the show is LIVE but it is not. The most unforgivable lie that media do was when the ‘Quiz Moment’. They had just already told the questions, not long after that they started the tapping for telling the answer, and they announced the winner, even the public never hear or answer the questions. So we can see that all the Television Quiz is unworthy to follow because the person who gets the prizes is the media itself.

The lie of the media has already created new problems to the marriage life too. Now, there is a new video game from Japan that creates new phenomenon where a man can cheating in front of their wives with some happily not-a-real-person-at-all girlfriend, that game is called ‘Love Plus’. Here’s the information about it from an article “Does new video game take virtual dating too far?” by Ben Silverman (http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/does-new-video-game-take-virtual-dating-too-far-/1373657):

Typically we don't kiss and tell, but we couldn't resist spilling the beans about Konami's DS game, Love Plus. It's just too creepy to keep to ourselves. Currently only out in Japan, Love Plus is a dating simulation that lets you court several different virtual girls. If you play your cards right, one of them will start to fall for you. And that's precisely where things go from odd to just plain icky.

As you grow closer, you'll need to take your new fake girlfriend out on dates -- in real time, no less -- and start planning your future together. Eventually she might ask for a kiss, which requires touching her on the lips. Or perhaps she'll ask you to whisper sweet nothings in her ear, which requires babbling pleasantries into the DS microphone (and a serious lack of shame).

An interview posted on BoingBoing revealed more sordid details about Love Plus, as told through the experience of happily married San Francisco man Koh and his happily not-a-real-person-at-all girlfriend, Rinko. When asked what they did together, Koh lent some insight into their awkward relationship: "Ok, this is pretty embarrassing. The DS has a mic and a touchscreen, so... one time, she asked me to say 'I love you' a hundred times into the mic. I was on the airplane when she asked me that, so I was like, no way. There was also this part where you have to hold her hand on the touchscreen. If you touch her hand with the stylus, you get to hold her hand. And then there's the part where you have to kiss her."

OMG! So did he?

"No, no!" he responded when prodded by the interviewer. "The girl's face shows up on the screen, and you have to touch her lips to give her a kiss. That's pretty weird.... this is embarrassing. I'm sweating right now just talking about it."

Love Plus has caused quite a stir in Japan, as some wives have complained that their husbands are effectively 'cheating' on them by spending too much time with their virtual significant others. Do you agree? Or is this just harmless (albeit a little disturbing) fun?

Wow! If we can find an imaginative-girl-that-real through the media, it’s possible we can find another magical lie from media. It’s a shame that media forget their real function. Media have to entertaining, but also educating and telling the objective truth for the public. Media has been treated the audience who believe them. As a communication students, we must remember what we should do if we work in a mass media. We must show the real to the public, that’s our responsibility.




From this explanation, we can get several conclusions about media:

· What we found in media is a lie

Media frequent tell the public about something, but the truth, media always make something look much better, much joyful, and even much worse to attract it’s audience.

· They just show us a hyper reality

John Baudrillard told us that Media often show us reality that hyperbole. Not as the same as the fact.

· Mass media forget their responsibility

Media should entertaining, but also educating and tell the objetive truth for the public. But the truth is, media frequently lied to us through their shows. Their aim is money, so all they wanna do is gathering a lot of audience as they can get. No matter how fake the information is, as long as people liked it media will shows it.

· We must not follow this mistake

As a communication students, we must remember what should we do if we work in a mass media; We must show the real to the public, that’s our responsibility.


From this, we learnt more deeply that we should be a critical person. We have to decide which media program is the best, so we can fulfill our need for information. We cannot believe media easily. We have already searched and been a witness of several media’s lie and now we able to analyze media more careful and selective.

We must put ourself in an uncomfort zone. We search some information from internet and books, and we must watch some television program that not entertaining for us. But we can find something good from it for our material. So it all worth it.

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