“Very little of what we think we know of the social realities of the world have we found out first-hand. Most of the ‘pictures in our heads’ we have gained from these media-even to the point where we often do not really believe what we see before us until we read about it in the paper or hear about it on the radio. The media not only give us information; they guide our very experiences. Our standards of credulity, our standards of reality, tend to be set by these media rather than by our own fragmentary experience.” (C. Wright Mills)
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In Your Own Words…
In your own words,, what is the main idea or meaning of the above quote by the American sociologist and professor C. Wright Mills?
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” (Albert Einstein)
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Getting Personal
Give an example of something you know exclusively from what you have seen or heard on the mass media (TV, internet, magazines, etc.)
Give an example, if you can, of something you know exclusively from personal experience, and which is independent of anything you have ever seen or heard on the mass media.
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Quotation AI Assistant
Interested in seeing what artificial intelligence (ai) has to say about the meaning of today’s quotation? Compare it to your own interpretation. You may be fascinated, or even possibly humbled.
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INSIGHTS for SUCCESS
In today’s world where the mass media exerts so much influence, in order to succeed it is not enough to be an achiever, but also one must be a value-based and competent discerner.
“We need discernment in what we see and what we hear and what we believe.” (Charles R. Swindoll)
“The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity – much less dissent.” (Gore Vidal)
“Sound judgement, with discernment is the best of seers.” (Euripides)
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The Wisdom Quotation Well
Interested in seeing more quotations related to “discernment?”
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