Journal #3

(Media Studies)

This week I would like to talk about the spaghetti commercial. I thought that this was a very clever way to see how convincing commercials could be. I knew from the first moment that it is impossible for pasta to grow on trees, so I just watched how the whole commercial would unfold. I knew by the many facts and tips that the narrator made that some people would believe this, and doubt what was the obvious, and this worries me. We rely on the media so much that we will even believe something that we know is not true. All our lives we've known that pasta is made from ingredients, not on trees. The pictures were very convincing, however, when it showed it on the actual trees, and the people "harvesting" the crop. I think it would be interesting to see how many people would believe commercials like this, and ignore what they have been taught since childhood. It was such a simple commercial, and such a unique way to gauge how people react to things that are false. The media is such an easy way to make the general public believe almost anything, and that is extremely powerful. This power could be used in a bad way, if the power of the media fell into the wrong hands, because it could influence the world to believe some things that aren't very good.