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How Fantasy Becomes Reality: Seeing Through Media Influence

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Karen Dill's new book will capture readers from the first pages when she introduces what she calls "Media Manipulation Denial Syndrome." She coins this phrase based on three facts: "Fact 1: We spend most of our waking hours watching media. Fact 2: Research shows clearly that media are powerful and affect us in many ways. Fact 3: Many of us passionately disbelieve Fact 2."

Dill attributes our personal media diet in part to free choice and part to a Borg-like assimilation where "resistance is futile." Media exert a powerful influence whose purpose is to lure us into their productions and engage us at an emotional level. The positive or negative consequences depend a great deal on the choices we make about our personal media diet.

Dill offers numerous examples of how various products produce such consequences. She'll lead you through the basics of media and social construction, what it means to live and grow up in a media-saturated world, how violent media produce lasting effects, issues of race and gender portrayal, advertising and consumerism, media in politics, and how to take control of our personal media consumption.

While this text presents a great deal of scientific research that will teach you about basic psychology, it is also a relaxing read for anyone interested in media influence from video games to television. Dill's conversational style will allow you to see yourself in her examples and will soon have you scratching your head about why you make certain choices. You may be moved to both laughter and tears as you discover the truth of how we are influenced in very profound ways. If you heed her advice, you may find yourself playing a more vital role in your own life and the lives of those within your personal circle of influence. Don't miss it. Awareness is power!

In her thoughtful and lively book, social psychologist Karen Dill deftly moves beyond the question of whether or not our use of screen media affects us. That debate, she confirms, is essentially over: it does. The more interesting question she asks is why we are so quick to deny such influence. As Dill argues, such denial renders us even more vulnerable to "media effects." Her task is to help us understand how our media use affects us (without our realizing it), so that we can begin to participate more proactively in the evolution of its form and content, and live healthier lives.

Using tools of social psychology, Dill examines how media producers provide eye-catching images and emotion-wringing scripts that stir our primal desires for food, sex, and social belonging. They attract our attention by shocking our sensory selves. We are soon addicted to the charge.

What is particularly helpful about this book is Dill's explanation of how the form and content of today's screen media--and she examines television shows, movies, rap music, music videos, video games, advertising, and political coverage--play right into our strengths as the socially-wired creatures we humans are.

Face to face with desire-grabbing images and sense-assaulting scripts, we cannot help comparing ourselves to what we see. We cannot help imitating at a neuro-chemical level the actions that we see. Nor can we help repeating stereotypes about race and gender, or absorbing the persistent, implicit message of many video games, rap songs, and popular films that violence is an acceptable and useful response to life's conflicts.

In short it is our nature as social creatures to learn from what we see about what is real, what matters, how we should act, and where we should, or do not, fit in. We do so without thinking. Even though we know that what we are seeing is fiction, it registers in our brains as real.

Thus, where our social brains meet screen media, Dill reports, we are apt to grow both increasingly anxious and insecure about our selves (as compared to the media's ideal forms), and addicted to the virtual and vicarious bursts of pleasure that those same images provide. In such a state we are more vulnerable than ever to promises about what products will fill the gaps that our use of media has opened. Advertisers take note.

To protect ourselves, Dill offers timely advice: assume that you are being manipulated, and then think critically, consume wisely, unplug frequently, vary your intake, and seek out non-screen activities that engage us in a state of flow.

Along the way, her riveting accounts of psychological experiments and her amusing anecdotes combine for an enjoyable as well as enlightening read. She is a friendly guide indeed!

Kimerer L. LaMothe, Ph.D., Author of What a Body Knows: Finding Wisdom in Desire

Karen Dill's book on "How Fantasy Becomes Reality: Seeing Through Media Influence" is a rare work that exemplifies both of the characteristics necessary for informed, thoughtful readers: accuracy and accessibility. As we all know, there are a lot of uniformed people taking strong stands on media issues, often promoted by various media industries themselves. Dr. Dill's work, however, is based on decades of high quality behavioral science work. It also reflects the combined knowledge, expertise, and judgments of all of the major medical and behavioral science organizations, including the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Medical Association, among others. In other words, this book accurately portrays what the top researchers have learned about media effects.
In addition, the book is accessible to a wide audience. It is very readable. Dr. Dill's engaging style is laced with humor and wisdom. Readers will recognize themselves and their families in many of the stories and anecdotes. In sum, this book is a must-read for anyone interested the understanding and taking control of both the positive and negative aspects of the modern electronic media environment.

I'm very pleased with Karen Dill using her sense of humor and knowledge about how fantasy can easily become reality in this world of technology and influence of the Media. We often times are not aware in our daily lives of how subtle this can be but it affects the way we live and think. To be free of misconceptions in this field, it was refreshing to actually look at Karen Dill's insight and knowledge. After all she did testify in front of Congress about this very issue. She, also, reaches out to her community in this field. Bravo!!!

I would recommend this book, especially to those raising children today. What a difficult task. You really need to stay on top of things in today's world.

How Fantasy becomes Reality... If ever there was a doubt about the insidious impact movies, TV, video games and modern music has on our life and the lives of our children, Karen Dill's excellent book "How Fantasy becomes Reality" provides definitive proof. With the skills of a surgeon she cuts through the complex interactions adults, teens and pre-teens have with our overexposure to modern media and provides an astonishingly clear picture of the, often harmful, impact on our lives. Read it and you'll be amazed how we and our children are being subtlety manipulated by the media industries. Use the illustrations Dr. Dill provides to help your children understand the harmful effects of overexposure to movies, TV, video games and modern music. Your children may thank you someday... or maybe not! Johnny Vlah

Our couples Book Club (only non-fiction) chose this book this winter. It provided great discussion and our own insights into the world of media, including the video games our grandchildren live with. We are of a generation that listened to the radio before TV and then transitioned into the Television mode. Newspapers and the radio were the major news links to the outside world. We now are all linked by computers, Skype and Facebook. Our world has indeed become flat. While these technologies have been of great value to the world and the U.S., they are also the downfall in many areas. Karen Dill addresses those potholes beautifully. Her asides make the book almost a conversation with her. The phrase "dumbing down" could be used often with the country's obsession with fast, incorrect and often biased reporting be it television, radio, newspapers, internet, facebook, youtube....you name it. And we, a thinking people, are BELIEVING much of what we read and hear. Karen Dill invites us to use a new set of ears and eyes, and to turn on our brains and turn off the electronics. All six of us have changed some of our viewing and habits due to reading this book. A must for parents, teachers and grandparents! Thank you Karen!