How much of what you see on TV do you believe?
 

I was just wondering how much everyone believes in what it sees on TV, in TV shows, documentaries, news bulletins and anything else, including movies.
I'm asking this cause i saw on other threads how much impact has the TV on a humans thinking towards different things, countries and others.
One example is: a lot of people know about Cuba that is a bad bad country, however, the medical service available per person is much better than anywhere else in the world.
Another one: The movies theme "terrorist in USA" has to be about the religious believes, beside this, they are always depicted to be of arabic origins, and many people believe that so much, that they are blaming anyone of those origins/believes to be terrorists.
Third example: the common type phone Iphone and its "rage" in the market, after its marketing campaign it's considered to be a unique item in the world, by enough people for Apple to have record breaking sales.

Television is always 100% accurate, true and unbiased! Period.

Seriously though, I think most people with some degree of intelligence, know what to believe and when to call bullshit.

haha
Well said! That's why I never watch TV - don't even have one (you can get enough bullshit from elsewhere). I stopped watching it 3 years ago along with smoking... :)
I love films though, but not because I want to educate myself properly. :)
I think you have to be very careful with every bit of media, especially with news channels and documentary. lol

What do you believe in movies? Movies are fiction, so there's nothing to believe, really. If the movie is based on fact, then it is based on fact, not entirely fact.

As for everything else, one has to take it on a case by case basis. News can be biased toward the nation or political view based even on the station you are watching. (i.e. FOX)

Some of those who use television to further their causes can, and sometimes do, alter the perception by omitting facts not in their favor, so those have to be taken with a bit of skepticism.

Documentaries about nature are about all I really believe and the BBC and NHK do some tremendously good documentaries.... Has anyone seen Wild China? It's a six-part series about the flora and fauna in China by the BBC and CCTV. Awesome!

In all, one really can't believe 100% of what's out there.... IMHO

I believe a lot of what I see on TV, yet am knowledgeable enough not to be 'brainwashed' by what I see. I think these days are better in media than the days of political propeganda during the cold war etc.

I have to agree with you there. NHK's documentaries are amazing. I also saw that Wild China documentary. Then I saw it was repeated a few months later, so I watched it again. lol. I don't watch a lot of documentaries, but what I do watch seems to be most fascinating

You guys cannot begin to imagine how much manipulation goes on in the media field. It's a business before it's anything else. They don't care much about being true to the facts as long as they get a high audience score. That how it is with private channels. Public broadcasting has a different policy, if you're gonna trust anything you see on the TV make sure you're getting it from a public channel.

I take everything with a grain of salt, but keeping from being "brainwashed" or just overall lied to is a LOT harder then some of the comments in this thread point out.

You can always be distrustful of what's put on TV, but until you actually take time to break things down (such as a movie, commercial, etc.), analyze it, and research the things it's telling you and what they mean/what they do/etc., you really will never know how much bias and lies are in the media.

Either a hell of a lot of people out there don't even have some degree of intelligence or intelligence isn't that great an asset in being able to call bullshit because there's a ridiculous amount of people out there these days who believe all kinds of bullshit. People still believe in gods, ghosts, astrology and all sorts of other ridiculous crap. Little wonder they'll also believe in ridiculous crap from the media...

You sometimes have to take even what they say on the news with a pinch of salt. I don't believe majority of what's reported unless it's like ''Bomb attack'' or something like that.. We've had wayyy too many incidents where the press blew stuff up to be something huge. Especially in a case we had about 'muscle dogs' (pittbulls, American Staffordshire, american bulldog etc) where the press made it seem like ALL socalled 'muscle dogs' were SO mean and SO brutal. This all resulted in a ban of the mentioned breeds - even legal breeders who got papers on their dogs have to almost tie their dogs down like a crazy person if they go somewhere - simply because morons don't know how to deal with them.. So yeah.. I don't believe most things I hear and see on TV.

I believe things to a varying, short extent. I doubt less the intentional deception from people than the inaccuracies of their perception. It's highly likely that there's more to what's being presented and - while there's a certain point where you have to simply accept what's being shown - I, like others have said, try to take things into moderation. Whether I succeed half the time, remains to be said.

If someone were truly brainwashed, would they truly realize it.

With the votes here, I can better understand about how much TV has an impact on random people around the world, mostly with a common interest in a domain (Japan in this case). The percents are almost on the target of what I assumed.

Thank you for you're responses.

It's been 2 years since I last watched anything on TV so don't expect an answer from me.

I enjoy the documentaries very much and have learned a lot. The nature programmes are superb. I really admire the camera men/women who must have to venture into very awkward situations in order to do such fantastic photography.

I don't believe a lot of what I read in many papers though.


The BBC is still a superb channel and produce great programmes on numerous subjects.


I enjoy the good dramas too. Only today I saw the film of the war in Japan.