The interaction between humans and media is complex but following the research and experiments by Nass and Reeves, who claimed that humans tend to use the media for instance, computers as social actors thus tend to be polite to the computers which they have used. Such a relationship may seem impossible hence the use of different articles and reviews to illustrate whether it is possible to support the media equation theory that claims media=real life. The annotated bibliography below includes articles that reviews the theory extensively and experiments undertaking to prove whether the theory is fictional or true.
Annotated Bibliography
Murphy, S. C., (2012). Book Review: How Television Invented New Media . Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 89(3):530-530 · August 2012 DOI: 10.1177/1077699012452543
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The author summarizes all chapters of, The Media Equation by Reeves and Nass, by describing the contents under each chapter. The review is from a rational point of view perception whereby, the author uses the major assumptions and experiments that led to the conclusion that humans tend to interact with computers, televisions and new technologies in a similar way they interact with other humans. The main focus of the review as depicted was politeness to machines that is computers. The author uses that interaction since it was the bases of the experiment undertaken by Nass and Reeves who founded the theory. It is clear from the review, that adults with the knowledge of computers and other media technologies understand that these devices are mindless and have no emotions, they automatically and naturally treat the computes as social actors.
The article being a book review only offers the key point of the theory that Nass and Reeves developed but most people claim that such assumptions are stupid but once the experiments were undertaken, it was evident that people tend to be polite to computers they used during the experiment when the computer asked the users to rate their performance but the politeness was not observed when half of the participants used different computers to rate the computer’s performance. The author uses reviews other articles and books to determine the credibility of the media equation theory. Other issues depicted was the reaction and arousal following images in the television although the adults understood the content in the images were fiction thus demonstrating the base of the media equation theory that claim media real life.
Parikh, V., and Pahad, A., (2011). Understanding the Equation Between Media and Democracy A Case Study from India. Media Asia;2011, Vol. 38 Issue 2, p78, Academic Journal. Retrieved February 10, 2017, from, http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/case-studies/65561879/understanding-equation-between-media-democracy-case-study-from-india
The authors collected undertook a case study in India on the influence of media on four major issues namely; liberty, equality, justice and fraternity in the bid to determine the relationship between media and democracy. Data was collected from media professionals and professionals other than the media. The study intended to determine the influence of newspapers and television on the democratic nature of the society. The results fulfilled the hypothesis that media due to the different channels influenced justice as it acted as watchdogs by informing the public about the justice issues for instance, crime and corruption within the country and government respectively.
The different channels provided liberty as the public was able to choose what to watch leading to entertainment channels, and source of information through new channels dominating the reasons for watching television. There were issues regarding equality in media and other professionals due to gender inequality in a male dominated society but it was expected although there were no differences in the choice of media. Lastly there were claims that the government influenced the media or the media in the bid to make everyone happy failed to be informative whereby they focused on minor issues instead of the major issues resulting to low quality information during news. The authors demonstrate the essence media on democracy while also focusing on the addictive nature of people to identify mass media as a social actor thus justifying its use in this paper. The paper illustrated the need of media to improve democracy but it did not largely focus on the media equation in its explanation.
Sparks, G. G., (2015). Media Effects Research: A Basic Overview . Cengage Learning, London.
The book reviews the different experiments and interrelationship between humans and computers and other new electronics. The book first reviews the experiments performed by Nass and his colleagues for instance, the experiment where people are willing to share their secrets with the computers. The experiment illustrate that human tend to treat new technology devices in this case computers as social actors. Due some of the critics of the media equation theory, the book reviews some of the direct connections of the points made from the theory to real life situations.
The author identifies the use of GPS in personal vehicles as one of the key example since most of the vehicles GPS systems are modelled to have a female speaking and providing directions. There have been cases portrayed in movies that men have fallen in love with the females in such systems although they are computer models by even naming them. Another case involving a man who sued the Florida State in 2014 for prohibiting him to marry his computer. The examples and other analysis in the book supports the existence of media equation as depicted by Reeves and Nass.
Bartneck, C., Chioke, R., Menges, R., & Deckers, I. (2005). Robot Abuse – A Limitation of the Media Equation. Proceedings of the Interact 2005 Workshop on Abuse , Rome.
The authors undertook the study in the bid of determining the effectiveness of the media equation theory. They used the anthropomorphic embodiment and the human like behaviors to claim that robots can be justified within the scope of social actors within the media equation that can apply to technologies. The study used the Milgram’s experiment involving use of electric shocks where they used robots instead of people as the students as earlier used by Nass. The results portrayed that unlike in Nass, Milgram’s experiment where on 40% of the participants attained the highest voltage electricity shocks, 100% of the participants in this study reached the maximum voltage electricity shocks thus portraying that the humans administering the shocks had lower compassion on the robots compared to those where the subjects were human. The paper portray that the media equation theory is true since there was some compassion but the reality is exaggerated by equaling media to real life. The conclusion of the paper may be due to the use of anthropomorphic embodiment that was used to justify the inclusion of robots in the study of media equation as demonstrated by the article below by Lee and Jung on the nature of virtual experiences.
Lee, K. M., & Jung, Y. (2005). Evolutionary nature of virtual experience. 2005 Annual Conference -Communication: Questioning the Dialogue . Retrieved February 10, 2017, from, http://hdl.handle.net/10220/19369
The study intentions to determine the causes of the human responses to virtual experience used three communication studies to explain the reactions namely the media equation theory, doubly disembodied language and studies involving human preference in specific content in the media for instance, horror movies. The study discussed the major assumptions and conclusion of each theory to enable them determine the contentious issues used in the studies. The main shortcoming of the media equation theory was its assumption that adults who had all the information and awareness of the emotionless computers, televisions and new media technologies still used anthropomorphic embodiment when regarding to computers and other electronics. The assumption demonstrates an extent of stupidity amongst the participants of such experiments or illusions and thus cannot be justified in real life.
According to the paper, experts in computers demonstrated more interactions and politeness to the computers which is hard to expect since the know that computers have no feelings. The other two studies support the media equation of people tending to equate media=real life. The doubly disembodied language study demonstrates the automatic arousal resulting from illusions and the context that tend to reflect the society. The last study on preference demonstrate the most used tactic by entertainment industry whereby the star actor is made to possess characteristics that will enable them to be loved by the targeted audience. The personality and fame also led to the choice of preference where people tend to identify themselves with the celebs or rate the film according to the superiority of the star in the industry. The article portray that virtual experiences are caused by different psychological and cognitive factors that can be demonstrated with the three studies used in the paper.
References
Bartneck, C., Chioke, R., Menges, R., & Deckers, I. (2005). Robot Abuse – A Limitation of the Media Equation. Proceedings of the Interact 2005 Workshop on Abuse , Rome.
Lee, K. M., & Jung, Y. (2005). Evolutionary nature of virtual experience. 2005 Annual Conference -Communication: Questioning the Dialogue . Retrieved February 10, 2017, from, http://hdl.handle.net/10220/19369
Murphy, S. C., (2012). Book Review: How Television Invented New Media . Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 89(3):530-530 · August 2012 DOI: 10.1177/1077699012452543
Parikh, V., and Pahad, A., (2011). Understanding the Equation Between Media and Democracy A Case Study from India. Media Asia;2011, Vol. 38 Issue 2, p78, Academic Journal. Retrieved February 10, 2017, from, http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/case-studies/65561879/understanding-equation-between-media-democracy-case-study-from-india
Sparks, G. G., (2015). Media Effects Research: A Basic Overview . Cengage Learning, London.
