ThE MeDiA...

'The media cannot present the world to us, despite their assertions of truth, reality and verisimilitude. In practice the media offer us perspectives or selected views on our world. They re-present that world to us by constructing images and behaviours for lots of different groups within, and indeed outside, our own society. So we are aware of families represented in a range of television soaps. We have a knowledge of sportspeople through sports coverage in the press and on television programmes. We are dependent on the media for our insights into what it was like to live in a time before we were born. Our knowledge of other countries and lifestyles is usually based on media constructs. And so on. '