Influence of Media on Emotional Lives of Teachers and Students in Classroom - Report Example

Running Head: Better Business Reporting Name Instructor Institution Date In case emotion is conceptualized as a psychological construct, the media-psychological origins will form a good starting point for the research; how media influence the emotional lives of both students and teachers in the classroom. The definition for emotion strongly depends on the laid down theoretical approaches that were applied by Kleinginna and Kleinginna (2009). Kleinginna and Kleinginna explained that “There are three concepts that best explain emotion. These theoretical approaches look at the concept from different components. They consider emotion to be a complex and highly interactive entities whose values encompassing both objective and subjective factors as cognitive, affective and physiological.” The emotions that develop when students and teachers are exposed to different media sources do not fundamentally differ from everyday situations. The difference that may be noticed is that students and teachers conceptualize media emotions just like any other normal but unconscious evaluation process. During the appraisal or the so called evaluation process, students and teachers are tempted to apply perceived or read media events, objects and the surrounding circumstances with respect to their pleasantness, novelty, attainability and compatibility with the societal norms-within classroom context. Media have nourished students and teachers with emotional skills which have helped them to form relationships with other students and teachers in the classroom. These skills include the capacity to recognize and interpret fundamental building blocks of social cohesiveness. Research has shown that students are able to recognize and differentiate basic emotions such as happiness, sadness and fear in classroom as expressed by characters in newspapers, magazines and television.1 Media over years has been influencing emotional lives of students and teachers in classroom in the following ways: a. Mood Regulation b. Fear and Anxiety infusion c. Media and moral development in teachers and students Media influence on mood regulations Teachers and students who are exposed to media have inculcated a culture of being able to regulate their moods in classroom so as to accommodate each other during different times. Moods are more or less pleasant and as classroom might present itself differently, there is a need to regulate it. When discussing mood management theory as a teacher, Zillmann (1988a, 1988b) gave a comprehensive analysis on how reading mood related journals, magazines and programs can particularly help teachers accommodate different students who could be proving difficult. Zillmann explains that trying to emulate certain characters who were portrayed to be mood tolerant can make teachers and student regulate their mood when dealing with one another in class. The mood management theory is based on the principle premise that students and teachers are hedonistic beings when in class and in such a situation, they both strive to optimize their mood state. And so, both will design a model within the class in such a way that positive moods will be encouraged and bad ones discarded. Besides, Dempsey in his column within the magazine entitled ‘Mind Mood and Memory’2 explains that his publications have been targeting teachers as competence of these teachers will be judged if they can regulate their emotions---moods. It therefore stands that mood regulation in classroom remains indispensable qualification for contemporary teachers. On the other hand, students too have been able to curb their moods when exposed to certain sources of information. Researchers have found that television and magazine contents can help students learn how to manage their emotional lives by controlling their mood swings. In a series of experiments carried out on students by Jennifer Kotler and Sandra Calvert discovered that information gathered by students from their favorite programs had a positive impact on their mood management especially when faced with similar problems as read. Samples of high school students gathered across various states in America were invited to post comments on a particular weekly magazine they had been asked to read couple of months before. This magazine was written in a way that students could read and conceptualize how various celebs manage their ever changing moods. When they were asked to rate the magazine on education/informative, they reported grasping knowledge on stress and mood swing management. Majority reported that the magazine had taught them more about their emotional wellbeing, overcoming moods, spirit of sharing and overcoming anxiety. On gender consideration, girls were more enlightened from this magazine than boys. The gender disparity reported was because girls had more passion for the magazine than boys. Secondly, boys believed they don’t experience problems with moods as compared to girls. Media influence on fear and anxiety Contemporary news and other print media have had considerably deep effect on students and teachers and students when in classroom. Teachers and students have been showing adverse emotional fear and anxiety in their class out of the information they get from media. Recent piece of experiment carried out on teachers and students demonstrated that students and teachers transfer their fear and anxiety seen and read directly to their real life situation when in classroom.3 Almost half the study group---teachers and students watched and read columns related mood arousal and excitement and the other group were exposed to media materials which contained one or two characters negative emotions intended to instill a feeling of fear and anxiety. It was discovered that after watching a character failing examinations more than three times, students developed a fear factor while handing their exams.4 This experiment is in line with Schwab (1997, pp. 107-127) who shown that literary texts such as magazines have been functioning as a fear factor to teachers and students in class. Schwab asserted that: “Because literary texts have the capacity to resonate with such deeply intimate experiences, they may function as facilitators for an undifferentiated and unformulated knowledge that manifests itself in certain rhythms and structures, and that we "translate" into fears and anxiety rather than thought of expression when in class.” It can also be realized that modern journalistic language is bombarded with traumatic lexes that has been relayed to teachers and students in various contexts. One of the media contexts that has been instilling fear and anxiety are stories and news related to terrorism. These lexes together with images of the tragic scenarios have deeply affected students. To underscore the significance of my statement was the present study carried out in Foundation University Islamabad.5 This research tried to determine the extent to which the use of lexical language instilled fear on undergraduate adolescent students from Pakistan. The study tried to analyze how traumatic lexes used in local Newsweek articles written on terrorism caused anxiety and fear on female undergraduates. The outcome of this research conform with the studies taken by Alvarez-Conrad et al and Beckham et al., who discovered that traumatic expressions on magazines, Episodes and newspapers can cause emotional fear and anxiety to students and teachers. It also confirm studies by Schwab (1997, p. 5) who explained; “That literary texts function as a fear factor to teachers and student and when it does so, teachers and student may look at each other in terms of an enemy when relating them as actor or actress read” Media and moral development in teachers and student Though scientific researchers still argue whether morality is aspect of emotion, there has been consensus that morality is fostered by emotions and emotional attachments (Zillmann and Vorderer, 2000). It is undisputed fact that media has been labeled as a source of moral decay. Indeed, a research recently carried out showed that over 70 percent of English students are very or somewhat concerned that popular culture as presented through media will degrade the moral standards of the natives.6 Moral development in students and teachers can be said to be taking a predictable path. When classroom situation present itself with challenging situation, through the influence of the media they can be able to pass a judgment whether a certain action is wrong or right.7 The more students and teachers get exposed to media contents, the more they develop ability to tackle often-conflicting rules and challenges inherent within the class. In other words, there is going to be a more flexible moral reasoning. A research carried out by Marina Krcmar and her colleagues tried to discover the moral impacts teachers and students within school situation might be faced with by watching and reading violent programs. In one survey, they presented eight-two sets of teachers and students with hypothetical stories in which a perpetrator performed aggression either for reasons of protection, they decided to term “justi­fied” and for violence, or for random purposes, called “unjustified” violence.8 They discovered that many students and teachers perceived the unjustified aggression to be unacceptable. To shed more light on the experiment, two recent researches were conducted by Marina Krcmar and Stephen Curtis. The research was to find the effect of magazine and television moral conceptions on students and teachers in a class. Afterward this study groups were asked to judge four hypothetical stories involving violence. The study found that group of students and teachers who read violent stories were more likely than the other group to judge violence as a good moral.9 Conclusion As researches have indicated, emotional lives of students and teachers are positively transformed when exposed to various media contents. In fact, according to cultivation theory, students and teachers who watch a great deal of television will come to perceive the real world as being consistent with what they see on the screen. References Kleinginna, P. R., and Kleinginna, A. M. (2009). Acategorized list of emotion definitions, with suggestions for a consensual definition. In H. Thomae (Ed.), Motivation und Emotion. Band 1: Theorien und Formen der Motivation [Motivation and emotion. Vol. 1: Theories and forms of motivation] (pp. 345-355). Göttingen, Germany: Hogrefe. Schwab, G., 1997. Words and moods: The transference of literary knowledge. SubStance, Vol. 26, No. 3, Issue 84 (1997), pp. 107-127. University of Wisconsin Press. Zillmann, D., & Vorderer, P. (Eds.). (2000). Media entertainment: The psychology of its appeal. Zillmann, D. (1988a). “Mood management”: Using entertainment to full advantage. Donohew. Zillmann, D. (1988b). “Mood management through communication choices.” American Behavioral Scientist, 31, 327- 340. Read More