10/28/2007
Shaping
Shaping is a psychology term that means you are engaged in slowly moving a patient from one behavior state, to a more desirable behavior state. Obviously, this does not just happen in psychology clinics and mental health wards. It happens in real life, businesses do it, governments, and most of us will do it in one form or another in our personal lives. While reading one of the Yahoo articles on the efforts in Afghanistan to bring peace, I was reminded how much shaping the media does of public opinion. Given how many of the movers and shakers of that blessed industry not just leftists, but far leftists, it's hardly surprising how much of what we see is so skewed towards their perception of our troops, our foreign policy, and the thousand and one other issues they cover. One of the nicer features of the Internet age is the ability to give instant feed back. Guess what that feed back can do?
I decided when going through a series of Afghanistan photos that I was going to make a conscious effort to take the half second to click on photos that show the military, and our allies militarys' in a positive light, or that show peaceful activities in both Afghanistan and Iraq. There is a perception in an unfortunate percentage of the population that anyplace a soldier goes, anytime a unit is deployed that there is nothing but bloodshed and destruction for miles around them. This is a world view that is dangerous, and flat out untrue. While engaging in direct debate on the issue can be enjoyable, and effective occasionally, challenging someones beliefs in that way rarely changes those beliefs on emotional issue. What can be more effective is shaping a new emotional and behavior state into the place of the old one.
Labels: media, psychology, society, war
