The media reality: Epistemological functions of media in cultural systems

This essay focuses upon cognitive and cultural relationships now associated with the electronic “media explosion.” Neurophysiological research is surveyed and assessed for its potential power as a means for viewing the electronic media as a social reality equal in power to the kind of understandings produced by science and everyday experiences. Particularly, the existing literature is examined for the credibility it lends to the notion that media formats affect the type of mental patterns and concommitant cultural systems controlling human communication. The case outlined suggests that the electronic media generate predominantly holistic, metaphorical, and pattern recognition understandings while simultaneously promoting an epideictic value orientation. Heuristic in design, this essay thus examines the view which holds that the media constitute a discrete reality or way of knowing.