How Fantasy Becomes Reality: Seeing Through Media Influence 1st Edition

Had to read this for a class and I was surprisingly intrigued by it. There's a lot of pretty upsetting information to be sure and some parts that almost sounded like repetition, but all in all a pretty good read.

I'm very pleased with Karen Dill using her sense of humor and knowledge about how fantasy can easily become reality in this world of technology and influence of the Media. We often times are not aware in our daily lives of how subtle this can be but it affects the way we live and think. To be free of misconceptions in this field, it was refreshing to actually look at Karen Dill's insight and knowledge. After all she did testify in front of Congress about this very issue. She, also, reaches out to her community in this field. Bravo!!!I would recommend this book, especially to those raising children today. What a difficult task. You really need to stay on top of things in today's world.

Very insightful book. I purchased this book for an intro communications class at my college. I was surprised to find that I actually really enjoyed the material. It talks quite a lot about how the media has absolutely brainwashed everyone and the effects that come into play. I had never really realized it prior to reading this book. There are many "adult" topics discussed in this book, so I would not recommend for children. Very well written and eye opening.

The book was insightful and filled with stories and anecdotes that made the subject especially relevant. This book is a great primer on the need for media literacy.

Nice quality; as described.

How Fantasy becomes Reality... If ever there was a doubt about the insidious impact movies, TV, video games and modern music has on our life and the lives of our children, Karen Dill's excellent book "How Fantasy becomes Reality" provides definitive proof. With the skills of a surgeon she cuts through the complex interactions adults, teens and pre-teens have with our overexposure to modern media and provides an astonishingly clear picture of the, often harmful, impact on our lives. Read it and you'll be amazed how we and our children are being subtlety manipulated by the media industries. Use the illustrations Dr. Dill provides to help your children understand the harmful effects of overexposure to movies, TV, video games and modern music. Your children may thank you someday... or maybe not! Johnny Vlah

This is the book that made me want to study media psychology and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the matter. Not only students, but anyone interested in learning how media affects us. Dill is an expert and she has a subtle, yet sharp sense of humor that's never cheap and makes the reading entertaining and pleasant: "Anyone who has gone to college (or primary school, for that matter) has had an education on the fundamentals of science." (p. 71). She sounds like a combination of Steven Pinker and Alan Bennett writing for Jezebel: knowledgeable and clear, witty, and slightly irreverent. You'll end up devouring this book as if it was a thriller. It makes you sad when you reach the end.She has a new revised and extended edition that I cannot wait to read!

In her thoughtful and lively book, social psychologist Karen Dill deftly moves beyond the question of whether or not our use of screen media affects us. That debate, she confirms, is essentially over: it does. The more interesting question she asks is why we are so quick to deny such influence. As Dill argues, such denial renders us even more vulnerable to "media effects." Her task is to help us understand how our media use affects us (without our realizing it), so that we can begin to participate more proactively in the evolution of its form and content, and live healthier lives.Using tools of social psychology, Dill examines how media producers provide eye-catching images and emotion-wringing scripts that stir our primal desires for food, sex, and social belonging. They attract our attention by shocking our sensory selves. We are soon addicted to the charge.What is particularly helpful about this book is Dill's explanation of how the form and content of today's screen media--and she examines television shows, movies, rap music, music videos, video games, advertising, and political coverage--play right into our strengths as the socially-wired creatures we humans are.Face to face with desire-grabbing images and sense-assaulting scripts, we cannot help comparing ourselves to what we see. We cannot help imitating at a neuro-chemical level the actions that we see. Nor can we help repeating stereotypes about race and gender, or absorbing the persistent, implicit message of many video games, rap songs, and popular films that violence is an acceptable and useful response to life's conflicts.In short it is our nature as social creatures to learn from what we see about what is real, what matters, how we should act, and where we should, or do not, fit in. We do so without thinking. Even though we know that what we are seeing is fiction, it registers in our brains as real.Thus, where our social brains meet screen media, Dill reports, we are apt to grow both increasingly anxious and insecure about our selves (as compared to the media's ideal forms), and addicted to the virtual and vicarious bursts of pleasure that those same images provide. In such a state we are more vulnerable than ever to promises about what products will fill the gaps that our use of media has opened. Advertisers take note.To protect ourselves, Dill offers timely advice: assume that you are being manipulated, and then think critically, consume wisely, unplug frequently, vary your intake, and seek out non-screen activities that engage us in a state of flow.Along the way, her riveting accounts of psychological experiments and her amusing anecdotes combine for an enjoyable as well as enlightening read. She is a friendly guide indeed!Kimerer L. LaMothe, Ph.D., Author of What a Body Knows: Finding Wisdom in Desire