Psychological Filters Reflection

I find the discussion about mass communication very interesting, not only because of the intriguing nature of any topic related to journalism, but also because of its relevance to the modern day world. YouTube, which was the first example of the process of mass communication, is filled with videos that people from all over the world post and many viewers. Mass communication, because of its relevance, is very important.

The process of mass communication is stimulus, encoding, transmission, decoding, and internalization. There are many ways to enact these five steps, as there are many forms of mass communication.

In the last step, internalization, there are filters that prohibit the audience from actually internalizing. Filters are very interesting because they come from internalization itself, unlike impediments that only block the communication in the encoding, transmission, and decoding stages.

There are three kinds of filters: physical, psychological, and informational filters. Physical means "I cannot". That means a person physically cannot internalize the form of communication. Psychological means "I will not". This means that the reader has a bias against what is being communicated. Informational means "I don't understand". This means the audience is not clear as to what is being communicated.

Psychological filters are interesting because they have to do with people's opinions. I find human nature very interesting, and since this topic has to do with human nature, I am intrigued. There are many examples of psychological filters throughout America. There are many people that choose not to listen to scientists when they uncover evidence that disproves their claims. In fact, though around 97% of scientists believe humans greatly affected global warming, far less of the general population agrees. This is an example of a psychological filter where the audience refuses to listen to the form of communication, which is data that proves humans greatly influenced global warming that is shared online.

Mass communication is very important, and therefore very intriguing. There are many interesting parts to this topic that have not been thoroughly addressed, but I still believe that psychological filters are the most interesting parts.