Does the Media Persuade You?

Many of us fall into one of the two categories, the attentive public or the inattentive public. The attentive public is for those people who pay more attention to politics then what is actually going on in the world, the inattentive public is for those people who are persuaded by the media. I for one would have to say I fall into this category. I believe that when watching the news it’s hard to not be persuaded by it. This media isn’t just coming from the news; it’s coming from what I hear on the radio and what I read online and in magazines. It surrounds us everywhere.

As I was reading the some articles online one that came to my attention was an article from CNN Travel titled “Mexican violence scaring off American tourists,” posted by Paul Vercammen and Ted Rowlands. In this article the authors discussed how tourists have now become afraid to travel because of the bad wrap places like Mexico have been getting in the media. A street vendor from Mexico discusses that business has gone down a big amount and explains, "Please tell them, the Americans, it's safe to come here. We are all Americans, North Americans.” Even though this may be true, many of us are still afraid to travel out of the country. As I read more of this article I am persuaded though that Mexico has gotten better since a few years back because Paul and Ted interviewed some student’s doing service work in Mexico that explained, "To be honest, I was a tiny bit nervous crossing the border," Walker said. "I've been to Mexico before, but not for service projects. But now that I have been here a couple days, I am perfectly comfortable." As much as traveling to a different country might make people nervous, can the media really affect our lives and the way we live?

Article
http://www.cnn.com