What effects do media sources have on how we perceive the world? We see certain things through lenses that are shaped and formed by our opinions, thoughts, and ideas that we hold to be true. When we are faced with mediated rhetoric, does the frame cause us to use our lenses in a different way? How can it not? If someone holds a red pen, but before showing it to you they spray-paint it black, are you going to perceive this pen as red or black when they present it to you? Unless there is another source telling you additional information, you will hold what was presented to you as true and say that it was indeed a black pen. We are very vulnerable to the media and the power that they possess. Media is like an advertisement. It's presented to us in hopes to persuade, educate, or inform, but most of the time it is a one-sided process. Sometimes it's framed by a famous person representing it, and sometimes it's framed by the content itself. Someone who has no contact with any “outside” people but gains all information from a television set would have a very different opinion of the world compared to someone who has never watched a television. Friday in one of my sociology classes a representative from another class gave us a questionnaire to fill out for a study they were conducting. The study had to do with how weight was portrayed on television. There were questions dealing with different people sizes and how often they are represented on television (news positions, reality television, etc…). This coincided with the questions that followed about self-image and whether or not we were satisfied with our own bodies. It is difficult in our society to promote positive body image feelings to people because of frames that are constructed about the “correct” body shape, weight, and size. How would the world be different with a nation-wide issue, concerning obesity, if this mediated frame was different? I don’t think we will ever find out.