Observe one to two hours of TV in the next week. Any show is appropriate but emphasis should be placed on human behavior. Do not watch sporting events, news or documentaries unrelated to the emphasis. Take detailed notes as you go about the characters. How are they dressed? What are their bodies like? Their faces?. What do they do for a living? Are they rich, poor, or middle class? What race or ethnicity are they? How do they refer to themselves? What is their age? Etc. Do this for one to two hours.

Then take one to two hours to do real-life observation, pick two spots in quite different settings (neighborhoods) and pick an ideal location for observing human behavior. Laundromats are ideal as well as public parks, malls, bus terminals, airports, etc. Pick out several people to watch and make the same observations as you did for the media characters. You may select a group of people (teens, elderly, 20 something’s) for observation but only if it corresponds with your TV viewing observation.

Look over your notes, and draw comparisons between the media characters and the real people that you observed.

1. Do the media distort images of real people?

2. Do the media influence us with our sense of reality?