Once I got to grips with what Plato was saying in his simile of The Cave, it was a thought I found provocative and brought up a great deal of questions for us to consider within the media.
Plato uses the metaphor of The Cave to describe the life of an accepted reality, that as 'prisoners' we would have no other choice but to believe even though what we have known to be true from birth is completely false and based on our wrong interpretations of the world that surrounds us. This is to say that the average man would not be able to tell the difference between what is true and what is false.
With this metaphor, Plato suggests that the general terms that exist in our language are not the 'names' of the physical objects we see (the reflections and shadows through the fire that we believe to be reflections of a true object from beyond the cave walls). Instead, that they are 'names' of things that are not visible to us, and that we can only grasp within our minds with use of our imagination. We take what we see (projected on the cave wall) and what we hear (voices from behind us/behind the screen) and through our imagination we create relationships that we accept as our reality. What we see as the truth is what shapes our reality.
When a prisoner is released from the cave, and starts the journey into the light and towards the sun (a journey of enlightenment) he is forced to understand that what he previously believed to be true (projections through the fire) was actually false and that what he sees now in the light is the true and accepted form of reality. The projections he saw, were merely manipulations created by others. I think this point is especially provocative in relation to our idea of the media.
At first the prisoner, who is faced with enlightenment, might want to return to the darkness for it is easier to not challenge our perceptions, to return to his comfort zone where everything was played our for him to understand. To return to his normal belief and act upon fear of this unrecognised world. Within the text, Plato describes this process as a painful one, to which the prisoner would much object. Basically, what Plato is saying is that it would be a mistake for us to limit ourselves to conventional thought, simply because of a stubbornness towards change.
As the prisoner adjusts step by step to what he is now being presented with as real, first he would recognise shadows and reflections, as this is what he learnt to understand in the cave. Then he would recognise objects and people in their own existence. Then finally, when it did not hurt (both physically as his eyes adjusted to he light, and also mentally as he gained understanding) he would look directly up at the sun. This would be his arrival through the cognitive stages of thought to full understanding of reality and truth.
Upon his return to the cave, the prisoner would be obliged to share his new understanding as a leader of the people. This is where I think it is also very applicable to the media and to advertising. Plato suggests that when we represent the truth to others, we will not be believed until they have experienced it as well.
As advertisers, we have the power to advertise to affect in a way that is either useful and salutary, or useless and harmful. Within advertising it is up to us in which way we want to use the message we have to put across, to use it or to abuse it. This is a definition also between dictators and leaders, and can even be related to the Marxist theory of the ISA (Ideological State Apparatus) and parts of the media such as newspapers and the way that News Cooperation can be said to propagate ideology and produce willing compliance without the audience being aware.
Plato's writing can produce further questions about the media; if we can replace 'the cave' for a movie screen and so say the objects that we see are not real, but reflections from the projector behind us, to be aware of this definition must mean that we have achieved enlightenment, and by knowing that what we see on a movie screen is actors playing out character roles, then we are aware of what is true and real. It is those individuals who cannot make definition between an actor as a real person beyond the screen, and their character that we see played out for us, who are still prisoners in the cave.
How then, does reality television fit in with this? When watching reality TV, the characters we are presented are supposedly 'real' and the character we see them acting out is supposed to be the real person who exists beyond the screen as well. However, there is still space for manipulation of the message from the puppeteers by clever editing of the footage. In the situation of reality TV, it is not only the message to the audience that can be manipulated (a comment on 'real people') but also the perceptions of who each individual character is.
This clip from Charlie Brooker's 'Screenwipe' describes this perfectly.
Need to know how to reference properly here?
Plato, The Republic, p.g 316-325, Penguin Classics
Rice, B (2006) Plato's Allegory of the Cave: analysis and summary. [Online] March 2006. Available from: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/22696/platos_allegory_of_the_cave_analysis.html?cat=72. [Accessed: 3rd January 2011].
Srivastava, S (N.d) Plato's Allegory of the Cave: Meaning and Interpretation. [Online] N.d. Available from: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/platos-allegory-of-the-cave-meaning-and-interpretation.html [Accessed: 3rd January 2011].
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