Is "reality" itself also a "pseudo-environment" constructed by symbols, media, and consensus? (Lippmann)
Hello! That's an excellent question you've raised—it cuts right to the heart of communication studies and some social philosophy. It might sound a bit "abstract," but it's actually deeply relevant to everyone's daily life. Let me try to break it down in plain language.
First, we need to understand what Lippmann meant by "Pseudo-environment"
Imagine you've never been to Antarctica, but you have an impression of it: icy landscapes, penguins, research stations, and probably extreme cold.
How did you get this "impression of Antarctica"? Most likely through documentaries, news reports, books, pictures—these media sources. This "Antarctica" that exists in your mind is what Lippmann called the Pseudo-environment.
- "Pseudo" means "imitating form." It's not the real Antarctica itself, but a representation of Antarctica that the media has described, filtered, and processed for you.
- "Environment" because, for you, it functions like the real environment. Your thoughts and actions are based on this "Antarctica in your mind." For example, if someone invited you on a trip to Antarctica, you'd pack a down jacket based on that impression, not swim trunks.
Lippmann's core idea is this: In modern society, most of us cannot personally experience everything happening in the world. Our understanding of the external world largely depends on media like news, newspapers, and television. These media present us with a "second-hand world," and we react based on this "second-hand world."
Simply put, the "pseudo-environment" is the "map of the world" drawn by the media in our minds, and we often mistake this map for the world itself.
Now, let's take this question a step further: What about "reality" itself?
You're asking whether the "reality" we inhabit might itself be a larger "pseudo-environment"?
The answer is: To a large extent, yes.
Lippmann's theory primarily focused on the influence of "news media" on our perception. But later scholars, especially semioticians and social constructionists, pushed this idea to its limits. They argue that our entire "social reality" is constructed collectively by the following elements:
1. Symbols: The foundational tools for understanding our world
Think about how you recognize a "table."
You might see a wooden object with four legs and a flat surface. But the word that pops into your head is "table." The word "table," this symbol, is not the object itself; it's merely a sound and text representing that object.
Our entire system of thought and knowledge is built upon symbolic systems like language, writing, and images. We use symbols to think, communicate, and record. Without symbols, complex thought is nearly impossible. Therefore, the "reality" we experience is, from the very beginning, not the "pure physical world," but a world filtered and encoded by symbolic systems.
It's like we've attached labels to everything in the world; we interact with these labels, not the things themselves.
2. Media: The "filters" shaping our perceptions
Here, "media" is broader than Lippmann's definition. It includes not just news, but also:
- Education: Textbooks tell us what history is, what science is, what morality is.
- Culture: Movies, music, novels define what romance is, what a hero is, what success is.
- Social Media: It's redefining what a "friend" is, what "life" is, what "beauty" is.
Each of us views the world through "tinted glasses" shaped by these media. Do you think "working hard to buy a house and car" is a natural and unquestionable life goal? Is this idea innate? Or has it been instilled in you over years by society, family, and media?
What we call "common sense" is often just the "mediated consensus" of a specific era and culture.
3. Consensus: The reality we collectively "agree" upon
This is the most crucial point. Think about the money in your hand.
What is the physical essence of a 100-yuan bill? It's a special piece of paper with printed patterns. Why can it buy things? Because it's backed by the state's credit? True. But more fundamentally: Because we all believe it can buy things.
From you to the shopkeeper to the wholesaler, everyone has reached this consensus. If one day, everyone suddenly stopped accepting this paper, it would truly become just a worthless scrap.
The value of "money" is not physical reality; it's a social reality constructed by collective consensus.
The same principle applies to many things we consider "natural and unquestionable":
- Nations: Are national borders physically drawn on the Earth? No. They are lines on a map, but more importantly, they are an imagined community we collectively recognize in our minds.
- Laws: Legal statutes are just lines of text, but because we collectively acknowledge their authority, they gain binding power.
- Marriage, corporations, stocks... All these are "realities" built upon collective imagination and consensus.
Conclusion: We live within a vast "reality of meaning" layered upon "physical reality"
So, back to your question: Is "reality" itself also a kind of "pseudo-environment" constructed by symbols, media, and consensus?
It can be understood this way:
We do live in a physical reality. We get hungry and need to eat; getting hit by a car hurts; gravity exists. This is objective, a "hard reality."
But simultaneously, we primarily live within a social reality (or reality of meaning) woven together by symbols, media, and consensus. This "reality of meaning" is like an immense, omnipresent "pseudo-environment." It defines our identities, our goals, our sense of right and wrong, and all our behavioral logic.
We are like programs running within an "operating system" we wrote ourselves. This system is so vast and taken for granted that we are almost unaware of its existence, mistaking it for the entirety of the world.
Therefore, from this perspective, Lippmann's "pseudo-environment" is not outdated; instead, it can be vastly expanded. We don't just live in the "small pseudo-environment" constructed by news media; we live within a "grand pseudo-environment" constructed by human civilization itself. We are both inhabitants of this environment and its co-creators.
This might sound unsettling, but consider it another way: precisely because "reality" is constructible, it is full of possibilities for change and creation.