The Media Impact Continued

By: Sam Little

My love of this field has led me to buy a library of books, piles of movies, stacks of DVDs, and many gigs worth of e-books relating to everything from ghosts to the Blair Witch. Some say I have an addiction, but to those people I simply reply.... so! Our growing field encompasses so much that these stacks of books and films do not even scratch the surface of what is really out there. This little article is a look at just how much the media portals are reflecting in our field and how they in some way or form have helped shape and mold us as researchers. I am not saying that we should use everything we find in a media outlet as fact and technique, but we should not disregard those that set a pretty good example.

Many researchers remember the days when our field did not have precidence over the TV or movie arenas, in fact we were lucky to see one program regarding such topics. Where did it all begin? Well that is a matter of opinion, and I am afraid and mine is rather clear. Unsolved Mysteries brought me to the TV every Wednsday night. I first heard of Ressurection Mary and Black Hope on that show as well as so much more. Shortly thereafter Sightings captivated my young and developing mind. I was hooked like a fish, but unlike our aquatic friends I did not want that hook out of my mouth. I became so hungry for knowledge on the field of paranormal that I drove my teachers nuts looking for books, my video store became like a second home and I was like a madman hell bent on the pursuit of my prey. Needless to say I am still that madman, a little older and a little wiser but just as persistant as I was in those days.

What have we learned using these media outlets? We learned in the 70's that a little book could propel a reported haunting to the sky. Jay Anson's Amityville Horror made an impact like no other book had ever done in our field's elustrious past. It made ghosts as common as Sunday Mass. Of course we as researchers learned much from this text. We learned that paranormal activity could not only make you crazy, it could make you rich. This case set us all in a bit more skeptic aproach to what we do. The book was supposedly based on true accounts, but was riddled with discrepinsies that made many label the entire case a fraudulent attempt at gaining income.

Of course not all books and media fronts are as degrading to us as researchers. We all remember the impact of Chariots of the Gods, and of course the first printing of Troy Taylor's Ghost Hunters Guide. These were pivotal, and powerful books in our field. While books are great, in this article, I want to mainly function and focus on TV's contributions, both positive and negative, fact and fictual. That way we have something to look at from both sides of the mainframe. Let us look if you care to join me, at some of the many programs that have impacted out field.

Let us start with the X-files. Yes, I know that this show was not a true story, nor based on any particular case, but still it reflected true cases in a non-true way. I recall Mothman, Bigfoot, and even Chupacabre making itself known on the screen. X-files gave us something to look forward to as possibilities, not probable ones but none the less it was entertaining TV for paranormal enthusiast to take in. It also gave way to a fact some teams caught on to real quick. Mulder, the victim of a stolen sister, possibly at the hands of an alien controversity was quick to believe everything as paranormal. Skully, was the opposite, always rationalizing, and looking for scientific answers to each case, in hopes of proving that science prevailed over the unknown. Is this not in reality, how our field operates? We the researchers are out to prove the paranormal exist, diving into the dark reaches of the underworld, while the die hard skeptics remain solid in their scientific views and ways. You really see a reflection of our field in the show despite never really intending to do so. X-files also without intention, gave a new light to our field as younger members of the community became enthralled in this show and their interest in what we were doing became stronger to the point that many joined us in our search for the truth.

Even music television played a part in the growth of our field. MTV was always quick to step out with reality programming, and introduced the world to Fear, a show that put 5 to 6 people who had never met each other into a haunted location, and gave them tasks to carry out hoping to determine for themselves if the location was or was not haunted. The show may at first seemed like a crude attempt to profit from the paranormal, but it quickly became something else. It was a display of how even the strongest willed person would crack under the thought of ghosts. The show was a display of fear related to and brought on by the shear thought of paranormal activity. It reflected human nature to be afraid of what is unknown and seek the light opposed to the darkness. I felt Fear while not much for the pursuit of true evidence was in fact a great show to enlighten us as researchers to just how unusual and scary what we did was and how it seemed to the average person. Fear took us into the haunted world as an onlooker with no foregoing knowledge of what it was we were getting ourselves into. It gave us a look at how the outside world viewed our field. Strangly enough, Fear never really caught on.

Now I want to look at one of the most unentertaining, but enlightening shows that was ever made for our community. Sci-fi had audiences glued to the screens to watch young John Edwards Cross Over to the other side and speak to the dead, relaying messages that were for the living. Few would ever know that Edwards in many ways was a poor imitation of medium George Anderson, who did exactly as Edwards, but without the use of cold readings. Edwards really opened researchers to possibilities, but not all of them were positive lights. In fact some, most actually from what I have gathered felt John was simply using cold reading techniques and generalizations to aquire the info. His accuracy was never really varified. The show was popular but in a great deal of ways it really was being taken as an insult in the community.

So in closing this ongoing study, I want to look at the present and the future. We have shows new like Ghosthunters, Most Haunted, A Haunting and the list goes on for miles. Are these shows any better at representing our field to a public starving for answers to questions that have remained as constant as the sting of heart break? Maybe, maybe not. I look at each in different viewpoints, both good and bad. My study has always been done this way. I never look at any program or book without thinking of the good and the bad. My love of the field has made me treat it as gentle as a baby, but in times it needs to be scolded and sometimes we get that scolding, by the way we view these programs, remember always be subjective, never believe everything and happy hunting!