Although shows such as "Are you smarter than a 5th grader,"1 vs. 100," and "Jeopardy" are television shows aired on American television, Intelligence is not often portrayed in the mass of American media. You always hear about research that is going on and examples of "studies" to prove points to you in commercials, but how often are these statistics realistic? It is clearly proven that schooling makes us smarter, but how does television and movies help, reflect and enhance our IQ? Does it? Our textbook tells us that there are different types of IQ but yet none of these ideas are represented in media. Media does not emphasize the importance of intelligence. The ideas from our textbook are not often proven or shown through most types of advertisements, television, or movies. The only publicity for intelligence is the debate of IQ testing. This debate is often emphasized in the sense that an IQ test cannot possibly show ones true intelligence level. So how does this reflect what should be. Should we be trying to better represent what intelligence is through the media or is it's representation not effecting anything right now?
Are you smarter than a 5th grader?
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It's definitely an interesting point you bring up. I also do not agree though. I believe many of these shows don't portray true intelligence. I believe these shows are all about fact-recalling. I mean, if you think about it, how many topics from your 5th grade class do you remember? I do not believe that intelligence is a fact you can portray correctly on the media anyway. I don't think anything is getting effected by it now.
You bring up an interesting point. In media, intelligence is often portrayed as a "nerd" or "geek". But this is only one kind of intelligence. When looking at the triarchic model in the textbook, I rarely see creativity or street smarts as an intelligence in media, mainly just book smarts. In turn, I think this teaches kids they are stupid if they aren't book smart, but there are many types of intelligence so maybe they are smart in a different way.
I agree that many of these types of television shows portray mere fact recollection, but that I feel is also attributed to overall intelligence. Like the comment above me states, however, there are different contributions to intelligence that determine an individual's overall intelligence level. Although it would be interesting to see a model of intelligence portrayed through the media, I don't feel that it is capable of being done because of the large complexity of the matter.
I think that you bring up an interesting point. I think that this may not be discussed so much in media becuase it is such a controversial topic and there are so many different view points towards IQ testing that the media probably wouldn't even know what to say. I think one way in which IQ testing is portrayed in modern TV shows is that having a low IQ and not caring about school is cool. Especially in kids shows. I think that this is bad that they are portraying this to kids becuase they may grow up and think that it is cool to not care about grades and therefore may not be as successful in life or reach their full potential.