Chapter 37

In this chapter, the ideas of sociologist Gustave Le Bon are discussed. Le Bon was very interested in images and the way “theatrical representations” impact the audience. Today, these “theatrical representations”, which can be found in mass-media (films, television, and video), influence crowds, audiences and public opinion. Le Bon believes that appearances play a much bigger role than reality, which implies that people feel the same emotions at the same time when they are exposed to songs they hear on the radio, see a television show on TV, or read a book. However, this has been replaced by the more recent “reception theory”. This theory argues that humans interpret mass-mediated texts differently based on our education, social background, and knowledge base. There are examples of times when humans do have a similar understanding of ideas, such as facial expression and body language. This allows people to interpret and understand simple things in a similar manner. Although Le Bon may have been wrong about people interpreting images in the same way, he was correct about the power of these texts and how they impact a crowd. I couldn’t agree with the end result of this chapter more. I thought Le Bon’s ideas on how people viewed an image and felt the same emotion were not correct, however the power of images is incredible. A person’s background plays a huge role in how a person feels about a certain text.