ABSTRACT
All representations of reality are closely tied to the system of coded meanings through which specific cultures and societies classify and reproduce their distinctive practices. Whenever scientists or reporters convey the results of their analyses or observations to a larger audience the facts they report are transformed from mere representations of reality into representations which can also promote one side or another of that reality. Such representations, James Carey has noted, serve to promote in subtle ways aspects of reality that reporters or scientists often claim to be merely describing. Facts disseminated in the way become representations through which social reality is described, interpreted, criticized, manipulated, distorted, promoted, and discussed, in a word, constructed. Facts produced and distributed through the media play a large role in our public life. Historian Daniel J. Boorstin has coined the term to describe how both the media and in turn the public can be victimized.
