Bending reality
Could a reality show modify the perception of reality? Is it fair to use it to make a dent on society? Invisibilia talks about an interesting experience happened in Somalia
Somalia went through very hard times: divisions, political instability, economic struggles, a divided society, hate and desperation. In 2009 al-Shabab, the Islamic extremist in power banned every form of music. What was able to bring people together suddenly and abruptly stopped.
At that point the United Nations decided to take a different path to try to build a sort of stability: a reality show called “Inspire Somalia” where people can sing and read poetry (poetry is widely appreciated in Somalia). What could appear as a strange way to modify a society for the good turned out to be an interesting, promising and somehow daring experiment. A reality show is in fact based on talent and, last but not least, on a democratic voting system. That was a good and subtle way to “inoculate” a good behaviour into people’s mind.
From a far point of view we might wonder how fair could be to play with reality, particularly a complicated one like Somalia’s. The interesting fact is that one thing is the personal belief (political, religious, whatever) and one is the personal behaviour. What this reality show showed was that it is possible to change or act on people’s behaviours, leaving convictions intact.
“We like to think that all of our behaviors flow from our convictions, and what we do is a reflection of who we are and what we think. But we’re constantly tuning ourselves to fit in with the social world around us.” said Pal Betsy Levy Paluck, a psychologist at Princeton University who studies media and how societies change.
Many contestants were afraid to perform because they feared social reject, not because they thought it was wrong at all. Your perception of reality — we might say — is much more rooted in your perception of yourself inside it than that of the society itself. Change the parameters of perception and then you can change people too. At least how they perceive themselves. For the good, of course.
