When reading the "Allegory", I found a connection that may help me better understand media today and how it could influence my own experience with the media that is surrounding me on a day to day basis. I feel when the "Allegory" describes the necks and legs being "fettered" from childhood so that they can remain in the same spot and only able to look forward, it is portraying a sense of the world today-- meaning, the people described in the cave can be compared to most of the people in the present today, specifically born after the 1990's, whom are muted to see only the view of their childhood rather then the bigger picture of the world around them. This philosophy is carried with most people and how we experience the media in this modern, digital age. The media has been throwing subliminal messages in our minds for as long as we know. Those messages stick with us and can be portrayed in the way we think or act. We seem to never question these messages which is exactly how the media likes it. We begin to conform to certain "norms" and follow specific media trends whether we acknowledge it or not.
The "Allegory" also describes prisoners that would "deem reality to be nothing else than the shadows of the artificial objects." Plato is explaining that the prisoners only recognize the reality that they are familiar with since their childhood. I feel this is very familiar in most cases with children (and adults) growing in this modern age. In most cases, people simply rely on media to persuade them on how they should think, dress, act, etc..'
In the "Allegory", Plato foresees the realization that much of what we see throughout the media will guide us in ways for how we choose to believe in certain things. Media can have an extremely negative or positive pull on how we view the world but we must keep in mind that the media is always skewed in the direction that they want us to portray it.
