Using Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave" to Understand Media and Media Influence

My rendering of the cave

Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave" tells us of a conversation held between Socrates and Glaucon, in which Socrates tells a story that poses many questions in order to get Glaucon to visualize the image of a cave and the people within it.  Repeatedly Socrates presents Glaucon with the image and a scenario, and then asks for feedback as to what Glaucon believes the people in the story will do.  The main idea behind the "Allegory" is that no matter what someone tells you is the truth, what is more important is what you perceive to be the truth.

Many people can look at the same image/object and have different understandings of what that image/object really is.  You can choose to take someone else's explanation of that image/object at face value and accept it as your "truth", but that does not necessarily make it the correct "truth" for everyone.  We can easily apply this to the concept of the media and the media's influence.  Say the media creates an advertisement or a music video.  They do this with a specific intent in mind.  That is their truth of the image that they are creating.  However, two different people could look at the same advertisement or music video and get completely different opinions of the image, which could also be completely different from what the media had intended for the ad or music video when they created it.

You cannot force someone to see or understand something the same way that you do.  The other person(s) may see it the same or not, but that knowledge cannot be forcibly given to the other party.  This idea was present in the "Allegory" when Socrates said that if the one person who was able to go out into the world, and learn about everything, went back into the cave and tried to tell everyone that they were wrong and to explain to them what they were seeing was something other than what they believed, that they would end up killing him."Allegory"