Media have always been a strong influence to all of us. Sometimes we buy a brand of shampoo not because we know that it is made of good quality, rather because we have been convinced by its commercial saying that this particular brand of shampoo is really good. You have to congratulate the people behind those advertisements, by the way, because they really had you eating right at their hands. Anyway, that just goes to say how strong the convincing power of the media is. When it comes to our idea on camping, tenting and caravanning, most of them are grounded on what we see on TV rather than what had been taught to us in school.

We learn a thing or two on the history of most things as we coast through school. For the most part, of what we know, they were all taught to us by media devices. For instance, in our history class, we learned that the native settlers of America such as the Indians and the Cherokees utilized tents as their form of shelter. That, being associated with history becomes boring to most of us. Give 5 minutes after the bell rings and all that talk on tenting by the American Indians become stashed into the storage area of our memory. We may think at some point that it hardly is worth remembering, unless there is a test coming up on the subject.

Now, media have really effective ways to help us remember. Movies that feature the tent include of Walt Disney`s Pocahontas featuring the villages of the Native American Indians. Another Walt Disney animated film is Mulan where you can see men training to be soldiers living in tents in the soldier camp. In this particular movie, you would also see Mulan`s troops caravanning through the mountains. They keep their weapons in their caravan. Caravanning is very common when you watch films that feature stories in the medieval times. Caravans were not only used to transport weapons and armaments, it is also used to carry harvests. Also, damsels ride the caravan to be sheltered from the eyes of men. Gypsies are mostly associated traveling using a caravan as well as mugging innocent people riding in caravans.

Media portray camping in so many ways. Some definitions of camping would define it as a king of activity in the woods. However, its definition goes beyond that. Camping is also defined as any form of recreational activity done by groups of people. There are so many movies that feature different forms of camping. In the movie Mulan, there is a soldier camp where men are trained to be soldiers. In the movie, the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, one of the major characters went to join a summer football camp where all they had to do was practice football. In the movie Camp Rock, the camp was all about singing and music.

Media are really a great mode of teaching. Movies can touch us in ways that lecture do not. Since movies have been meaning, we associate meaning to common ideas. After watching Camp Rock, you will never say that camp is all about nature and wilderness.