Hello, Media-lovers, Media-haters, and the Apathetic(s) in between!
Mediabully here and before we delve into an analysis of media influence, I’d like to share an excerpt from a book many of you may be familiar with from a previous English course (or
perhaps from your spare time):
The Party claimed, of course, to have liberated the proles from bondage. . . . In reality very little was known about the proles. It was not necessary to know much. So long as they continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern. They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed through a brief blossoming period of beauty and sexual desire, they married at twenty, they were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the most part, at sixty. Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer, and, above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult. —George Orwell, 1984
My blog has brought about the idea that the media has control over society’s behavior. In 1984, George Orwell looks into the future to express his fear of control from “
Big Brother”, but today this control may be from the media. I will analyze the effects of the media on society, whether good or bad, and I will introduce evidence that will evaluate my position on the subject.
Media History and Criticism
Since the advent of television in the 1927, television has dominated the household of million Americans. By the late 1990’s over 98 percent of
American households had at least one television set in their households. This allows for a major medium to easily enter the lives of many. Apart from television, many are affected in their everyday lives from media. There is no escaping it. Many people usually wake up in the morning and
turn on the TV or read the newspaper. In everyday travel you will come across an advertisement; by car you might see a billboard advertisement and in airports there are giant posters that may advertise a product. We rely on the
media as an authority to give us news, entertainment, and education. I don’t believe anyone is immune to the effects of the media. Trying to escape media influence is accepting its control and influences an individual’s behavior with an anti-conformist reaction.
Media Targets
Mediums are produced often that directly target body image, violence, and public opinion. Advertisers usually take advantage of low self-esteem in people, especially women, and will use their feelings of inadequacy to sell products to them. “
Media Sexploitation” is the term that relates how advertisers use sex to get consumers to buy products. Many companies would use advertisements of beauty products and fragrances with
sexually graphic images in order to entice consumers to buy them. Research has shown that fashion magazines and the portrayal of thin, beautiful women has a profound effect on causing women to attain
eating disorders. This is a
learned behavior.
The media often promotes violence which has a heavy effect on people’s behavior (one not related to the buyer-consumer market). Violent television shows and video games are the norm in today’s society but implications from studies suggest that this cause
aggression and violent behavior in many. An
experiment was conducted in 1956 to assess the relationship of violence and the media. They had 24 children watch cartoons with half of them watching a violent episode of
Woody the Woodpecker and the other half watching a non-violent cartoon called
The Little Red Hen. When observing the children during a play session thereafter, it was reported that the children who witnessed the violent cartoon were much more likely to hit the other children and break toys. The same violence portrayed in real-life violent television shows or
violent video games such as
Grand Theft Auto would also lead to increase in violent behavior.
In a time of war throughout history, many Americans would see an increase in violent television shows and advertisement that would likely try to suggest for individuals to join the army. This would also lead to an increase in presenting
negative images of the enemy which would often not hold any truth. In a quote by Winston Churchill he states this tactic as necessary as he states “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” In the same way the media can affect public opinion. Public opinion was swayed heavily after the
911 attacks and gave Osama an indecent exposure. This left many American to support a war on “fighting terrorism”. The influence of behavior in the media is also relevant in political campaigns where the winner is often based on how much commercial time a politician buys. Many have put blame on the media for winning
Obama the election in 2008 and bringing more injustice in politics.
Brainwashing?
I touched on what the media targets and even used specific examples of the media’s influence on behavior, but many of you skeptics may still need a scientific backing for evidence. A radical conclusion to how the media affects behavior is brainwashing. In 1969, while the first man was
on the moon, Researcher
Herbert Krugman was busy trying to discover what goes on physiologically in the brain while viewing television. While monitoring the brain waves of a subject, Krugman noticed that the when watching TV the brain waves would change from beta to alpha. For those who have no idea what that means (I did as well),
beta waves indicate alertness and conscious attention while the
alpha waves indicate an unfocused, receptive lack of attention: the state of aimless fantasy and daydreaming below the threshold of consciousness. The brain appears to slow to a halt when watching television because of the radiant light produced by
cathode technology. This implies that television is neurologically analogous of starring at a blank wall. Companies and politicians take advantage of this state of mind which is how we can be heavily influenced. After his research was published, Herbert Krugman became the manager of public-opinion research at General Electric headquarters in Connecticut.
Conclusion
While media influence plays a part in our everyday lives it isn’t always necessarily a bad thing. Many of the times we can be
influenced in a good way by the media by picking up a sport or gaining educational value. My analysis was to bring together findings that suggest how the media influences behavior but not turn you guys against it. Interaction with mediums is as much a part of our daily lives as it is to brush our teeth. We must live with it and we must recognize it influence so this control doesn’t take over our lives. Big Brother Media is watching you…
Until next time, Au Revoir
Mediabully signing out
*This post has been edited for grammatical errors
