No, not exactly the promotion of sex and violence debate. I am asking with respect to the media’s subtle influence on individual human behavior. Let me give an example: the absent minded professor. Let’s say there was such a species. Then, it was absorbed as a behavioral stereotype and displayed across all homes (TV, radio, film etc). Now, I think some professors behave absent-minded even though they aren’t authentic intellectuals! In a sense, the medium through which we keep up-to-date on other life in the world (so to speak) simplifies and creates categories for humans across the board accentuating a select few dimensions of our behavior. What’s worse is not only are we exposed to stereotyped humans, who as I said before, are just one dimensional in nature, we are exposed to an array of state-behavior relations such as the bundt cake woman in Erin Brockovich (who dreamily asks in the middle of something " who wants Bundt cake", an overt attempt at making the human more interesting). So, would you agree that there is a loss of authenticity in aspects of our behavior as a result of borrowing from what we see? In addition, faced with a certain situation, we may already know what the response has to be, and it could make it very difficult to know how we would have reacted if we didn’t have the predisposed notion. In some sense, our own sense of self could be pre-polluted! Any comments? Is this inevitable with the burgeoning media? Is all originality just rejection of past notions?
Are you including commercials in evaluating the media?
i asked a friend of mine if he thought millions of americans would loose weight without going on diets if all commercials for food and restaurants were removed from television. he said yes and that he had to buy a hot dog from some fast food place in boston after he saw their ads.
TV has changed a lot since the 60’s. since everyone believes the media influenced the public about vietnam averyone is concentrating on spin control. i doubt that anyone knows what REALITY is anymore. depending on what magazines and books you read, the television reality can look very strange. it even varies with channels. i like the history channel even tho they do too much WWII stuff.
Dal Timgar
I guess I was talking about the nature of reality and the media’s influence on it. Sure, there must have been an absent-minded professor before it became a stereotype but I think we currently live in an information-loaded culture where someone may behave absent-minded without really having the essence (say, losing oneself in thoughts) that forced the original “professor” to be absent-minded. I think spin is a different situation where there is an objective reality which can be presented as such, but different people may spin versions of it. But, the question to me is if the essential nature of reality is affected by the media. To pose it differently, how did early Man think and behave and how significantly different is it now? In a sense, I guess what I am wondering about is the possibility of creation of individuals and identities entirely borrowed from “external” sources.