TV is as powerful as religion on peoples perspective - Cultivation theory

reply to post by ZeuZZ

I didn't watch the McKenna video, but I disagree that the cure for TV is the internet. Or rather it is, but only in the way that heroin is a cure for addiction to raw opium. I'm sure there are people here who are as glued to their computer chairs as TV addicts to their proverbial couches. In fact, the internet has far greater suck-you-in potential, precisely because it is interactive.

What electronic culture permits is incredible diversity, and what the print created world demanded and created was tremendous depression of diversity.

Actually, the divide is not between print and TV but between, on the one hand, mass media such as large-circulation newspapers and broadcast television, which target very large, broadly-defined audiences, and the kind of highly segmented media we have today, like cable TV and the internet, on which demographics can be more narrowly defined (the internet is the paradigm of this, actually, though advertisers and marketers are only beginning to learn how to use it).

What has happened since the end of the 1970s is that the increased viability of narrowcast media, together with advances in technology and improved marketing techniques, have made niche marketing profitable. This is true not just of advertising but of content; your Fifties-rockabilly-only radio station (or internet radio site) is just as much a beneficiary of the trend as the brands advertised on it.

Print created concepts like the citizen, that is a print created notion. It created notions like the public, there was no public before print, that idea didn't even exist.

While it isn't central to your argument, I have to take issue with this. The word 'citizen' goes back to at least the fourteenth century – there were no printing presses in Europe then – and the idea of citizenship rights goes back to Classical Athens. The word 'public', too, is very old, deriving originally from the Latin publicus or poplicus, meaning 'people'. I agree that the invention of the printing press made it easier to circulate news and calls to action among citizens (or members of the public). But printing has to be done in large quantities to make it economical (or profitable), hence its inherent 'massiness' as a medium.

TV is... the first of the electronic drugs.

Here I agree with you. The first, indeed, of many. Video games and the internet are among its successors.

reply to post by votan

books are actually what turned me into a conspiracy type person and i didn't know it till I interacted with people who watch constant tv. our views differed.. and i was labeled as such.

I don't suppose everyone needs television to cultivate a conspiracy-theorist outlook. Some are just predisposed that way, and always have been.

Anyway, you seem happy enough with the label to defend it, so no harm done.

For your amusement, here's a media-related conspiracy theory from before the age of television. The conspiracy theorist is none other than that well-known fabulist and paranoiac, George Orwell.

everything you stated leads me to believe that TV possibly made you anxious and turned you into a conspiracy buff... but simply because that is the way it happened to you. it does not mean that is the way it happened to everyone who can be labeled a conspiracy theory buff. people tend to reflect themselves on others.

I'm not a conspiracy buff. My interest is in conspiracy theorists. The Victorians, you know, used to visit lunatic asylums for entertainment. They'd pack a picnic basket and take the children, make a day of it. Wholesome family entertainment.

Duh,...

Television IS religion personified...times infinity...LOL!!!

@nd

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by ZeuZZ

 

I didn't watch the McKenna video, but I disagree that the cure for TV is the internet. Or rather it is, but only in the way that heroin is a cure for addiction to raw opium.

I agree with this generally. But the internet has allowed a tremendous freedom of individuality. It's basically a platform for chaos in a linear society, which is why a lot of institutions and cultural enterprises (TV especially, and the printing press) hate the internet, it's taking away the power they have held over people for centuries.

This does raise the issue of content choice, but I really think that the ability for people to find whatever information they want is a generally good thing, not a bad thing.

Watched this today and thought that this would be a great little thing to add in on this discussion. Make sure to watch it all the way through.

Found the original scientific paper, if anyone here has good university privileges and can message me the full PDF or post it here that would be great, I would LOVE to assess their methodology and conclusions: goo.gl...

his study aims to explore the effects of TV viewing on the cultivation of fear and interpersonal trust among Israeli youth, and to make methodological and theoretical contributions to the study of cultivation. Besides testing cultivation theory using an Israeli sample, the present study focuses on the effects of different genres on attitudes in different sub‐populations. Results show that for each demographic group, moderate but significant cultivation effects were associated with the genres favored by that group. Examples of high‐risk as well as low‐risk viewers are identified and discussed.

so...deception is not used in the film "the art of deception"...isn't it odd that they wouldn't use maybe the Koch bros. (who made their billions in the coal industry) and their millions of dollars of funding for various organizations to stop the spread of alternative energy solutions?...the power that they perceive TV has over people, are for the people that would easily be convinced by other propaganda in various forms.

reply to post by jimmyx


Oh they used deception in the Art of the Deception. That was the point. They are deliberately duping the viewer and then, outing themselves at the end. They were using the very techniques that they were discussing throughout the documentary from the flicker and flash, to the sound, usage of actors reading a script, and more. They did pepper out little clues throughout it, such as the newspaper that the "film critic" was holding but they were betting that most people wouldn't spot that. In terms of the documentaries they chose, they selected some of the most well known documentaries out there. They used the Disney lemming story to create "buy in" as most adults have heard the story of Disney and the lemmings. By stating something that one already knows and confirms it to be true, it makes the viewer more receptive to other information though cognitive dissonance, if one is aware of specific untruths, will cause rejection.

The selection of An Inconvenient Truth was for its notability and the subject matter of it being a "hot" subject (no pun intended--I think lol). If you noted at the end, the "climatologist" dismissing it was actually an actor. Other things that they were doing were basically chopping together different segments of clips of Gore and using false "news" clips. The only MSM news show that was legitimate was Fox but Fox is known to have a strong bias against climate change. The rest, other than the brief C-SPAN, were false news agencies--more actors. "The Art of Deception" is rife with deception to teach people how to spot it.

Zeuszz, I'll see if I can grab the pdf later on today (have to wait for my resident college student aka household vampire to wake). I'll U2U if I'm successful.

The art of manipulation and deception. I've read into that. It's saying my name can't you hear it?

Now the telly gives us what we want, they are money making machines, that's what they ought to do in capitalism.
I don't believe they do it intentionally, they just want to make as much money as they want.

Everything can influence you into illusions. Not just telly. Start reading into cognitive biases.

On fear. This forum seems like the place to share your fears and scare others. We won't evolve if we do that.

I consider Facebook to be more powerful than TV because not only you are exposed to groups and uncensored content but you can also interact too.

Originally posted by mandyup
I consider Facebook to be more powerful than TV because not only you are exposed to groups and uncensored content but you can also interact too.

I agree. Facebook is like a massive echo chamber that caters to idiots who either a. don't bother to validate the crap they regurgitate from others or b. don't bother to actually look into jack about something. Extraordinarily reactive with zero contemplation. It's also heavily used by marketers and for the purposes of marketing automation which basically siphons up everything that you put onto facebook and then spits it out to software that basically tells any marketer with a deal with facebook just what kind of consumer you are. It's also been proven to be a home for sock puppets of political, lobby, and corporate interests.

You go to reddit and see people taking on the news editors for a biased headline or a story. There is much more intellect following blogs and reading real time reviews.

TV is as powerful as religion on people's perspectives

Yes, it and mass media are the world's largest pulpit.
He who controls the pulpit gets to preach his message.

And it is not of Christ.

The beast was given a mouth to speak.
What it speaks, those on the sofas believe.
What it preaches, those on the sofa become

Like a stage show hypnotist can get a volunteer to perceive an audience as naked when his same two eyes saw them as fully clothed not 20 minutes prior, so to can this pulpit get its disciples to perceive things differently.

An unborn baby no longer being life. .
Christians as haters and sodomites as lovers.
Love as tolerance.
"god" as a force
no such thing as judgement
Jesus is Buddha
gain as godliness instead of godliness as gain

We were all warned that we would be overcome. And it took the invention of mass media to do it on a grand scale. Those who write, produce, and pump out the scripts know exactly what they are doing. It is their words by which most reason. Garbage in always results in garbage out.

Originally posted by mandyup
You go to reddit and see people taking on the news editors for a biased headline or a story. There is much more intellect following blogs and reading real time reviews.

edit on 22-8-2013 by mandyup because: (no reason given)

I was a blogger (saying was because I've not blogged in a bit) and one of my chief targets was the media. Oddly enough, I actually critiqued blogging as well as it has become an alternate source for propaganda of unknown sources. That's kind of the problem that exists out there as I see it--you have distrust of the media, but then, alternate news sources sometimes host some really sketchy things that are sometimes just as rife with misrepresentation. It's a rather intolerable situation because I truly believe what we need the most right now is unbiased investigative journalism in order to both comprehend the situation(s) and work towards solution(s).

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reply to post by autopat51

Originally posted by autopat51
TV is real...
thats why we have so many "reality" shows
reality is TV..TV is reality...
dont look away.....its real.

There are many things that are real. It doesn't mean that it has to have our attention.

There are many things people don't give attention to, whether it is considered "positive" or "negative".

How often do people appreciate the sunlight which gives us warmth?
How often do people appreciate the clouds and its variety of shapes nowadays?

Many good things are happening that we don't pay attention to. The TV is intentionally focusing on more negative things... The Television is mostly garbage for a person who wishes to focus on positivity.