The Influence of Mass Culture

1
The Influence of Mass Culture

• Beyond Feelings A Guide to Critical Thinking by
  Vincent Ryan Ruggiero

2
Past Centuries

• Family and teachers were the dominant, and
  sometimes the only, influence on children

3
Today

• The influence exerted by mass culture (the
  broadcast media, newspapers, magazines, Internet
  and popular music) often is greater
• By age 18
• 11,000 hours in classroom
• 22,000 hours watching TV
• 13,000 school lessons
• 750,000 commercials
• By age 35
• Fewer than 20,000 school lessons
• Watched approximately 45,000 hours of TV
• Watched close to 2 million commercials

4
Media Formats Devices

• Modern advertising bombards the public with
  slogans and testimonials by celebrities
• Designed to appeal to emotions
• Creates artificial needs for products and
  services

5
Social Consequences

• People develop the habit of responding
  emotionally, impulsively, and gullibly to such
  appeals
• Tend to acquire values very different from those
  taught in the home and school

6
Advertising

• Portrays play as more fulfilling than work
• Portrays self gratification as more desirable
  than self-control
• Portrays materialism as more meaningful than
  idealism

7
Television

• Frequent scene shifts and sensory appeals such as
  car crashes, violence, and sexual encounters to
  keep audience interest from diminishing
• Add frequent commercial interruptions

8
TVs Frequent Attention Shifts

• Camera angle changes
• Shifts in story line from one set of characters
  (or subplot) to another
• Flashbacks
• Fantasy (dreamswishful thinking)
• newsbreaks
• Commercial breaks
• Shifts within commercials

9
Attention Shifts

• As many as 78 shifts per hour, excluding shifts
  within commercials
• Commercial shifts range from 6 to 54 and averaged
  17 per fifteen-second commercial
• Total number of attention shifts came out to over
  800 per hour, or over 14 per minute

10
Media Manipulation of Attention Span

• Prevents many people from developing a mature
  attention span
• Students expect the classroom and the workplace
  to provide the same constant excitement they get
  from television
• When this impossible demand isnt met, they call
  their teachers boring and their work unfulfilling

11
Effect on Books

• Because such people seldom have the patience to
  read books that require them to think, many
  publishers have replaced serious books with light
  fare written by celebrities
• The few writers of serious books are often
  directed to give short, dramatic answers during
  promotional interviews, sometimes at the expense
  of accuracymust oversimplify

12
Print Journalism

• In the grip of sensationalism
• News is now becoming more opinion than verified
  fact. Journalists are slipping into
  entertainment rather than telling us the verified
  facts we need to know

13
Politicians

• Often manipulate people more offensively than do
  journalists
• Find out what people think and pretend to share
  their ideas
• Conduct polls and focus groups to learn what
  messages will sell
• Test the impact of certain wordsthat is why we
  hear so much about trust, family, character,
  and values.

14
Science of Manipulation

• Became a science in early 20th century with Ivan
  Pavlov
• John Watson advised advertises to tell the
  consumer something that will tie him up with
  fear, something that will stir up a mild rage,
  that will call out an affectionate or love
  response, or strike at a deep psychological or
  habit need.

15
TVs Sophisticated Manipulation

• People mistakenly believe they are impervious to
  manipulation
• Reactions and memory can be manipulated
• Reinforce impressions by repeating them again and
  again
• Before long, at repeated slogan or talking point
  is indistinguishable from ideas developed through
  careful thought

16
Television Programming

• The packaging is often done so effectively that
  the viewer, listener, or reader does not make up
  his own mind at all. Instead, he inserts a
  packaged opinion into his mind, somewhat like
  inserting a DVD into a DVD player. He then
  pushes a button and plays back the opinion
  whenever it seems appropriate to do so. He has
  performed acceptably without having had to
  think.
• Many of the beliefs we hold dearest and defend
  most vigorously may have been planted in our
  minds in just this way.