Comments on: How movies/TV help to change social norms (for better or worse) http://www.anthrogoggles.com/2009/01/22/how-moviestv-help-to-change-social-norms-for-better-or-worse/ Business and Web 2.0 through anthropology lenses Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:55:07 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: marycw http://www.anthrogoggles.com/2009/01/22/how-moviestv-help-to-change-social-norms-for-better-or-worse/comment-page-1/#comment-25 marycw Sat, 24 Jan 2009 06:24:34 +0000 http://www.anthrogoggles.com/?p=57#comment-25 Hi Peter -- thanks for dropping by. I agree that that everybody (including kids) need to learn mental tools early in life for how to manage the media's impact on their thinking. It's a basic life skill these days. Still, even with education in place, it's not a straightforward issue to manage as a society. As the research on influence shows, a lot of this happens at the subconscious level. Just being exposed to information, regardless of how we treat it rationally, influences our thinking in subtle ways. But censorship -- denying people information, even if it's just entertainment -- seems much worse. So we put information out there, accepting that we can't fully predict how that information will influence people. As multiple experts have said over the decades: with all this media, we're doing an ongoing experiment on our society. No society has been as heavily media'd as ours; it's hard to predict the consequences. Hi Peter — thanks for dropping by.

I agree that that everybody (including kids) need to learn mental tools early in life for how to manage the media's impact on their thinking. It's a basic life skill these days.

Still, even with education in place, it's not a straightforward issue to manage as a society. As the research on influence shows, a lot of this happens at the subconscious level. Just being exposed to information, regardless of how we treat it rationally, influences our thinking in subtle ways.

But censorship — denying people information, even if it's just entertainment — seems much worse. So we put information out there, accepting that we can't fully predict how that information will influence people.

As multiple experts have said over the decades: with all this media, we're doing an ongoing experiment on our society. No society has been as heavily media'd as ours; it's hard to predict the consequences.

]]> By: Peter Herrick http://www.anthrogoggles.com/2009/01/22/how-moviestv-help-to-change-social-norms-for-better-or-worse/comment-page-1/#comment-24 Peter Herrick Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:39:42 +0000 http://www.anthrogoggles.com/?p=57#comment-24 I was just posting about this the other day over on Liberation in the Classroom. I ascribe it to a big cultural biofeedback loop of US policy affecting cultural views, which affects TV portrayals (I was discussing violence, but it's applicable to your example too), which affects cultural views, which affects US Policy. My concern is that if we do not teach a more transparent understanding of media literacy in schools, this loop is lost on students, who then can and will be manipulated by politicians who grok this whole thing.... The whole post is here: <a href="http://blog.peterherrick.com/?p=29" target="_blank">http://blog.peterherrick.com/?p=29</a> Peter I was just posting about this the other day over on Liberation in the Classroom. I ascribe it to a big cultural biofeedback loop of US policy affecting cultural views, which affects TV portrayals (I was discussing violence, but it's applicable to your example too), which affects cultural views, which affects US Policy. My concern is that if we do not teach a more transparent understanding of media literacy in schools, this loop is lost on students, who then can and will be manipulated by politicians who grok this whole thing….

The whole post is here: http://blog.peterherrick.com/?p=29

Peter

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