Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id TAA16536 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 9 May 2000 19:46:43 +0100 Message-ID: <39181761.B7399F@mediaone.net> Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 14:49:21 +0100 From: Chuck Palson <cpalson@mediaone.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: a memetic experiment- an eIe opener References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31CEB15C@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Vincent Campbell wrote:
> With respect, this idea ignores 75 or more years of media studies that have
> been trying to identify the pecularities of media effects.
>
> I believe memetics may offer a perspective on this, but there's no way in
> which your proposal would work because the uptake of memes is
> context-sensitive, both in the sense of the environment in which a meme
> emerges, and second in terms of the people who are exposed to the meme.
> This is exactly why most theories of advertising and marketing etc. are so
> flawed because they assume that if you construct a message with
> characteristic 'a' and disseminate it to audience member 'b' you will get
> the desired effect 'c'. But it obviously doesn't work like that. There is
> little evidence that there is something inherent in any media text which
> makes it more or less likely to succeed in general terms, mainly because the
> audience is not an amorphous mass of automatons, but people with both
> overlapping and contradictory attitudes, knowledge, etc. etc.
>
> Vincent
>
I heartily agree. I want to add something that all of you might find very
interesting in regards to the above. The media industry took several to complete
a study that studied the effect of advertising by actually following people
around after they had been exposed to real advertising in their real lives.
Here's what they found: there is very little correlation between what people say
they remember of products with what they actually do in regards to that
product. In other words, while they may not be able to SAY that they remember
product X, they will nevertheless be more prone to buy that product if they have
seen the advertising.
That, of course, is how all research on the effect of advertising should be
done, but it's too expensive. So what do they do instead? They still quote
figures on how many people remember!
That's a real story that indicates just how hard it is to study the effects of
media. The advertising industry may say they study such effects, but it's really
flim flam.
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