From: Alan Patrick (a.patrick@btinternet.com)
Date: Mon 03 Mar 2003 - 01:19:44 GMT
> The issue, I think, will come down to whether 'attention' to something is
> equivalent to a decision to act on the thing. That is, the grotesque
levels
> of attention paid to non-factors, such as weather, sports and pop
> celebrities, may have little bearing on how people behave and be of little
> predictive help.
I agree, one has to choose one's media - by and large "celebs" are the
vehicles for taking emerging fashions into the mainstream, rather than
starting anything if I understand "tipping point" thinking correctly. I
understand this is one reason they are closely followed/sponsored by the
mass market industries (incl media)
> (I was in Europe and Asia during the beginning of the world
> cricket competition, and was stunned to see the level of attention that it
> commanded everywhere. It makes the US Super Bowl look trivial.)
To your point above, this is a good test of trends...
I lived in New York for c 1 1/2 years, and nowhere in the official media
was there any mention of cricket, yet many Indian, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan,
West Indian. Antipodean, British & S Africans living there were following it
closely - I used to get all my updates from the cabbies. I read (somewhere)
that cricket is one of the fastest growing sports in North America with all
these ethnic emigrants.
There is a similar (but much larger) scene with soccer - it seemed every
Manhattan park had soccer going on, not baseball or basketball or whatever,
and in my kids' school district the no. of little league soccer teams (all
named after Euro teams) hugely outnumbered baseball.. Soccer Moms was a
standard suburban term (not Baseball moms...)
However, to an average NY American reading the mass media these sports were
near totally unreported, yet there is apparently a massive surge in
interest occurring - so which media would one sample now to pick up this
trend before everyone wonders where the all Yankees fans have gone?.
Alan
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