Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA04816 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 11 Jan 2001 16:32:14 GMT X-Originating-IP: [62.7.249.4] From: "Paul Marsden" <paulsmarsden@hotmail.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: Re: priming Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 16:30:07 -0000 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0009_01C07BEB.C21B1660" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Message-ID: <LAW2-OE69Kc9gbZave300003aea@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 11 Jan 2001 16:29:01.0381 (UTC) FILETIME=[9AF76750:01C07BEB] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Thanks for this Vincent - interesting. I too am sceptical of a crude/extreme Berkowitz media effects by priming model - and as a sociologist turned social psychologist I have inclinations against media effects in multifaceted world of many influences. Nevertheless, to avoid the Fundamental Attribution Error (that meanings and actions are somehow not shaped by current context) and an essentialist view of self, I think it may be useful to see that our definition of situations and the meanings we imbibe them are coloured by the context - our minds are primed by meanings employed around us, so that these genes of meaning - memes may be said to influence our meaningful behaviour. Thus a self-assessment of liklihood to act suicidally appears to be influenced in the short term by whether one reads Cobain's suicide note (positively framed) or Courtney Love's negatively framed annotated version of the note. Anybody caught in an unresolved approach-avoidance dilemma to suicide and exposed to the note, could plausibly use the note to inform the meaning of suicide which may then inform the decision. Thus exposure to media representations of suicide could influence a suicide such that suicide becomes more (or indeed less) likely - i.e. suicide contagion.
Paul Marsden
tel: +44 (0) 777 95 77 248
email: paul@viralculture.com
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jan 11 2001 - 16:33:45 GMT