Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA15051 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 22 Mar 2001 14:58:20 GMT Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745D06@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Fwd: Survey connects graphic TV fare, child behavior Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 14:55:07 -0000 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Yes, I've got a rather strange position in being keen on memetics potential,
but being in the minimal, or at least not harmful, media effects lobby.
The responses of women to advertising is interesting given their apparent
willingness to buy into certain stereotypical images of women in their
consumption- i.e. in the magazines they choose to read and so on. It's a
good example of the complexity of media effects, ebcasue most readers of
women's magazines criticise them for their mis-representation of "ideals"
of femininity, and yet they still routinely buy them. What's going on
there? Nobody has quite provided plausible answers, mainly because too many
still give credence to the 'media images of women cause eating disorders
line', which is over simplistic.
The same can be said of research into aggression, since there are all sorts
of problems here in judging what constitutes legitimate or illegitimate
levels of "normal" aggression, and the extent to which the media cause it
(and for how long, since most studies measure only short term aggression-
people amy walk out of the lab and be fine a few minutes later, so does it
matter?). Raymond Williams wrote interestingly about authorised and
unauthorised violence. An example of the kind of thing he was talking
about would be the LA riots after the Rodney King trial. Was it the
violence of the home video showing King being beaten half to death that
promopted the riots, or the news of the trail verdict? Was it "right" or
"wrong" for people to become aggression in that situation?
I think the media are full of memes, I'm just not sure how important they
are in terms of our acquisition and utilisation of memes (consciously or
otherwise), or rather that it's not as simple as these kinds of studies
suggest. The obvious example here, even in the gun crazy USA, would be that
the vast majority of people exposed to media violence never commit violence,
certainly of the seriousness that they witness, otherwise there'd be about a
2 to 1 on chance of us being murdered (or murdering someone else). Other
social pressures restrict most of our activities (e.g. family, work, etc.
etc.), let alone our general treatment of media as sources of information
and entertainment but_not_of instruction (if kids thought TV was educational
they'd never switch it on when they got in from school).
That's not to say that something else far more complicated and subtle isn't
going on, that is highly relevant to memetic concerns, whether that be the
kind of memetic priming that Paul Marsden talks about, or something else.
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Chris Taylor
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 2:00 pm
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: Fwd: Survey connects graphic TV fare, child behavior
>
> > members develop media literacy skills through regular and persistent
> exposure
>
> Yeah, and we pick up most of our immune competency from environmental
> exposure, but we also immunise.
>
> The media imagery also gives stereotypes oxygen (the grotesque 'new lad'
> is the primo example) without anyone actually dying, which can be
> unpleasant enough, and is usually just skillful memology by adscum. Ask
> a few women how they feel about billboard ads (and why). Also, we're
> talking about a few people here (that actually do something awful) so
> you can't study them easily - broad studies will only tell you about the
> normal people who don't go mad with guns (although they do generally get
> more aggressive). I would've thought a memefan would see the media as
> the premiere source of memes for incorporation, whatever their eventual
> fate.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
> http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> ===============================================================
> 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 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 Mar 22 2001 - 15:01:19 GMT