Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA15433 (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 16:21:49 GMT Message-ID: <3ABA25E2.8B888D37@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 16:18:42 +0000 From: Chris Taylor <Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk> Organization: University of Manchester X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Fwd: Survey connects graphic TV fare, child behavior References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745D06@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> 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?
I think its the "I hate this but what can I do" thing - i.e. they have
to keep up because it isn't as bad as not keeping up, but is worse than
if there was no issue at all. Also, as well as passing peer muster,
there's the aspirational thing (which is much more sophisticated and
insidious for women - 'be a bit like her' - as opposed to the men's
which tends to be more just 'be like him' [and get a shag]).
As for the media thing with violence / antisocial behaviour / general
views of reality, I'm not of the opinion that these robots soak up memes
and rush off to express them (and I know that wasn't your precis of what
I wrote), but neither do I think that it has no role. This whole thing
is bloody complicated (sage, sage). There's a nice example of a meme
taking the direct route though - US freeway carjacking crimes were
reported on the British news, then there was a few of them over the next
few weeks here (although I'm not saying the news report bred criminals,
it added to their stock of memes). Road rage is another bad one - it
gives people an easy way to legitimise an illegitimate behaviour (sort
of like the French plea of Crime Passionale, or however the hell you
write that). I wouldn't ban the news, I wouldn't censor (much), but we
should be concerned - immunise immunise immunise (to go for the
Blairism). That way, just as with live vaccines, the resistance will
actually spread. Actually that is not so much immunisation as biological
control!
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Chris Taylor (chris@bioinf.man.ac.uk)
http://bioinf.man.ac.uk/ »people»chris
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