Why does violence have no effect on audiences but social programming does?

[Donnadogsoth]

For most of my life I've heard, and defended, the narrative that depictions of violence in media products have no measurable negative effect on audiences. Viewing and hearing violence in the media does not make anyone more violent, and the notion that it does is risible and dated.

On the other hand, for most of my life I've heard, and defended, the narrative that social programming in media products, designed to change the consciousness of audiences toward various social goals, is a noble thing and helps to make a better world.

So, I wonder, which is it:

Is one narrative true and the other false, or are both true, or are neither true?

If depictions of violence created violence in real life, shouldn't we be swamped by violence by now?

If social programming had no effect, wouldn't it have been abandoned by now?

If they're both true, why do depictions of violence have no negative effect on audiences but depictions of, say pro-Gay sentiment, do?

[Razade]

For most of my life I've heard, and defended, the narrative that depictions of violence in media products have no measurable negative effect on audiences. Viewing and hearing violence in the media does not make anyone more violent, and the notion that it does is risible and dated.

It's not even just about hearing it. It's true, there's been plenty of studies.


On the other hand, for most of my life I've heard, and defended, the narrative that social programming in media products, designed to change the consciousness of audiences toward various social goals, is a noble thing and helps to make a better world.

You're a victim of your own biases. Media is a reflection of the social norms, not a method to change them. Media is not used to propel an idea, media requires the idea to already be extant and at least moderately agreed upon to even see air time.


Is one narrative true and the other false, or are both true, or are neither true?

Neither are true.


If depictions of violence created violence in real life, shouldn't we be swamped by violence by now?

They don't so what does it matter? Violence in media does not make violence more common place in the people who watch it so it's a moot point.


If social programming had no effect, wouldn't it have been abandoned by now?

No? First of all...whose doing "social programming" through television? Are you arguing that Glee was put on the air to make society at large not think Musicals are garbage or something? Second of all, back to that no, people don't stop doing things when they are shown to have no effect. I could give plenty of examples but they'd broke the board rules so I'll just say Logical Fallacies are a thing. They wouldn't be a thing if people used rationality and logic in everything they do. They don't, so even IF there were some groups out there trying to socially program people through tv that Ice T deserved a career and it didn't work, they wouldn't necessarily stop doing it.


If they're both true, why do depictions of violence have no negative effect on audiences but depictions of, say pro-Gay sentiment, do?

I'm not exactly sure what "Pro-Gay sentiment" is but Will and Grace didn't make people more likely to be dissauded of their prejudices against homosexuals. The 2000's already was a thaw to the homosexual community, otherwise Will and Grace would never have got on air. You do understand that television shows are marketed and tested and have lots and lots of money put into them so that the studio wants them to be picked up by advertisers and the like right? A TV show can't show a contoversial meth

[Fri]

People watching violent things do get numbed on violence, and that can be used for various purpose (propaganda, making it easier for people to kill, making people think certain violence is acceptable, etc). I read about how you can use video games to make soldiers get less problematic with killing, and you can find article about it easily I assume, I'm actually in the middle of a violent video games myself that I don't have time to look it for you :smalltongue:

[Nerd-o-rama]

Most violent media does not portray violence in a manner consistent with reality, in terms of either content or context. If violence is portrayed realistically, it is (understandably) meant to horrify rather than enthrall or persuade. Generally speaking, the unrealism of violence in media portrayals means that few people make a connection between it and their daily lives. The people who do tend to already be disconnected from reality in some psychological manner and see violent media as reinforcement or "inspiration" for their preconceived notions about violence as a solution to problems.

Conversely, social messages in media, whether progressive or not, are generally portrayed with some sense of, if not realism, believability. Anyone who wants a social message to be effective will portray it in a manner consistent with reality, even a reality that's obscure and seemingly bizarre to those that are part of a more conservative social stripe.

tl;dr media violence is almost always fantastical in all aspects of is presentation while effective social messaging media is not.

[Amaril]

For most of my life I've heard, and defended, the narrative that depictions of violence in media products have no measurable negative effect on audiences. Viewing and hearing violence in the media does not make anyone more violent, and the notion that it does is risible and dated.

On the other hand, for most of my life I've heard, and defended, the narrative that social programming in media products, designed to change the consciousness of audiences toward various social goals, is a noble thing and helps to make a better world.

So, I wonder, which is it:

Is one narrative true and the other false, or are both true, or are neither true?

If depictions of violence created violence in real life, shouldn't we be swamped by violence by now?

If social programming had no effect, wouldn't it have been abandoned by now?

If they're both true, why do depictions of violence have no negative effect on audiences but depictions of, say pro-Gay sentiment, do?

The way I see it, depictions of violence in media don't induce more violent tendencies in audiences. What they do do is desensitize audiences to violence. The two aren't the same thing. You can be completely unfazed by the sight of someone being beheaded (though I think there's enough of a barrier between seeing a beheading depicted in media that's known to be staged and witnessing an actual beheading that the former won't have a meaningful impact on the latter) without having any desire to behead someone yourself.

What all social programming--violence included--does is influence people's idea of what's normal. If one sees a lot of same-sex couples in media, and sees the other characters treating them no differently than heterosexual couples, sooner or later, one will start to develop a sense that same-sex couples are a perfectly normal part of life. Violence is the same way. The more of it one sees, the more one starts just accepting it. However, social programming is a lot more specific than I think a lot of people understand. For example, if one is exposed to a lot of depictions of violence, but all of them are committed by soldiers against other soldiers on active battlefields in an ongoing war, then the only programming most people will receive from that is "it is normal for soldiers to commit violence against other soldiers on active battlefields in an ongoing war". The brain takes the context into account.

There are a couple issues that can arise from this. For one, it's only adult brains that have this capacity for understanding context fully developed. Children are much more broadly impressionable. If a child is exposed to those same images, they might actually develop programming of "it is normal for people to resolve conflicts through violence", which would, of course, be bad news. That's why it's important to be discrete in exposing young people to social programming related to sensitive or dangerous subjects until they're mature enough to handle it properly. We already do this to a great extent, through things like movie ratings. Another issue I see is media that directly promotes harmful or dangerous programming. For example, continuing our example, a text depicting soldiers committing violence against other soldiers is one thing; a text depicting soldiers committing violence against civilians, or people who should be non-combatants turning to violence to resolve their problems, is something else entirely. Enough of that will induce some harmful programming in even a mature adult. The final big issue I see relates to media featuring fantastical settings or circumstances. Let's say, for example, that a child is raised to adulthood with their only source of social programming being DOOM. Now, you might assume that this would cause no problems--DOOM features copious violence, but all of it is directed against demons, which are fictional; thus, programming of "it is normal for humans to commit violence against demons" can't be acted out in practice, since there are no demons around. However, if that's the only programming present, it can create an issue where the person tries to fit their entire reality into its parameters, whether or not it actually applies--the child raised exclusively on DOOM might come to believe that everyone else they meet is a demon, since their programming accounts for that as the only possibility. This would obviously cause problems. That's why it's important to consume a balanced diet of media, to get the broadest possible range of contexts. Playing DOOM is fine, as long as you're also exposed to some programming that explains the problems with violence in contexts that relate more to real life.

Does that answer your question at all? I hope it made sense.

[Fri]

My violent video games session just ended because I got exploded, so I'm going to mention another example on how it's not really true that violence in media have no effect in audiences. Torture is a really ineffective way to gain correct information. There's no question on it, experts agree people getting tortured will just say anything to stop the torture, saying anything else is just deluding yourself (well to be fair, if you're torturing the right person with the right question you might get correct information I guess?). But people are keep being convinced that torture is effective, because media keep showing that (an recent example is the series 24).

[Blackhawk748]

Ya torture doesnt work because you have no way to verify that what they told you is true. The biggest issue is that, in media, whenever we see torture, everyone just accepts the info as 100% true, and, most of us at least, know that thats a load of crap.

In other news, as someone who goes hunting, shooting a thing in real life and shooting something in video games is extremely different, mostly because media either has almost no blood or several gallons of it.

[Fri]

I think the "violence in media has no effect in real life" thing is mostly backlash. Because we kept getting over-the-toply told ineffectively and inaccurately in the past that "violent things (music, movie, video games, whatever) make you violent!" we have kneejerk reaction against any claim about it, while there might be grains of truth and false in the statement, it all depends on a lot of things.

It's similar with backlash against "war on drugs" or what's it called when authority give wildly inaccurate and cartoonish scare tactic reaction on drugs like the movie reefer madness or schools telling "just trying one unassuming pill will make you insane for your whole life!" etc. While it's true that illegal narcotics have dangers, a lot of people got turned off by the wildly inaccurate and blown up messages, while they have personally witnessed that people don't turn insane just from a single pill, or they tried a shot of narcotic and got high but don't get instantly insanely and incurably addictid like what schools told them, so they thought the whole message is bunk, and then got incurably addicted for real later.

What I'm saying is basically, I don't wholly agree with the op's premise. Both violence and social programming do have effect on audiences, it's just not blanket and simple.

[The Extinguisher]

Anyone that ever doubts that media has a real and powerful impact just needs to look at Jaws and how sharks were treated after that movie came out.

[Razade]

Anyone that ever doubts that media has a real and powerful impact just needs to look at Jaws and how sharks were treated after that movie came out.

Or you could listen to science and understand that the killing of sharks has more to do with over-fishing in the last seventy years than a movie. Add on top of that several high profile shark attacks around the time Jaws was a larger force in the minds of people, it'd be tenuous at best to say the movie had any actual effect than it would have otherwise. It's not like Jaws was the only movie with a killer shark as its theme. We didn't see a massive killing of crocodiles when Lake Placid or Primevil hit the scene.

[Olinser]

For most of my life I've heard, and defended, the narrative that depictions of violence in media products have no measurable negative effect on audiences. Viewing and hearing violence in the media does not make anyone more violent, and the notion that it does is risible and dated.

On the other hand, for most of my life I've heard, and defended, the narrative that social programming in media products, designed to change the consciousness of audiences toward various social goals, is a noble thing and helps to make a better world.

So, I wonder, which is it:

Is one narrative true and the other false, or are both true, or are neither true?

If depictions of violence created violence in real life, shouldn't we be swamped by violence by now?

If social programming had no effect, wouldn't it have been abandoned by now?

If they're both true, why do depictions of violence have no negative effect on audiences but depictions of, say pro-Gay sentiment, do?

It's a pretty simple difference between the two.

Violence is not put in media to change how people think, it is there to entertain (or shock). It is a means to tell a story. Violence generally doesn't exist for its own sake, it exists as part of a story.

Social programming, on the other hand, IS the end goal. in media is put there with the express intention of trying to affect how people think. Thought-provoking entertainment is fine, but when it gets too overt people naturally resist - ESPECIALLY if the message is delivered in a ridiculous or over-the-top method or it features a ridiculous caricature of the opposing viewpoint.

People like being entertained, but generally do not like being told what to do, especially if the medium resorts to ridiculous extremes trying to push a viewpoint.

But well-reasoned and thought out stories can be very thought provoking and actually convince people that maybe a different viewpoint is correct.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Ideological idealism makes those contradictory statements "true". There's lots of things that are "true" like that.

Actually, I would say the following: violence in media is its own form of "social programming", "social programming" as a concept is largely misunderstood, and also most "social programming" is unconscious coincidence and not at all intentional.

Amaril provides some good insight.

[Themrys]

It's a pretty simple difference between the two.

Violence is not put in media to change how people think, it is there to entertain (or shock). It is a means to tell a story. Violence generally doesn't exist for its own sake, it exists as part of a story.

Social programming, on the other hand, IS the end goal. in media is put there with the express intention of trying to affect how people think. Thought-provoking entertainment is fine, but when it gets too overt people naturally resist - ESPECIALLY if the message is delivered in a ridiculous or over-the-top method or it features a ridiculous caricature of the opposing viewpoint.


Which is exactly why violence in media actually has more of an effect than attempts at social programming that goes against the status quo.

The intention does not matter. What matters is that the violence is there, and it is entertaining, and people watch it without any thought as to whether it influences their opinions. Which mean that it does influence them to a far greater extent than something they resent because they find it preachy.

Real on-screen violence as seen in, for example, porn, certainly influences people and their behaviour much more than the token gay couple that they resent just for being there and challenging the status quo, even if the gay couple is not even an attempt at social programming, but just a result of the author holding different values to the status quo.


So, it is exactly the other way round. Violence does have an effect (though as people pointed out, it may be a limited effect depending on the age of the audience), while I doubt that "social programming" has any effect at all on adults who already have formed opinions.
Which does not mean that I think all media should only depict the status quo, or, as currently the case, a outdated version of the world that is more palatable to the people who have most of the money. There are people who don't agree with the dominant opinions, and those people want to be entertained, too.

In short, reading about lesbian pirate captains will not significantly change my acceptance of lesbians, and I highly doubt that it will change any homophobic person's mind, but it will entertain me, and that's what's important to me.




Actually, I would say the following: violence in media is its own form of "social programming", "social programming" as a concept is largely misunderstood, and also most "social programming" is unconscious coincidence and not at all intentional.



Exactly. That the violence is not intended to be "social programming" doesn't make a difference, except that it tends to be more accepted because the audience also doesn't notice that that's what it is.

[Donnadogsoth]

You're a victim of your own biases. Media is a reflection of the social norms, not a method to change them. Media is not used to propel an idea, media requires the idea to already be extant and at least moderately agreed upon to even see air time.

Do you think the Gay community has viewed social programming as wholly and utterly irrelevant to changing social attitudes towards individual Gay people?



Is one narrative true and the other false, or are both true, or are neither true?
Neither are true.

You mean the first is true and the second is false. The first narrative I referenced was that media violence has no negative effect on the population, which you agreed with. The second was that media social programming does have an effect on the population, which you disagreed with.



If social programming had no effect, wouldn't it have been abandoned by now?
No? First of all...whose doing "social programming" through television? Are you arguing that Glee was put on the air to make society at large not think Musicals are garbage or something? Second of all, back to that no, people don't stop doing things when they are shown to have no effect. I could give plenty of examples but they'd broke the board rules so I'll just say Logical Fallacies are a thing. They wouldn't be a thing if people used rationality and logic in everything they do. They don't, so even IF there were some groups out there trying to socially program people
through tv that Ice T deserved a career and it didn't work, they wouldn't necessarily stop doing it.


Originally Posted by*Donnadogsoth*
If they're both true, why do depictions of violence have no negative effect on audiences but depictions of, say pro-Gay sentiment, do?

I'm not exactly sure what "Pro-Gay sentiment" is but Will and Grace didn't make people more likely to be dissauded of their prejudices against homosexuals. The 2000's already was a thaw to the homosexual community, otherwise Will and Grace would never have got on air. You do understand that television shows are marketed and tested and have lots and lots of money put into them so that the studio wants them to be picked up by advertisers and the like right? A TV show can't show a contoversial meth

No, what we're dealing with is desensitisation, and association with positive emotions. Conditioning, in other words. Images of a group presented over and over again gets audiences used to seeing that group. If there's a bit of controversy, that's spun as a selling point, and gets the populace talking about that group. And the more that group is presented in a positive light, the more positive emotions audiences will associate with that group.

To deny this would be tantamount to affirming that the sexes have only biological-based psychological differences--that they are not affected by culture, in other words. So, introduce a third narrative, which we have all been told, and probably many of us defend, viz., the notion that maleness and femaleness--"gender"--is a product of culture is axiomatic. Yet how can this acculturation be so powerful and indelible when applied to creating psychological sex-differences, but that form of acculturation has absolutely zero effect when applied to change social attitudes which are a factor of magnitude less personally imposing than psychological sex-roles are?

[Razade]

Do you think the Gay community has viewed social programming as wholly and utterly irrelevant to changing social attitudes towards individual Gay people?

As a member of "The Gay Community" (You understand that the "Gay Community" isn't a monolith right?) I do not believe shows like Will and Grace or Glee changed the social attitudes towards individual gay people. Knowing individual gay people changed the minds of individual people which then in turn began to change the discourse towards a more liberal and less biased discussion. You're aware the fight for gay rights has been going on at the very least since the 70's? Before that too but the 70's is really when it kicked off. Don't you think it's insanely reductive to go "Yeah, this TV show is why people are ok with the gays?" Because as a gay man who is out, I certainly do.


You mean the first is true and the second is false. The first narrative I referenced was that media violence has no negative effect on the population, which you agreed with. The second was that media social programming does have an effect on the population, which you disagreed with.

I mean that neither are true. Violence in media doesn't make for a more violent society and portraying social issues in a positive or negative light does not in turn change the culture. Because as I've said, that's a vast misunderstanding of what media is. Media is indicative of a culture. If something in the media has changed, that means there's a change in the culture that gave rise to the media.


No, what we're dealing with is desensitisation, and association with positive emotions. Conditioning, in other words. Images of a group presented over and over again gets audiences used to seeing that group. If there's a bit of controversy, that's spun as a selling point, and gets the populace talking about that group. And the more that group is presented in a positive light, the more positive emotions audiences will associate with that group.

Except we don't see that. We would see that if you were correct but we don't. Violence in media does not desensitize people from real violence. People who enjoy Will and Grace can still not want Gay people to adopt. Because you know what? People watch things that generally agree with their sensibilities. People who are anti-gay or anti-black or anti-what ever don't watch shows that portray those things in a positive light. Because they don't agree with them. This is called the Echo Chamber. People prefer to have their believes reinforced while hearing things they don't believe discredited. Yet another reason your thesis simply doesn't work.


To deny this would be tantamount to affirming that the sexes have only biological-based psychological differences--that they are not affected by culture, in other words.

...there is more to culture than media. I can deny, despite your attempts to tell me I cannot, your thesis and still believe what you just spat out because Culture isn't a monolith either. Culture is a vast web of interconnected elements that span the entire globe. It's not TV or Music or Radio or Video Games. Those are, as I've already said, expressions OF Culture. They exist because a Culture has created them to express ideas that are inherent in said culture. A rap song about having sex with loose women isn't saying "Go have sex with lots of women". It's saying "I am important because I have sex with lots of women, and that's important in the culture I am apart of and speaking to".

You've an entirely backward way of looking at this entire thing. Culture is a product of a society. It is an emergent property of a ton of humans getting together and trying to make the whole system work. Cultures shift as the society shifts, they shift for lots of reasons. Cultures shift by outsider cultures coming in and elements of the second society being adopted by the first and vice versa. Culture shifts when something in said culture becomes untenable or self destructive. Cultures evolve. Art (that is TV/Music/Entertainment) is an expression of the culture. A song doesn't exist independent of the song writer and the song writer doesn't exist independent of the culture he is a part of.

Also where the hell did this "sexes are only biological" thing come from. That has nothing to do with what we're talking about what so ever. It's something we probably can't talk about at all considering Care Bear-ish level of forum moderation this place has. But I won't insult your intelligence by arguing against it as if you thought it had anything to do with anything else you're bringing up.


So, introduce a third narrative, which we have all been told, and probably many of us defend, viz., the notion that maleness and femaleness--"gender"--is a product of culture is axiomatic. Yet how can this acculturation be so powerful and indelible when applied to creating psychological sex-differences, but that form of acculturation has absolutely zero effect when applied to change social attitudes which are a factor of magnitude less personally imposing than psychological sex-roles are?

Was this...was this really wanted to argue? Was this whole thread a smokescreen for you to complain about how people are now starting to say that Sex and Gender are two different things with two different sources of how they come about? Because that...why didn't you just make that thread and spare us this big long rigmarole?

The problem here is that you've already assumed your premise is correct. You already assume that there is some kind of Social Conditioning coming from Media as a whole when you can't justify it. You're aware that not even people who study gender and biological sex are sure if they're interrelated or not? You're aware that there are entire college level courses on this discussion? Are you aware that this discussion has been going on since at least the 60's? Are you aware that it's not widely accepted in normal every day society? That what you're talking about isn't a mainstay of our Culture?

People aren't sheep. You can tell them Arsenic isn't poison over and over and over and over and show positive uses for it but that doesn't mean people are going to shellacking themselves with it after a set period of time. As mentioned above, people generally don't go out of their way to listen to opinions that are counter to their own. It's actually a really big topic in media and as I've already said the term, look up Echo Chamber. People who are worth their salt know that the Echo Chamber is a thing. Under your thesis the Echo Chamber couldn't BE a thing. It's a subset of Selective Exposure Theory. I can't say this enough because it just perfectly demonstrates why your entire argument holds less water than a rust colander. People, in general, do not seek out opinions counter to them. People who don't believe gender and sex are different things aren't going to watch or consume media where that is a major theme. People who dislike gay people aren't going to be watching Glee. People who dislike black people aren't going to be watching BET. Media is made to be consumed by the target audience. Not to push concepts on to people who aren't inclined to watch it. That's not how media works. You don't understand how media works.


tl;dr: I would agree with you. But then we'd both be wrong.

[Donnadogsoth]

Gay activism (“the fight for gay rights”) is interested in conditioning the population to accept Gays. Why wouldn't media be a method of doing that? If you're right, and Edward Bernays' sole pearl of wisdom was how to create a job for himself as an expert in absolutely nothing, a person could make a pretty penny persuading the corporate world it can save $590-odd billion per annum, given that marketting (conditioning) has no effect. Why not be that person?

People aren't as insulated as you think. I remember when Ellen “came out” and it was a ratings grabber because plenty of people tuned in out of curiosity about homosexuals, and since it was on tv it was “okay”. And even if adults are wholly insulated, as you suggest, never on the fence about anything and never vulnerable to suggestions being implanted by the media products they consume, there are always children who are nothing if not suggestible, and who may find themselves watching things their parents can't control for.


“Don't you think it's insanely reductive to go "Yeah, this TV show is why people are ok with the gays?" Because as a gay man who is out, I certainly do.
Didn't say that. But as I did say, advertising exists for a reason and that reason goes beyond merely letting people know a particular item or service is available for sale. There is a reason governments use something called “propaganda,” and there's no reason to think that propaganda becomes less effective when the free market is using it than when governments do.

I mean that neither are true. Violence in media doesn't make for a more violent society and portraying social issues in a positive or negative light does not in turn change the culture. Because as I've said, that's a vast misunderstanding of what media is. Media is indicative of a culture. If something in the media has changed, that means there's a change in the culture that gave rise to the media.*
Then you're agreeing that the first narrative is true: media violence does not negatively affect society. I don't know why you're disagreeing with this, given your professed belief that media has zero effect on the populace.

... A rap song about having sex with loose women isn't saying "Go have sex with lots of women". It's saying "I am important because I have sex with lots of women, and that's important in the culture I am apart of and speaking to"....
Such a song is giving what's known as a “role model”. Whether someone adopts that role model or rejects it, depends on more than the song, but the model remains there.


You've an entirely backward way of looking at this entire thing. Culture is a product of a society. It is an emergent property of a ton of humans getting together and trying to make the whole system work. Cultures shift as the society shifts, they shift for lots of reasons. Cultures shift by outsider cultures coming in and elements of the second society being adopted by the first and vice versa. Culture shifts when something in said culture becomes untenable or self destructive. Cultures evolve. Art (that is TV/Music/Entertainment) is an expression of the culture. A song doesn't exist independent of the song writer and the song writer doesn't exist independent of the culture he is a part of.
Art has no effect on society? Propaganda? Advertising? Philosophy? Theology? News reporting? All of these things are mediated. Only someone speaking directly into your ear, or performing an action within your naked eyes, can have an effect on your behaviour? In other words, not media but immedia: what awesome and total power immedia have!

Was this...was this really wanted to argue? Was this whole thread a smokescreen for you to complain about how people are now starting to say that Sex and Gender are two different things with two different sources of how they come about? Because that...why didn't you just make*that*thread and spare us this big long rigmarole?

I started this thread to discuss narratives that apparently contradict. You're separating culture from media, which I see as a false distinction. Why would feminists scream so loudly about the tiniest portrayal of the sexes which they object to, if not to generate an effect on the populace?


The problem here is that you've already assumed your premise is correct. You already assume that there is some kind of Social Conditioning coming from Media as a whole when you can't justify it. You're aware that not even people who study gender and biological sex are sure if they're interrelated or not? You're aware that there are entire college level courses on this discussion? Are you aware that this discussion has been going on since at least the 60's? Are you aware that it's not widely accepted in normal every day society? That what you're talking about isn't a mainstay of our Culture?*

And yet you're convinced you know I am wrong.


People aren't sheep. You can tell them Arsenic isn't poison...

I can hear the distant ringing of advertisers' and politicians' laughter.

Plenty of folks are killing themselves through what they eat. I don't believe that advertising has zero effect on that process.

As I said, there are probably millions of dollars in it for you if you can persuade all those insane capitalists they're spending hundreds of billions of dollars per year on worthless advertising.

[Razade]

Gay activism (“the fight for gay rights”) is interested in conditioning the population to accept Gays. Why wouldn't media be a method of doing that? If you're right, and Edward Bernays' sole pearl of wisdom was how to create a job for himself as an expert in absolutely nothing, a person could make a pretty penny persuading the corporate world it can save $590-odd billion per annum, given that marketting (conditioning) has no effect. Why not be that person?

Bernay lived to see his tactics fallen into disuse and why? Because the culture changed and his ideas didn't adapt with the times. Once again, you can be an expert on something and still have it turn out to be wrong or predicated on incorrect assumptions. Alchemy was a thing for a while and people made tons of money out of it. No one's an Alchemist any more. Just because something exists doesn't mean they're right.


People aren't as insulated as you think. I remember when Ellen “came out” and it was a ratings grabber because plenty of people tuned in out of curiosity about homosexuals, and since it was on tv it was “okay”. And even if adults are wholly insulated, as you suggest, never on the fence about anything and never vulnerable to suggestions being implanted by the media products they consume, there are always children who are nothing if not suggestible, and who may find themselves watching things their parents can't control for.

Didn't say they were. I said that things like Echo Chamber and Confirmation Bias is a thing and people GENERALLY prefer to listen to their own side and reinforce what they already believe. Not that they are bubbled in some anti-disagreement zone.


Didn't say that. But as I did say, advertising exists for a reason and that reason goes beyond merely letting people know a particular item or service is available for sale. There is a reason governments use something called “propaganda,” and there's no reason to think that propaganda becomes less effective when the free market is using it than when governments do.

Hitchen's razor. Propaganda works because the sentiment already exists in said community. Which makes me have to repeat myself. Media does not exist independent of the culture it is a part of.



Such a song is giving what's known as a “role model”. Whether someone adopts that role model or rejects it, depends on more than the song, but the model remains there.

Yes, yes it does depend on more than the song. The song isn't going to make someone who doesn't want to "slap a ho" go out and hit a woman. The song has no effect on people who aren't already predisposed to the mindset it is advocating. Which is exactly what I mean when I say media doesn't exist without a culture. The media, in case the song, is a reflection of the culture. People who are going to eat junk food are going to eat junk food wheter they're told by an advert that they should eat junk food. People who don't want to eat junk food aren't going to be swayed by a Burger King commercial. That's the whole point.


Art has no effect on society?

You point out where I said that chief.

Propaganda? Covered it.

Advertising? Covered it.

Philosophy? It's all tosh and Steven Hawking was right when he said that Science killed it.

Theology? It's all tosh.

News reporting? Reports on events, further demonstrating my point that media doesn't exist outside the culture that produces it.


All of these things are mediated. Only someone speaking directly into your ear, or performing an action within your naked eyes, can have an effect on your behavior? In other words, not media but immedia: what awesome and total power immedia have!

People are going to generally (generally) do what they're going to do independent of what they see or here. Advertisers are, generally (generally) preaching to the converted.



I started this thread to discuss narratives that apparently contradict. You're separating culture from media, which I see as a false distinction. Why would feminists scream so loudly about the tiniest portrayal of the sexes which they object to, if not to generate an effect on the populace?

You're seeing a false distinction in someone saying "Media is a product of culture"? I don't know how you're doing that considering a product of something can't be separate from the thing it's a product of.



And yet you're convinced you know I am wrong.

Yeah, not because "I believe you're wrong" but because you're demonstrably wrong. Your argument lacks any credible evidence or you'd have presented it.



I can hear the distant ringing of advertisers' and politicians' laughter.

You should probably get that checked out. It might be the source of a lot of problems.



Plenty of folks are killing themselves through what they eat. I don't believe that advertising has zero effect on that process.

I mean...that's fine you don't believe it. The time to believe something though is when you have evidence. Otherwise you're just making crap up.


As I said, there are probably millions of dollars in it for you if you can persuade all those insane capitalists they're spending hundreds of billions of dollars per year on worthless advertising

I don't think advertising is worthless. I just think (and have some pretty bang up arguments if I do say so) that it's not this horrific mind control machine that forces people to do something against what they're already going to do. Generally.


Let me try it this way. Media is a product of the culture that produces it. That means that a culture creates media to reflect its values back at itself on a general level. Sure you have people who strike out and do avant garde crap but in the general aspect of media it's very focused on the majority. News, etc, it's not saying things counter to what the prevailing opinion is of the day. Propaganda isn't trying to tell you that people with orange skin is evil. It's feeding off people who already think it and broadcasting it out. But people with orange skin aren't going to believe the message. People who don't already have inclinations to think that aren't going to go with the propaganda. Same goes with songs or tv or advertisement. They're just a reflection of what's going on around you.

[Darth Ultron]

The truth is that anything and everything effects people, that is just reality 101.



Let me try it this way. Media is a product of the culture that produces it.

Unfortunately, this is only true in the fictional world you'd find in a classroom biased lesson. In the real world the media is controlled by various people with various agendas and various reasons for doing things, but they don't care about what the people think. And the vast amounts of what the media puts out goes very much against what most people think and believe.

And even worse: the media outright lies...and worse.



People aren't sheep.

People very much are sheep. Way too many people simply believe whatever they are told and take things at face value. And very few people can even say why they believe something and they will not even want to talk about that. Mention that someone might be wrong and they won't listen: they know they are right.

And millions of people use things everyday...that will harm and kill them.

[Razade]

The truth is that anything and everything effects people, that is just reality 101.

Yep. Hence when I said "media is a reflection of the culture it comes from" it's almost like I'm acknowledging this.


Unfortunately, this is only true in the fictional world you'd find in a classroom biased lesson. In the real world the media is controlled by various people with various agendas and various reasons for doing things, but they don't care about what the people think.

"Everything effects everything. Except the people who own media empires." Ok bud.


And the vast amounts of what the media puts out goes very much against what most people think and believe.

Such as?


And even worse: the media outright lies...and worse.

Not...not that! People lie? Oh the humanity!


People very much are sheep. Way too many people simply believe whatever they are told and take things at face value. And very few people can even say why they believe something and they will not even want to talk about that. Mention that someone might be wrong and they won't listen: they know they are right.

And millions of people use things everyday...that will harm and kill them.

The irony is palpable.

[BeerMug Paladin]

I always figured media was a transmission vector for culture.

Hey, any one else have friends that speak almost entirely in pop culture references? Is there some place I can take them for repair?

[Frozen_Feet]

First: everyone in this thread. Get familiarized with systems theory and feedback loops. Culture creates media and media creates culture. Razade is right that majority of media is reflection of already existing opinions, but minority voices broadcasted in great enough volume will change that opinion.

Just not necessarily in the direction you'd think.

And that's why both of Donnadogsoth's stances in the original post are false. Mostly by virtue of being incomplete.

To start examining this: Donna, you first stance is fallacious because it conflates two very different arguments: 1) violence in media has no effect on consumers and 2) violence in media does not increase violence in real life in a proportionate manner.

It's actually been proven multiple times, for example, that playing violent video games will make a person more aggressive... for the duration of the game and about five minutes afterwards. Analogous to this is the famous finding that shows listening to Mozart increases IQ...but proved out not to be very useful because the effect wears out in 15 minutes.

Short-term impact doesn't always translate to long-term impact. This has to do with peculiarities of human learning and myriad other factors. And these factors are not the same regardless of subject matter. Humans have in-built biases and instincts, both from prior exposure to culture and biology, and these vary in strength and effect.

When it comes to physically hurting and killing other people, humans are naturally quite averse to it. See studies on how minority of soldiers in WW2 actually could shoot to kill, and subsequent military efforts worldwide to break human psychology in ways to condition soldiers to shoot better. See also studies how it is easier for humans to shoot masked targets versus non-masked targets, or to shoot non-human targets versus human targets, or attacking an opponent up front versus attacking someone who has their back turned.

In short: while violent media does make consumers more aggressive, this effect is not great enough on its own to overcome all the other factors making people non-violent. Hence, increase in violent media does not lead to proportionate increase in real-life violence.

You can extrapolate this to other attempts of social programming: even when media effects a reaction, it is not given the effect is great enough to overcome other, antagonistic effects. Failure to acknowledge this is the most common failure of both social ideologues trying to effect change and their critics.

For example, one poster on these boards linked to a study of how hearing racist jokes makes people more tolerant of racist attitudes. Sounds worrying, right? Me, I was not convinced. Why? Because like the study showing how listening to Mozart increases IQ, this was a question survey of only the short-term effect. It tells what happens five minutes after, not what happens five hours or five days later.

For yet another contrast points, there is a similar study, measuring religiosity, repeated across nations. People give more religious answers when made to answer the questions quickly versus given time to think. The same people, taking the same survey at different times. Even sworn atheists. Which sounds weird untill you read books like Thinking Fast & Slow or And man created Gods: religion explained. The reason why this happens is because people have different modes of thinking which are engaged in different situations, and the faster one of these, intuitive thinking, is more prone to psychological phenomena which can be interpreted as religiosity.

I'm willing to bet real money that if you performed a similar test regarding matters of race, you would make people appear more racist by giving them little time to answer versus a long time.

---

So what does it take for a lesson to stick, then? One is repetition. A human forgets majority of what they learn within a day. To make learning permanent, the lesson must be repeated and refreshed periodically, with rest periods in between.

Second is consistency. To reinforce what's been taught, the message must stay mostly the same across lessons. When a new lesson contradicts an old one, the old one is prioritized. This is why it's said learning out of a bad habit is harder than learning something from scratch. It's a feature of psychological stability - people do not change on a whim, their beliefs and personality have inertia of their own.

Third is motivation, which is a whole kerfuffle of its own. Motivation can be divided to internal and external, of which the former is much more powerful than the latter. To learn effectively, a person must be willing to learn. Which is why Razade's saying media mostly reflects and has effect on people who already agree with the message. Those who are not internally motivated, must be externally motivated to do so. Mostly by carrot & stick, rewards and punishments.

Fourth, for a lesson to be applicable, it needs to take place in a reasonably life-like environment. A teaching scenario that's unlike the reality where the lesson is supposed to be applied doesn't teach the right things, and when a student realizes this, they usually lose motivation to go along with the teaching.

By now, you should already be spotting reasons why violence in media and attempts of social programming either have or don't have desired effect.
For example, violence in media is ubiquitous, but the message is rarely repeated in consistent manner. Nor are the consumers internally motivated to hurt people outside context of the game. Nor does real life reward such behaviour; on the contrary, it tends to heavily penalize it. Finally, media violence is unlike real violence; which can be paraphrased as "mortal kombat doesn't teach you how to kick", or to borro from SMBC, "it turns out D&D doesn't make kids into violent loons, but not for the lack of trying".

[Crow]

My violent video games session just ended because I got exploded, so I'm going to mention another example on how it's not really true that violence in media have no effect in audiences. Torture is a really ineffective way to gain correct information. There's no question on it, experts agree people getting tortured will just say anything to stop the torture, saying anything else is just deluding yourself (well to be fair, if you're torturing the right person with the right question you might get correct information I guess?). But people are keep being convinced that torture is effective, because media keep showing that (an recent example is the series 24).

Actually torture can be very effective if you do it correctly. First you must immediately separate them from anybody else you may have taken captive. Immediately begin the process of isolation, sensory deprivation, and starvation/dehydration. Once these begin to take effect, you have already worked them into a more malleable state. Do not under any circumstances allow them their religious texts. Even in absence of the ability to read them, their presence can cause a subject to be less cooperative. Make note of which subjects are more valuable and likely to know more.

You conduct your interrogation of the subjects, and cross reference their stories. Find any discrepancies and don't tell them that you suspect dishonesty, but try to get them to tell you more about them. Cross reference them again and note even larger discrepancies while also noting details from previous sessions which check out across all stories. Allow the subjects to continue weaving lies, but note any portions of those lies which may coincide with the stories from your other subjects. Let the subject believe they have gotten away with the lie, and use it against them at a later time. Cross check your suspected accurate findings with your assets in the field.

Of course when this fails, you may have to resort to physical torture. What many people do not understand is that the key to physical torture is not to inflict pain, but to convince the subject that you are doing is going to kill them. That is why waterboarding is so effective; because it is relatively low risk, yet creates an involuntary physical response which convinces the subject that they are going to die if it continues. Of course now is where you are liable to begin receiving the "say anything" lies. This is when you use all the subject's previous lies against them. You tell them that since they have lied all this time, that you do not believe them. You continue with your methods, you call them a liar, no matter what they say. Faced with the realization that you have seen through their lies the entire time, that they have been toyed with; add to this they are starving, possibly dehydrated, have been kept in isolation, their senses deprived on them save for perhaps the same 20 second clip of Britney Spears playing on loop for several hours, and their mind is in a very vulnerable state and highly open to suggestion. It is this time when the torture is at it's most effective. You continue until he changes his story, or even changes it multiple times. He may change a truth to a lie, but you do not reward him for this. When you want to finish, you have something "come up" which interrupts the session, so that they believe fate has granted them a reprieve.

Of course then you must cross-reference what you have learned with findings from other sessions, and again cross reference with the findings of your assets currently in the field.

It is an ongoing process.

[Fri]

Actually torture can be very effective if you do it correctly. First you must immediately separate them from anybody else you may have taken captive. Immediately begin the process of isolation, sensory deprivation, and starvation/dehydration. Once these begin to take effect, you have already worked them into a more malleable state. Do not under any circumstances allow them their religious texts. Even in absence of the ability to read them, their presence can cause a subject to be less cooperative. Make note of which subjects are more valuable and likely to know more.

You conduct your interrogation of the subjects, and cross reference their stories. Find any discrepancies and don't tell them that you suspect dishonesty, but try to get them to tell you more about them. Cross reference them again and note even larger discrepancies while also noting details from previous sessions which check out across all stories. Allow the subjects to continue weaving lies, but note any portions of those lies which may coincide with the stories from your other subjects. Let the subject believe they have gotten away with the lie, and use it against them at a later time. Cross check your suspected accurate findings with your assets in the field.

Of course when this fails, you may have to resort to physical torture. What many people do not understand is that the key to physical torture is not to inflict pain, but to convince the subject that you are doing is going to kill them. That is why waterboarding is so effective; because it is relatively low risk, yet creates an involuntary physical response which convinces the subject that they are going to die if it continues. Of course now is where you are liable to begin receiving the "say anything" lies. This is when you use all the subject's previous lies against them. You tell them that since they have lied all this time, that you do not believe them. You continue with your methods, you call them a liar, no matter what they say. Faced with the realization that you have seen through their lies the entire time, that they have been toyed with; add to this they are starving, possibly dehydrated, have been kept in isolation, their senses deprived on them save for perhaps the same 20 second clip of Britney Spears playing on loop for several hours, and their mind is in a very vulnerable state and highly open to suggestion. It is this time when the torture is at it's most effective. You continue until he changes his story, or even changes it multiple times. He may change a truth to a lie, but you do not reward him for this. When you want to finish, you have something "come up" which interrupts the session, so that they believe fate has granted them a reprieve.

Of course then you must cross-reference what you have learned with findings from other sessions, and again cross reference with the findings of your assets currently in the field.

It is an ongoing process.

I'm more thinking on people who don't know anything, but will say anything just to stop being tortured *shrugs*

[Frozen_Feet]

The faulty premise in all of that is the idea that someone who is malnourished, sleep-deprived and in state of panic is able to recall information correctly.

The reason torture is a bad interrogation method is because not only is it unlikely to reveal the truth, it can actively destroy the victim's ability to recall the truth. See also: false memories.

False memories can be created even in a fairly innocious cross-interrogation if the interrogator is being careless. Which in practice means that eyewitness testimonials are not very reliable to begin with, even when the one interrogated is trying to be co-operative.

Generally speaking, torture is a lot of work for little return. The people who are likely to talk early into torture (when what they say could still be reasonable accurate) usually pop at the mere threat of it.

[Crow]

I'm more thinking on people who don't know anything, but will say anything just to stop being tortured *shrugs*

That usually becomes apparent very quickly. You can just tell after a while. It is very difficult to concoct effective lies in their condition, and you notice certain patterns.

But hey whatever, I'm just telling you how it has worked. You're all operating under the assumption that you have only that subject from which to draw information. If that is true, you may be ****ed; but it is hardly ever true. Collection is a comprehensive effort that utilizes multiple information flows. It is managing those multiple sources which makes your efforts work, and allow torture to be effective.

[Frozen_Feet]

I look at it from almost exactly opposite perspective: those other information gathering methods are the actually effective ones. They don't make torture effective. Torture isn't even cherry on top, it's completely pointless.

You might as well say tying your sparring partner into a training post makes triple-spinning kicks into effective combat method.

[BeerMug Paladin]

I look at it from almost exactly opposite perspective: those other information gathering methods are the actually effective ones.

That's what I thought too.

I also kind of wondered how one could piece together that the stated process is actually effective, given that there's a glut of wildly inchoate variables in that scenario. Additionally, testing it would be reprehensible, depraved and most importantly, highly impractical given current law. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0625.html)

Back on topic: it's worth considering that most people who generate media do not put a great deal of thought into the media they're generating. Some do, and a consideration they have is what sort of morality play they want their product to emphasize. Sometimes, as a result, we get a popular phrase that means something special.

Now, enough of me pursuing the white whale of enlightening the whole Internet. I've got a lot of important sleeping to do.

[Crow]

Also, Human intelligence comes in grades. Nothing is 100%, but proper use of torture allows you to verify intelligence you do have, so that you can further sort and prioritize which intelligence to act upon. So it has a role in supplementing and supporting those other methods as well. Of course it doesn't work the same way they show in the movies. The way it is generally handled in the movies would probably turn out ineffective.

If you're convinced it doesn't work, I'd recommend you get into the proper field of work so that you can show them the error of their ways. They could learn a lot from you.

[BeerMug Paladin]

If you're convinced it doesn't work, I'd recommend you get into the proper field of work so that you can show them the error of their ways. They could learn a lot from you.

I'm not really convinced of anything. I simply don't know. I was wondering why you seemed convinced it was effective. Because given the conditions we have, it seems like one of those things that you can't really be all that certain about one way or the other.

[Darth Ultron]

Such as?


A good example is the beliefs held by any minority social group, that are by definition, ''not the way most people think''. But they want what they think to be mainstream and normal, so they try to convince everyone their way is not only right, but it's the only way.

A lot of media really, really, jumps on the bandwagon with some of the minority social groups to say ''well, of course they are right and there way is the only way to think: end of the discussion before it starts.''

[Crow]

I'm not really convinced of anything. I simply don't know. I was wondering why you seemed convinced it was effective. Because given the conditions we have, it seems like one of those things that you can't really be all that certain about one way or the other.

I follow you. We're way off topic but I'll drop it by adding this:

We have major, big time reasons to get away from employing torture. Huge political reasons not to do it, big ethical reasons not to do it, etc etc. We have done everything we can to not do it, and distance ourselves from the practice.

...and yet we always seem to come back to it. That wouldn't be the case if it wasn't sometimes an effective tool.

[Razade]

First: everyone in this thread. Get familiarized with systems theory and feedback loops. Culture creates media and media creates culture. Razade is right that majority of media is reflection of already existing opinions, but minority voices broadcasted in great enough volume will change that opinion.

It should be pointed out that the return from media isn't the media itself. It's the people behind the media. Taylor Swift's song isn't the thing pushing a message. It's...well in her case the dozens of writers she employs to write her songs. Media is not inherently anything, it requires people to push the message. No people, no media. THAT is why Donnadogsoth's thesis fails. He is attributing power to media that it doesn't hold.

There's also, as I've pointed out, the fact that people consume the media they want mostly because it already agrees with what they believe. This is where you get a Positive Feedback Loop. Someone believes X, they watch news station Y where the people behind the station are more inclined to air their news with an X slant. The person watching Y news has their views reinforced. Cycle perpetuates itself. It's still not the news station doing the reinforcing. It's a group of people doing the transaction.

[Themrys]

I follow you. We're way off topic but I'll drop it by adding this:

We have major, big time reasons to get away from employing torture. Huge political reasons not to do it, big ethical reasons not to do it, etc etc. We have done everything we can to not do it, and distance ourselves from the practice.

...and yet we always seem to come back to it. That wouldn't be the case if it wasn't sometimes an effective tool.

I find that sadism is a much more likely explanation for about 99% of torture.

Depressingly, this might also be the reason why it is so often depicted as effective in media. People do not like to admit their sadistic tendencies, it is much more enjoyable to tell themselves that the torture is done for good and noble reason.

[Darth Ultron]

It should be pointed out that the return from media isn't the media itself. It's the people behind the media. Taylor Swift's song isn't the thing pushing a message. It's...well in her case the dozens of writers she employs to write her songs.

Taylor Swift is not a good example here: she writes the vast majority of her own songs and is at least co-author of the rest and gets the writing credit.

You might want to pick a more ''hip hop'' artist. Rihanna, for example. Or Justin Bever, or Ariana Grande or any ''boy band''.

[Keltest]

I find that sadism is a much more likely explanation for about 99% of torture.

Depressingly, this might also be the reason why it is so often depicted as effective in media. People do not like to admit their sadistic tendencies, it is much more enjoyable to tell themselves that the torture is done for good and noble reason.

I always assumed it was depicted as successful in media because torturing a character generates drama, and you need to have a somewhat legitimate reason for an otherwise intelligent antagonist (or otherwise restrained protagonist) to resort to the method. It also adds to the depravity of the characters who don't use it to gather information, like Darth Vader to Han Solo in Empire Strikes Back.

[Frozen_Feet]

...and yet we always seem to come back to it. That wouldn't be the case if it wasn't sometimes an effective tool.

People also have a tendency to go back to astrology and other methods of fortune-telling, nevermind myriad other superstitions and bad habits, despite them always being ineffective. This even relates to the actual topic of social programming, because there are studies on how preachy and negatively-bent attempts at education routinely fail - yet shaming, blaming etc. are go-to tactics for social ideologues and their opponents alike.

It's almost like the primary benefit is illusionary, or not at all what it is purported to be on the surface. Themrys offered sadism as an alternative motive for torture in place of accurate information gathering; for fortune-telling, the answer is magical thinking instead of genuine predictions; for negatively-bent attempts at social programming, I offer reinforcing ties within an in-group who already think alike rather than changing attitudes of others.

[Crow]

If you say so, Frozen.

As I said before; you clearly need to enter the field yourself and show them how they've been wrong all this time. I'm sure your insights would be enlightening for them.

[Donnadogsoth]

Let me try it this way. Media is a product of the culture that produces it. That means that a culture creates media to reflect its values back at itself on a general level. Sure you have people who strike out and do avant garde crap but in the general aspect of media it's very focused on the majority. News, etc, it's not saying things counter to what the prevailing opinion is of the day. Propaganda isn't trying to tell you that people with orange skin is evil. It's feeding off people who already think it and broadcasting it out. But people with orange skin aren't going to believe the message. People who don't already have inclinations to think that aren't going to go with the propaganda. Same goes with songs or tv or advertisement. They're just a reflection of what's going on around you.

And, again, why not be that person, Razade? Surely companies don't need to spend ~$600 billion/annum on advertising--luscious, hyperreal, provocative, emotionally manipulative, conceptually distorted, expensively photographed and above all carefully thought out and directed advertising--that changes no one's desires and opinions. Ads that merely inform people of the existence of a product or service are all that're needed, not these pimped out versions. Surely your insights can save them a bundle of cash--think of it, even a billion dollars per year would be significant--and you can take a cut of that for yourself. Why are you trying to change my mind through the medium of this message board, when you could change their minds very lucratively instead? Indeed, you may find yourself bribed to keep silent, by the advertising industry itself. Either way, you win.

If man perceives himself as a beast he will behave and think like a beast, and, however much fashions of technique may change, Bernays and Skinner and their ilk have demonstrated that animals human and otherwise can be conditioned, whether that's to think women should smoke cigarettes defiantly, homosexuality is normal and good, or to peck at the red button to receive seed. There is more to programming than just media, of course, but in the end media products and culture are the same thing. Movies and books are culture. If man is a complex animal, the methods of his control will be more complex, he may require tsunamis of programming, or extreme conceptual subtlety, but the principle of conditioning remains the same. Again, it's your money to make by taking your insights that all this is bunkum and therefore an unnecessary expense, to the relevant people.

[YossarianLives]

I'm just going to point out that we're only on the second page and the OP has already insulted gay people and feminists, while others discuss the merits of torture and what are just short of wild conspiracy theories are thrown around.

This is gonna be a good thread.

[Razade]

And, again, why not be that person, Razade? Surely companies don't need to spend ~$600 billion/annum on advertising--luscious, hyperreal, provocative, emotionally manipulative, conceptually distorted, expensively photographed and above all carefully thought out and directed advertising--that changes no one's desires and opinions. Ads that merely inform people of the existence of a product or service are all that're needed, not these pimped out versions. Surely your insights can save them a bundle of cash--think of it, even a billion dollars per year would be significant--and you can take a cut of that for yourself. Why are you trying to change my mind through the medium of this message board, when you could change their minds very lucratively instead? Indeed, you may find yourself bribed to keep silent, by the advertising industry itself. Either way, you win.

Other than it being a big gross slurry of logical fallacies? Because I don't care how bushiness spend their money so far as they aren't actually hurting the environment or people without their consent. I don't care what people put into their bodies as long as it was their choice to put it there in the first place. I don't care if people spend all their money on designer shoes or sports tickets or anything like that. Life's short, if you want to go out on your terms than I support you. It's a damn sight better than what most of us are going to get.


If man perceives himself as a beast he will behave and think like a beast, and, however much fashions of technique may change, Bernays and Skinner and their ilk have demonstrated that animals human and otherwise can be conditioned, whether that's to think women should smoke cigarettes defiantly, homosexuality is normal and good, or to peck at the red button to receive seed. There is more to programming than just media, of course, but in the end media products and culture are the same thing. Movies and books are culture. If man is a complex animal, the methods of his control will be more complex, he may require tsunamis of programming, or extreme conceptual subtlety, but the principle of conditioning remains the same. Again, it's your money to make by taking your insights that all this is bunkum and therefore an unnecessary expense, to the relevant people.

I....wow...just...nothing I can say here that just isn't shouting into the wind. You're not looking for a dialog, you're looking for an echo chamber. Which is hilarious considering in your view, a thing like that can't exist. I'll leave you to it. Like I said before, I'd be happy for us just to agree and be done with it but then we'd both be wrong.


I'm just going to point out that we're only on the second page and the OP has already insulted gay people and feminists, while others discuss the merits of torture and what are just short of wild conspiracy theories are thrown around.

This is gonna be a good thread.

Could you PM me when any of those things stop happening please (I don't feel I've been insulted however)? That is if the thread doesn't get shut down. I'd like to keep this conversation going but only if people are actually going to enter into the discussion honestly....and not verge on insane conspiracy theories. Unless I was throwing out conspiracy theories. Which...:smalleek: You let me know which.

[Frozen_Feet]

If you say so, Frozen.

As I said before; you clearly need to enter the field yourself and show them how they've been wrong all this time. I'm sure your insights would be enlightening for them.

I'm amused - where do you think my information is coming from?

It's coming from psychologists in the field who've been studying torture and arguing for its ineffectiveness, as well as civilian psychologista like Elizabeth Loftus (spelling?) who've been studying the field of false memories and demonstrating how poor even normal eyewitness testimonials are. What I am saying is nothing new to people on the field and I'd get no money for parrotting findings of more famous scientist there.

If there are people on the field who disagree or continue to follow provenly dysfunctional methods and practices, that is, sadly, just another day. F.ex. Freudian psychology met heavy criticism and was debunked in important ways when Freud was alive, yet it continues to be popular to this day.

It's almost like "effectiveness" is not actually the prime reason why some practices persists, or don't persist. That's the relevant point to this thread, which you haven't really begun to address.

---

EDIT:

@Donnadogsoth:

You do realize companies lose money every year due to failed advertizing campaigns, with some even going bankrupt due to negative backlash?

You'd get much more mileage from your own argument, as well as answers to your initial dilemma, if you took apart specific example cases of advertizing campaigns succeeding or failing. Examine what makes and ad succesful versus not, and how.

The famous Old Spice commercials with Terry Brooks would be a good candidate - because it was a roaring success for the company as a whole, but if I've heard right, did not increase sales of the specific product being advertized.

[Crow]

*Sigh* Nevermind

It would take too long to get into this. Save to say that when I specify "in the field", I mean interrogation, intelligence, security service. FYI I am NOT, but several of my comrades went on to do so and are as of now.

Does torture always work? No. Is it a useful tool sometimes? Yes. Information of an actionable sort isn't the same as you get from eyewitness testimonies. Many of the pitfalls of those just don't apply to the type of information you're looking for. There are psychiatrists who say torture doesn't work, yes. However there are a lot of people in the field who have acted upon information extracted by it, and found that it sometimes does. Sometimes you aren't dealing with a punk you picked up off the street. Sometimes you are dealing with a battle-hardened fighter who also happens to be a religious zealot. Other methods may not work as well, so it is a tool you keep available.

Take it or leave it; I don't care. You'll never be in a position where it will make a difference what you believe regarding this, so I won't try to contradict you.

[endoperez]

Interesting side note:

The fact that media reflects culture is immediately visible if you come across a media from a culture you're not familiar with.

I've been reading light novels, that is, cheap and trashy literature mostly written in various Asian countries. Wuxia novels are Chinese hero fantasy novels, where a young, weak orphan boy is revealed to have great talent. He has a fortunate encounter which gives him access to resources, which gives him better tools & training, which pushes him above his peers. This earns him the attention of a great teacher and a powerful organisation, which leads to him further increasing in power. He achieves great power, and uses that power to benefit his remaining family, or his clan, or his friends, or his school.

In Western fantasy novels, the same orphan boy succeeds because he's better, if it's explained at all. He does things and it is enough. When he has become powerful, his power benefits himself. If he becomes a benevolent king, it benefits his underlings - still himself.

The first novel in the "Stellar Transformations" series reads like an extended Rocky training montage. Training, training, training and hard work. Endless training and effort put in to become a more powerful man, to qualify for higher things. Wouldn't culture that birthed this book encourage children to study endlessly, students to push themselves to the top?

Similarly, wouldn't the Western fantasy story give birth to countless young adults that are certain they will succeed, with no idea of what to do, or how to get there? I see myself in this.

Just reading these books, trashy and no high literature and with amateur translations at best, has taught me much.

Another common theme is "against the heavens". Heaven is some sort of supernatural, often bureaucratic and mostly benevolent status quo. Heavens have preordained fate of mortals. But fate can be changed, and there are rules with which heavens can be challenged. Magical power is against heavenly will, so punishment will follow: a tribulation. 9 lashes, not with a whip, but of lightning. Deadly to many, but those who withstand it have played the price and earned the power.

This is very different from Western concepts of fate, destiny and heavenly will. It is not better. But reading both, having both these experiences, gives more than either alone. Clearly, then, both give something, both influence me in some way. I only notice it when what I get is new to me, but the first media I consumed also had that same power to teach me. And it did.

Is that social programming, or just exposure to culture? Is there a difference? Media change & influence thoughts. That doesn't change whether the media was made to do it, or not.

Regarding the torture discussion: torture is seen as an accepted method of revenge in many wuxia stories, as is destruction of whole tribes or clans, or souls. Torture as revenge is more common than torture as information gathering. I believe the stories come up with different solutions to give the protagonist the info. Often, a friend or ally with connections has the information, or it can be bought.

[Frozen_Feet]

I can hardly "win" when you're still not engaging my actual arguments. Instead you're falling back to passive-aggressive emotional rhetoric and putting words in my mouth.

Your most dubious assertion, which can be prove false, is that "false memories do not apply". Why wouldn't they? Human recollection makes no distinction between martial and civilian information.

The stupidest part is you claiming my argument is about proving torturers are sadistic monsters who totes do not feel guilt or have nightmares. I've not even hinted at that. Even Themrys, who brought up sadism, didn't claim they can't feel guilty. Doing something out of sadism and feeling guilt afterwards aren't even mutually exlusive - even consensual sadomasochists have a concept for "domdrop" where the dominant party feels guilty and miserable after a session is over and adrenaline wears off.

And that "actionable results" part... you must've heard they saying "even a broken clock is right twice a day"? Even an astrologer's prediction is correct for some people somewhere. That doesn't mean that torture is effective, nor that its effectiveness is why it persists, nor that torturers are unbiased and informed when using it as a method of interrogation. Again, contrast with Freudian psychology.

EDIT: and it seems like Crow completely redid his post while I was writing mine. Oh well. Let it be known that this was reply to that earlier post, so it's not really applicable to the new one.

[Zalabim]

The famous Old Spice commercials with Terry Brooks would be a good candidate
You made me google for an Old Spice commercial with Terry Brooks in it.

Similarly, wouldn't the Western fantasy story give birth to countless young adults that are certain they will succeed, with no idea of what to do, or how to get there? I see myself in this.
"I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way." I'm not saying you should blame Frodo, but you could blame Frodo. Of course the outcome of Frodo's story isn't quite so self-assured. The same won't be true of the many knock-offs.

I could go on far too long about the rest of this.

[Themrys]

And, again, why not be that person, Razade? Surely companies don't need to spend ~$600 billion/annum on advertising--luscious, hyperreal, provocative, emotionally manipulative, conceptually distorted, expensively photographed and above all carefully thought out and directed advertising--that changes no one's desires and opinions. Ads that merely inform people of the existence of a product or service are all that're needed, not these pimped out versions. Surely your insights can save them a bundle of cash--think of it, even a billion dollars per year would be significant--and you can take a cut of that for yourself. Why are you trying to change my mind through the medium of this message board, when you could change their minds very lucratively instead? Indeed, you may find yourself bribed to keep silent, by the advertising industry itself. Either way, you win.

If man perceives himself as a beast he will behave and think like a beast, and, however much fashions of technique may change, Bernays and Skinner and their ilk have demonstrated that animals human and otherwise can be conditioned, whether that's to think women should smoke cigarettes defiantly, homosexuality is normal and good, or to peck at the red button to receive seed. There is more to programming than just media, of course, but in the end media products and culture are the same thing. Movies and books are culture. If man is a complex animal, the methods of his control will be more complex, he may require tsunamis of programming, or extreme conceptual subtlety, but the principle of conditioning remains the same. Again, it's your money to make by taking your insights that all this is bunkum and therefore an unnecessary expense, to the relevant people.


What you fail to notice is the difference between people allowing themselves to be conditioned, and people ... not allowing this.

People buy products that are advertised because it makes them feel good to watch the advertising, and they think they will feel the same way after buying the product.

You can make people buy coffee by showing happy people drinking expensive coffee surrounded by luxury, because people like the feeling of happiness and luxury.

Likewise, you can make men hate women more by showing them violent porn that treats women as objects. Because they watch it. There needs to be a certain attitude so that they want to watch it in the first place, of course.

What you cannot do, however, is just show gay people in media and hope that homophobes will a) watch those movies or read those books in the first place or b) actually change their opinions because of how gay people are portrayed in a few books as opposed to the overwhelming mass of conditioning they get all the time.

You can only condition people if they allow it, and/or you have the power to make your conditioning so omnipresent that they cannot escape it. (Or you imprison them, but that's not legal and thus not how advertising or social programming works) I have seen dozens of beer commercials, which were really beautiful, showing green forests, sparkling lakes, cool, golden beer that sparkled in the sunlight ... however, since I do not like the taste of any kind of alcohol in the first place, and moreover have a motivation to not get addicted to it, all this advertisising money is, indeed, wasted.

Conditioning works on people who are neutral towards the thing you want to get them to like. This works perfectly with coffee or toilet paper, because people rarely are opposed to those on principle. People need toilet paper, getting them to buy your brand instead of some other one is easy.

"Social programming" where the target is to make people change their overall attitude towards, for example, gay people, is very different from that.

[Frozen_Feet]

@Zalabim: oh god damn it, I remembered the name wrong, didn't I?

@Themrys: this is the second time you've brought up pornography. However, it's rather trivial to state that porn falls in the category of violence in videogames: it does not have a proportionate effect on sexism. Not by a longshot.

Consider how all of the changes in technology that have allowed porn to become so ubiquitous in first-world countries have happened within the same timespan as many improvements in rights and quality of life of women. This is especially pronounced in the internet era, because in most first world countries there's been a notable downward trend in violent crime - sexual violence included - all the while porn has exploded in popularity.

So on large scales, porn is not having a great effect on society - or, society is not having great effect on porn. Both are possible. It's also possible uboquitousness of porn has a different effect than theories on objectification leads you to presume - Japan is an interesting case, as people have been wondering if porn has something to do with lack of interest towards sex and relationships among the younger generations.

[Mightymosy]

[...]
For example, violence in media is ubiquitous, but the message is rarely repeated in consistent manner. Nor are the consumers internally motivated to hurt people outside context of the game. Nor does real life reward such behaviour; on the contrary, it tends to heavily penalize it. Finally, media violence is unlike real violence; which can be paraphrased as "mortal kombat doesn't teach you how to kick", or to borro from SMBC, "it turns out D&D doesn't make kids into violent loons, but not for the lack of trying".


The core message is actually repeated very consistently. The core message "the default solution to solve a problem in the end is violence."
Watch movies. How many action movies end with a showdown where the hero has to defeat the enemy in combat, and how many end with the hero solving the conflict with a bargain?
When I was younger, attempts were made to decrease violence in movies. Think MacGyver as an example. Many shows went out of their way (even out of logical ways) to advertize non-violent solutions to conflicts.
Compare to modern protagonists. You get the impression that almost any protagonist these days needs their fair share of "torture the villain - for justice!".

Even when during the movie, a solution that resolves around bargaining or clever technical solutions, you can bet money that something will happen that forces the hero to still fight the "endgame battle" in the end.

So, almost all mainstream media these days are consistently portaying violence as the final solution to the conflict of the story.

Doesn't turn all of us into mass murderers, no. But does it change the attitude of people towards war, for example? Towards torture as a way to gain information? Or towards the death penalty?

Not everything is as simple as letting someone play Counterstrike and measuring their blood pressure afterwards, if you ask me.

[Amaril]

You can only condition people if they allow it, and/or you have the power to make your conditioning so omnipresent that they cannot escape it. (Or you imprison them, but that's not legal and thus not how advertising or social programming works) I have seen dozens of beer commercials, which were really beautiful, showing green forests, sparkling lakes, cool, golden beer that sparkled in the sunlight ... however, since I do not like the taste of any kind of alcohol in the first place, and moreover have a motivation to not get addicted to it, all this advertisising money is, indeed, wasted.

That's why subtlety and tact are so important in media. You're absolutely right that if someone looks at a work and immediately sees it pushing an ideology they disagree with, they'll shut themselves off from it and learn nothing. If you want to be convincing, you have to start by drawing your audience in and making them want to listen to you. Usually, I find the most persuasive media is that which never makes its message explicit at all; it's wrapped in allegory, symbolism, and metaphor. Even when that facade isn't there, or is so thin that the message is obvious in spite of it, good works rarely start out so transparent. They begin by offering more moderate arguments that the viewer will find more palatable, and build things up bit by bit, encouraging the audience to gradually follow them along a path to realizing something that they wouldn't have accepted before. If you do it right, the viewer won't even know they got the idea from you--they'll think they figured it out all on their own. That's the key to changing people's minds. You can't teach someone something they don't want to learn, but you can do a whole lot to make them willing to learn it. Really, I'd argue that's the whole purpose of art; to say things in a way that makes people want to listen.

[Donnadogsoth]

What you fail to notice is the difference between people allowing themselves to be conditioned, and people ... not allowing this.

People buy products that are advertised because it makes them feel good to watch the advertising, and they think they will feel the same way after buying the product.

You can make people buy coffee by showing happy people drinking expensive coffee surrounded by luxury, because people like the feeling of happiness and luxury.

Likewise, you can make men hate women more by showing them violent porn that treats women as objects. Because they watch it. There needs to be a certain attitude so that they want to watch it in the first place, of course.

What you cannot do, however, is just show gay people in media and hope that homophobes will a) watch those movies or read those books in the first place or b) actually change their opinions because of how gay people are portrayed in a few books as opposed to the overwhelming mass of conditioning they get all the time.

You can only condition people if they allow it, and/or you have the power to make your conditioning so omnipresent that they cannot escape it. (Or you imprison them, but that's not legal and thus not how advertising or social programming works) I have seen dozens of beer commercials, which were really beautiful, showing green forests, sparkling lakes, cool, golden beer that sparkled in the sunlight ... however, since I do not like the taste of any kind of alcohol in the first place, and moreover have a motivation to not get addicted to it, all this advertisising money is, indeed, wasted.

Conditioning works on people who are neutral towards the thing you want to get them to like. This works perfectly with coffee or toilet paper, because people rarely are opposed to those on principle. People need toilet paper, getting them to buy your brand instead of some other one is easy.

"Social programming" where the target is to make people change their overall attitude towards, for example, gay people, is very different from that.

Take Johnson, a Straight who doesn't like Gay people. He has a circle of friends, but his friends are all neutral on the Gay issue. Now Brokeback Mountain is released, and he and his neutral friends go to see it, and while he stands back a little, his friends get into conversations and generally break the ice and are swayed by the humanity of the depicted homosexual relationship--and the fact that there is a large audience for this sort of thing judging by its box office returns--and so move a nudge towards thinking positively towards Gays. What's Johnson to do? His opinions are no longer as welcome as they were, and since he values his friends, he alters his behaviour. In other words, he's conditioned to change his behaviour. Even if Johnson's opinions haven't changed, he is part of a kind of conditioning of the populace, if we view the populace as a single animal.

[Tyndmyr]

For most of my life I've heard, and defended, the narrative that depictions of violence in media products have no measurable negative effect on audiences. Viewing and hearing violence in the media does not make anyone more violent, and the notion that it does is risible and dated.

On the other hand, for most of my life I've heard, and defended, the narrative that social programming in media products, designed to change the consciousness of audiences toward various social goals, is a noble thing and helps to make a better world.

Cheers, you've found a contradiction in what's publicly accepted as true. Many such exist, and in all cases, it's best to follow the scientific evidence. As for violence in media, well, that's pretty open and shut. Very commonly studied. Now, there *is* a tendency for people who already enjoy violence to also enjoy violent entertainment, but that's not causality, it's just people enjoying stuff about them, kinda.

The same is true of other things. Watching a show about romance won't necessarily make you more or less romantic, but you'll probably enjoy it more if you're a romantic sort to begin with. So, it's good to have a variety of stuff in a "let's make sure all the viewers have things they really like" way, but making a tv show about something probably won't change the world.

[Mightymosy]

That's why subtlety and tact are so important in media. You're absolutely right that if someone looks at a work and immediately sees it pushing an ideology they disagree with, they'll shut themselves off from it and learn nothing. If you want to be convincing, you have to start by drawing your audience in and making them want to listen to you. Usually, I find the most persuasive media is that which never makes its message explicit at all; it's wrapped in allegory, symbolism, and metaphor. Even when that facade isn't there, or is so thin that the message is obvious in spite of it, good works rarely start out so transparent. They begin by offering more moderate arguments that the viewer will find more palatable, and build things up bit by bit, encouraging the audience to gradually follow them along a path to realizing something that they wouldn't have accepted before. If you do it right, the viewer won't even know they got the idea from you--they'll think they figured it out all on their own. That's the key to changing people's minds. You can't teach someone something they don't want to learn, but you can do a whole lot to make them willing to learn it. Really, I'd argue that's the whole purpose of art; to say things in a way that makes people want to listen.

I think you have a point, but still not completely right.
Take the "black dragon incident" for example. I would assume one of Rich Burlew's messages was "racism is bad".
Now look at all the discussion that went up after the comics in question went up.
I don't think a single person was persuaded of the message, and the message delivery wasn't even that subtle (for the right kind of people).
In fact, Burlew created a strip way later to emphasize the point how horrible V's crime was, a fact he thought would be obvious to anyone who read the original part. (or that is how I read his statements).

At any rate, if you want to convince someone of something, you'll have to make sure they symphatize with your protagonists in the first place, they need to want to read/watch/hear your story.
But when the moral message comes, you need to be as blunt as necessary to deliver your message.
Let's take racism as an example. If you want to convince someone (who is not already on your side of the coin) that it is bad, you need them to mentally merge with a racist victim. Start your story by establishing (strongly establishing) that they and your protagonist have much in common. They need to FEEL to be them. Then, later, make them feel how they are being treated by racists. Badly. Maybe then show how the racists' line of thinking is somewhat in line of what you believe your audience thinks. Now that they have FELT the story from the victim's point of view, they can question their own beliefs.

[Rodin]

The famous Old Spice commercials with Terry Brooks would be a good candidate - because it was a roaring success for the company as a whole, but if I've heard right, did not increase sales of the specific product being advertized.

Another really interesting in case of this was the Taco Bell Chihuahua. The commercials were insanely popular and "Yo quiero Taco Bell" went viral in the days prior to the internet being a big thing. Everyone at school was saying it, and everybody loved that dog.

...Except for Taco Bell themselves, who canceled the ad campaign after a few commercials because it failed to increase sales.

The lesson I've taken out of the (relatively small) learning I've had about marketing is that the public is incredibly fickle, and that combines with marketing itself being in an echo chamber to make it so that any individual marketing campaign is basically a crapshoot.

[Kyberwulf]

Violence being doesn't have an effect. Because it's the same thing as flying. Just because you see it on TV, or experience it in a fantasy, doesn't mean it's going to give you any ability to do it in real life. Whereas Social Programming is being taught something. When you are taught something, especially if it's something you want to know. You tend to want to use it.

It's akin to being read a story, and being taught to read and write.

Therein lies the difference.

[Amaril]

I think you have a point, but still not completely right.
Take the "black dragon incident" for example. I would assume one of Rich Burlew's messages was "racism is bad".
Now look at all the discussion that went up after the comics in question went up.
I don't think a single person was persuaded of the message, and the message delivery wasn't even that subtle (for the right kind of people).
In fact, Burlew created a strip way later to emphasize the point how horrible V's crime was, a fact he thought would be obvious to anyone who read the original part. (or that is how I read his statements).

At any rate, if you want to convince someone of something, you'll have to make sure they symphatize with your protagonists in the first place, they need to want to read/watch/hear your story.
But when the moral message comes, you need to be as blunt as necessary to deliver your message.
Let's take racism as an example. If you want to convince someone (who is not already on your side of the coin) that it is bad, you need them to mentally merge with a racist victim. Start your story by establishing (strongly establishing) that they and your protagonist have much in common. They need to FEEL to be them. Then, later, make them feel how they are being treated by racists. Badly. Maybe then show how the racists' line of thinking is somewhat in line of what you believe your audience thinks. Now that they have FELT the story from the victim's point of view, they can question their own beliefs.

I don't know the details of what sprung up around the black dragon incident, though I can surmise the broad strokes. Personally, I did find Rich to be a little heavy-handed in delivering that message (or maybe just in how that whole arc was presented, I'm not exactly sure). However, I think you're right to suggest that some people just won't be persuaded by certain messages, no matter how they're delivered, which makes sense to me. I think there are limits to how much you can condition people--if there weren't, the world would, I think, be either much better or much worse than it is. That doesn't mean it's pointless to try, though, because you can make a significant difference, if not a complete change, in how a sizable portion of people think, if you do it right.

Your example is totally right, and exactly what I was getting at. Often, a change in perspective is one of the best ways to introduce someone to a new idea. The key is to not let them know that you want to make them change their perspective on a real-world issue; you warm them up by couching it in fiction, and only later start to make the analogy clear (or don't, because a lot of the time, they'll see it on their own).

[Razade]

Take Johnson, a Straight who doesn't like Gay people. He has a circle of friends, but his friends are all neutral on the Gay issue. Now Brokeback Mountain is released, and he and his neutral friends go to see it, and while he stands back a little, his friends get into conversations and generally break the ice and are swayed by the humanity of the depicted homosexual relationship--and the fact that there is a large audience for this sort of thing judging by its box office returns--and so move a nudge towards thinking positively towards Gays. What's Johnson to do? His opinions are no longer as welcome as they were, and since he values his friends, he alters his behaviour. In other words, he's conditioned to change his behaviour. Even if Johnson's opinions haven't changed, he is part of a kind of conditioning of the populace, if we view the populace as a single animal.

Did you notice that he wasn't conditioned by the movie but by his friends in your scenario? That his friends were already predisposed to look at homosexual people in a positive light, they weren't swayed by the movie either. That Johnson (how Freudian of you) changed not because of a movie but his peer group?

If you can't even defend your thesis with your examples then why are we still having this conversation? You're wrong. You're demonstrably wrong. You also have a really strange view on homosexual people. "The humanity of the homosexual relationship." Ugh. Still not insulted but man...that kool-aid must be great.

[Closet_Skeleton]

...and yet we always seem to come back to it. That wouldn't be the case if it wasn't sometimes an effective tool.

Effective for what?

The SS used torture as a bonding exercise. Make the group share a guilty secret and they're less likely to surrender.

Post 9/11 the CIA were basically put in a bind where the government asked them for results they had no real ability to come up with. Torture enhanced interrogation was effective for convincing those involved that the CIA were trying their best.

Philip IV wanted basically any excuse to force the Pope to dissolve the Knight's Templar so he could get out of his massive financial debts. Made up confessions gained under torture gave him the excuse.


People also have a tendency to go back to astrology and other methods of fortune-telling, nevermind myriad other superstitions and bad habits, despite them always being ineffective.

Astrology can be effective. Not at telling the future but it has its uses.


Even an astrologer's prediction is correct for some people somewhere. That doesn't mean that torture is effective, nor that its effectiveness is why it persists, nor that torturers are unbiased and informed when using it as a method of interrogation. Again, contrast with Freudian psychology.

There's a big difference between whether or not a technique is going to solve a particular circumstance and whether or not its strategically optimal as a general practice.

Most of the cons for torture are strategic flaws that make it unlikely to be effective. The odd outlying cases where torture is going to be the quickest way to get information are not random chance if you can assess the situation.

Sadly 'make sure every agent is able to access the right technique to apply to any given situation' is not a viable strategy. Therefore blanket instructions to avoid techniques are probably a good idea.

The only issue is that outlawing torture tends to lead to lots of under the table torture, so having a official torture policy that severely limits and regulates the amount of torture you're using (eg what the Spanish Inquisition actually did) might be effective because it reduces the amount of torture that's going on.



Freudian psychology met heavy criticism and was debunked in important ways when Freud was alive, yet it continues to be popular to this day.

Freudian psychologists are popular when they provide a good service. If that doesn't fit under a certain clinical definition of effective then it might be the test that's the wrong test.

Some psychology as practised might just be witch doctory with a late 19th century pseudo scientific veneer, but if you assume the social role of a witch doctor is to hand out chemically testable prescriptions your testing criteria is terrible.


"I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way." I'm not saying you should blame Frodo, but you could blame Frodo. Of course the outcome of Frodo's story isn't quite so self-assured. The same won't be true of the many knock-offs.

The root of destiny is western fantasy stories is an American Calvinist thing and therefore cannot really be discussed on this forum. Lord of the Rings kind of doesn't fit the way its knock-offs do due to its author's Catholicism.


Japan is an interesting case, as people have been wondering if porn has something to do with lack of interest towards sex and relationships among the younger generations.

Well, if you make sex look that boring...

[BRC]

Did you notice that he wasn't conditioned by the movie but by his friends in your scenario? That his friends were already predisposed to look at homosexual people in a positive light, they weren't swayed by the movie either. That Johnson (how Freudian of you) changed not because of a movie but his peer group?

If you can't even defend your thesis with your examples then why are we still having this conversation? You're wrong. You're demonstrably wrong. You also have a really strange view on homosexual people. "The humanity of the homosexual relationship." Ugh. Still not insulted but man...that kool-aid must be great.

So, by that argument nobody is ever capable of being persuaded by anything? Because people will only have an opinion if they are already predisposed to have that opinion?

In this scenario, the movie caused Johnson's Friends to change their opinion, which in turn caused Johnson to change his behavior. So, even though Johnson was too set in his ways to have his opinions swayed by the film directly, the film DID have an effect on him. In turn, his friends may cause him to rethink his opinions?

Now, it is true that there is a subset of people so set in their opinions on a given subject that they'll reject anything, especially a work of fiction, that presents an opposing viewpoint. But most people are not like that, our opinions of the world are shaped by the things we see an experience, even fictional things, since some part of our brain assumes that these stories have some reflection in the real world.
It's also true that a single TV show or Film will rarely change somebody's opinion on a subject. But that "Predisposition" you discuss is the result of a long list of influence, including the Media.

We're constantly bombarded with different sides of various issues, and our stances on those issues are the result of which arguments/examples we have been exposed to. Most people are "Predisposed", in one degree or another, to both sides of an issue, and exposure to arguments against their current viewpoint build up to change opinions.


Let's go back to Johnson. Johnson has only ever been told that Gay People are all promiscuous and hedonistic, so he hates them. He sees Brokeback Mountain, which features a loving romantic homosexual relationship. "Well that's nonsense" Johnson says. "Gay people don't love each other, they just want to have sex".

But, now he's seen evidence that at least some people think that homosexual relationships are acceptable, since they made a movie portraying a loving gay couple.

Meanwhile, his friends, who previously had no strong opinion on the matter, now support the LGBT movement. Perhaps they were already "Predisposed" to doing so, and the movie simply reminded them of opinions they already held.
Well, now Johnson must acknowledge that his friends, people he presumably respects, ALSO support homosexuals. At the same time, he stops being overtly homophobic, since he doesn't want to lose the respect of his friends.

Later, he gets a new Co Worker, Bob. Bob is happily married to his husband Hank. Before seeing the movie, Johnson would have been disgusted. He would have assumed Bob to be a hedonistic, predatory pervert and refused to interact with him at all. But now he's been exposed to the idea that gay couples can be just as loving as straight couples (From the Movie). He knows and respects people who support the LGBT movement (His Friends, whose opinions were changed by the movies), and he doesn't want to be seen as Homophobic, so rather than sticking to his pre-formed opinion of Bob and Hank, he decides it's worth giving them a chance.

After a few weeks of working with Bob, he concludes that Bob is no worse than anybody else he works with, he sees Bob and Hank together and concludes that their marriage is just as loving and valid as anybody's.

The Movie didn't change his opinions, but it did help "Predispose" him to changing his mind later.

[Razade]

So, by that argument nobody is ever capable of being persuaded by anything? Because people will only have an opinion if they are already predisposed to have that opinion?


No. I very clearly didn't say that. I think I've been pretty clear with what I'm saying. People's opinions and beliefs can change. They have to want to change on some level. They don't need to be predisposed to what they're changing their mind too, they simply have to decide they're wrong and change accordingly. There's so many examples of people who don't want to change even with the preponderance of evidence is against them but most of them break the forum rules. The Flat Earth Society is one of the ones I can mention here though. All the evidence says the Earth isn't flat. Regardless of this, they refuse to believe it because they don't want to believe. For what ever reason.

[gooddragon1]

No. I very clearly didn't say that. I think I've been pretty clear with what I'm saying. People's opinions and beliefs can change. They have to want to change on some level. They don't need to be predisposed to what they're changing their mind too, they simply have to decide they're wrong and change accordingly. There's so many examples of people who don't want to change even with the preponderance of evidence is against them but most of them break the forum rules. The Flat Earth Society is one of the ones I can mention here though. All the evidence says the Earth isn't flat. Regardless of this, they refuse to believe it because they don't want to believe. For what ever reason.

The tricky part here is that we can't get people to research from the other direction in this argument to prove it from both ways that it is as the large amount of compelling evidence from the research that's already been done. The research arguing the other way would have to be done very delicately to avoid causing lawsuits and protests. I'm not sure how to resolve this, and until we do I think the people arguing against it will continue to ignore the evidence even if the evidence we do have convincingly says they're absolutely wrong.

[Razade]

The tricky part here is that we can't get people to research from the other direction in this argument to prove it from both ways that it is as the large amount of compelling evidence from the research that's already been done. The research arguing the other way would have to be done very delicately to avoid causing lawsuits and protests. I'm not sure how to resolve this, and until we do I think the people arguing against it will continue to ignore the evidence even if the evidence we do have convincingly says they're absolutely wrong.

Are you...talking about the Earth being flat? Or social programming? Because we'd done studies on both sides, the answer is that it's bullcrap. If you're talking about the Earth being flat or not...there's no "other side" of that discussion. We've seen the Earth from space. We know it's not flat. We know that it's a spheroid. We have evidence. There's no other side of this discussion that isn't insane.

[Lethologica]

The number of people who claim to have been influenced on LGBT issues by Ellen DeGeneres' coming out, as well as by the presence of LGBT couples on shows like Modern Family and The Fosters, should at least give pause to those claiming social messages in media have no effect. (source (http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/ellen-degeneres-gay-rights-gay-marriage-1201531462/)) Think also of how many people claim to have been influenced by the wholesome Mr. Rogers--liars or mistaken, one and all?

Which is not the same as claiming everyone will change their minds. No amount of science media is going to convince the Flat Earth society to close up shop. This feeds back into what people said earlier about social programming coming up against countervailing forces. But Cosmos still influenced minds, not just in terms of teaching science, but in terms of valuing science.

[Razade]

The number of people who claim to have been influenced on LGBT issues by Ellen DeGeneres' coming out, as well as by the presence of LGBT couples on shows like Modern Family and The Fosters, should at least give pause to those claiming social messages in media have no effect. (source (http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/ellen-degeneres-gay-rights-gay-marriage-1201531462/)) Think also of how many people claim to have been influenced by the wholesome Mr. Rogers--liars or mistaken, one and all?

You're missing it too. Positive portrayals such as Ellen or Modern Family is because the culture is lightening. Ellen didn't change the mind of people who hate gay people. Her coming out empowered people who felt they couldn't because it showed the culture at large was changing. If the culture wasn't changing she'd not have been able to do it on national television. Because National Television wants one thing and one thing only. MONEY. Cash, clams, moolah, fat stacks, what ever you want to call it. They're not going to put something on television that will make them lose money. They're not going to try and "program" you with things because that's not where the money is. The money is appealing to crap you already believe and making a buck off it.

[gooddragon1]

Are you...talking about the Earth being flat? Or social programming? Because we'd done studies on both sides, the answer is that it's bullcrap. If you're talking about the Earth being flat or not...there's no "other side" of that discussion. We've seen the Earth from space. We know it's not flat. We know that it's a spheroid. We have evidence. There's no other side of this discussion that isn't insane.

The social programming one. From what you're saying then it seems they're either not convinced by the results of the studies done from the other direction for some reason or they're just not listening or both. All of which is typical. Some people will always manage to find something to argue about when the study doesn't show what they want it to show.

[Razade]

The social programming one. From what you're saying then it seems they're either not convinced by the results of the studies done from the other direction for some reason or they're just not listening or both. All of which is typical. Some people will always manage to find something to argue about when the study doesn't show what they want it to show.

Yes, which was my point. It's hilarious that the people who think social programming via media is a thing when the evidence runs contrary to this and refuse to be convinced. They are very refutation of the point they're trying to make. It'd be honestly really damn funny if it weren't so so sad.

[Lethologica]

You're missing it too. Positive portrayals such as Ellen or Modern Family is because the culture is lightening. Ellen didn't change the mind of people who hate gay people. Her coming out empowered people who felt they couldn't because it showed the culture at large was changing. If the culture wasn't changing she'd not have been able to do it on national television. Because National Television wants one thing and one thing only. MONEY. Cash, clams, moolah, fat stacks, what ever you want to call it. They're not going to put something on television that will make them lose money. They're not going to try and "program" you with things because that's not where the money is. The money is appealing to crap you already believe and making a buck off it.
You talk about culture as a uniform thing. You also talk about culture as if its interaction with media is a one-way street. Both of these are highly simplistic characterizations--Frozen_Feet's comment about feedback loops is apropos. Ellen's coming out was enabled by changing culture, but it was also a supporting element of that change.

Also, while it is indisputable that television networks want money, money is not the only thing they want. That's one of those claims that only sounds smart because it's cynical. Money is primary because it's how you keep being a television network, but the rest of it can be enough to give a little nudge one way or another.

[Donnadogsoth]

Did you notice that he wasn't conditioned by the movie but by his friends in your scenario? That his friends were already predisposed to look at homosexual people in a positive light, they weren't swayed by the movie either. That Johnson (how Freudian of you) changed not because of a movie but his peer group?

If you can't even defend your thesis with your examples then why are we still having this conversation? You're wrong. You're demonstrably wrong. You also have a really strange view on homosexual people. "The humanity of the homosexual relationship." Ugh. Still not insulted but man...that kool-aid must be great.

I did not say they were predisposed, I said they were neutral. What was needed was a spark of conversation to catalyse the issue. And so his peer group was influenced by a cultural product, and he was conditioned by one remove. If we are seeking to program society (and I imagine plenty of people would if they could--why not?), does it matter whether the effects are produced immediately or not?

I see no reason to distinguish between mediated cultural products and immediated ones, except insofar as the latter are backed more strongly by family and peer-group interactions. The notion of a culture that operates outside of all mediated things does not make sense. Mediated things are part of the culture; culture can change opinions and behaviour; ergo, mediated things can to some degree change opinions and behaviour.

[Razade]

You talk about culture as a uniform thing. You also talk about culture as if its interaction with media is a one-way street. Both of these are highly simplistic characterizations--Frozen_Feet's comment about feedback loops is apropos. Ellen's coming out was enabled by changing culture, but it was also a supporting element of that change.

Also, while it is indisputable that television networks want money, money is not the only thing they want. That's one of those claims that only sounds smart because it's cynical. Money is primary because it's how you keep being a television network, but the rest of it can be enough to give a little nudge one way or another.

I don't, you can go back a page see exactly where I say that culture isn't a monolith. You're trying to argue against me using a point I've made at least twice now.

[Lethologica]

I don't, you can go back a page see exactly where I say that culture isn't a monolith. You're trying to argue against me using a point I've made at least twice now.
Then your position is internally inconsistent. Variegated culture is incompatible with claiming that media only reflects culture and never affects culture, because one piece of media can never reflect the entirety of a variegated culture. Instead, it amplifies some aspects of that culture, which has various effects across the spectrum: it intensifies existing support and opposition, changes some minds, and reaches out to the unaware and the fence-sitters. All of those are effects social messaging has on audiences.

[BeerMug Paladin]

First, as a friendly suggestion. I really don't think the consideration of a hypothetical scenario is going to be a compelling argument to anyone.

Second, when I am presented with an idea or concept that I have never heard before, my usual response is indifference or neutrality. I might try to compare it to other, similar seeming ideas I've heard before. If it fits into a mental framework I already have in place, I might have some initial thoughts about it. But if it's different enough from what I already have, I'll just have no opinion. In that situation, I need more data before I can develop an opinion. I can't speak for others, but it doesn't seem my brain is particularly selective about where it acquires that data.

Third, as far as I know, I was not born with any robust mental frameworks in place.

I'm not really sure if we're all on the same page for what culture actually means. For instance, is/(are) there a mechanism(s) for culture to change over time, and if so what are some of them?

[Frozen_Feet]

@Closet_Skeleton: that you went and asked "effective for what?" shows you get my point better than anyone else.

To clarify, when I say "torture is not effective" or "astrology is not effective", I again mean that they don't serve their purported goals.

Torture is not a good information gathering method.
Astrology is not good for predicting the future.
Freudian psychology is not a good model of actual psychology and hence leads to dysfunctional treatment.

But as you note, and what I've been trying to get at all this time, is that there can be other reasons why such actions persists. F.ex. a psychologist being a professional shoulder to cry on (or a "witch-doctor" like you put it) might be enough to make them succesful in their job regardless of how accurate their psychological theories are.

This has implications for the on-going discussion about advertizing as well. Most advertizing consultants


National Television wants one thing and one thing only. MONEY. Cash, clams, moolah, fat stacks, what ever you want to call it. They're not going to put something on television that will make them lose money. They're not going to try and "program" you with things because that's not where the money is. The money is appealing to crap you already believe and making a buck off it.
This is where I have to stop you, because you are objectively wrong.

Commercial television wants money. National televisions are controlled by national leaders and pursue whatever goals they might have. It is not rare at all for national networks to push forward public service announcements or pure political propaganda even when it costs them money.

Secondly, no television network is perfect money-making machine. The people in charge don't magically know what impact media will have before that, and every once in a while, crap slips past the radar and kicks up a ruckus. You can tell when this has happened when a nation suddenly engages in attempts to censor such works after-the-fact and history is rife with examples.

And, as pertains to rest of your discussion line, media and culturr exists in a feedback loop. A movie might only have an effect because the audience was already amenable to the message, but that's not the same as the movie having no effect.

Think of a flame. A flame needs heat, fuel, oxygen and an on-going chain reaction to exists. But just as well the flame creates heat and hence can cause itself to expand outside its original limits. You may argue it can only do this if fuel and oxygen are plentiful in the surrounding environment, but that doesn't mean those things would catch fire on their own.

Media is that flame.

[Tyndmyr]

Then your position is internally inconsistent. Variegated culture is incompatible with claiming that media only reflects culture and never affects culture, because one piece of media can never reflect the entirety of a variegated culture. Instead, it amplifies some aspects of that culture, which has various effects across the spectrum: it intensifies existing support and opposition, changes some minds, and reaches out to the unaware and the fence-sitters. All of those are effects social messaging has on audiences.

No, the position is not inconsistent, merely because cultures are varied. Media, in say, South America, reflects the dominant culture there. Same, same, here. These may not be the same cultures, and as a result, the media may be wildly different, but media made for a different culture probably has marginal appeal outside of it's culture(unless it appeals to shared constants between the two).

You're still assuming that media must be dominant and changing things from the top down, through some leap of logic that is not supported by variety alone. Breaking a mirror makes it reflect many things, but it doesn't turn a mirror into a laser.

[Lethologica]

No, the position is not inconsistent, merely because cultures are varied. Media, in say, South America, reflects the dominant culture there. Same, same, here.
You say the position is compatible with varied cultures, but immediately zoom out to the point where 'dominant cultures' are uniform across entire nations. This is not making your point at all.

Well, to be fair, you do at least establish that cultural variation can exist without different parts influencing each other through media--if there's a sharp boundary with very little mixing. But those assumptions only apply because you've zoomed out so far. Nobody was arguing that media in Singapore influences culture in Saskatchewan.


You're still assuming that media must be dominant and changing things from the top down
What? No, I'm not. I'm claiming that media is not entirely subordinate. I'm claiming there's a feedback loop. Media draws from us, and then we draw from media, and change happens in both directions. (Maybe I should just stop talking for myself and communicate entirely in quotes of Frozen_Feet's posts, it'd save time.) There's also a lot of ways for culture to change without media input and vice versa, obviously.

And the mirror analogy is a pile of bull, honestly. So is Brecht's hammer. Art does not hold up a mirror to reality; nor does it only shape reality without reacting to reality. Forget the metaphors. Art offers a stylized representation of reality to consumers whose own vision of reality may or may not match the art at all. Different people will respond in different ways according to what matches and what doesn't, and some responses are much stronger than others, but the point is that there is a response, and that response changes the consumer's internal landscape. Multiply that across the entire audience and you get a non-zero shift in culture.

[Razade]

Then your position is internally inconsistent. Variegated culture is incompatible with claiming that media only reflects culture and never affects culture, because one piece of media can never reflect the entirety of a variegated culture. Instead, it amplifies some aspects of that culture, which has various effects across the spectrum: it intensifies existing support and opposition, changes some minds, and reaches out to the unaware and the fence-sitters. All of those are effects social messaging has on audiences.


No, the position is not inconsistent, merely because cultures are varied. Media, in say, South America, reflects the dominant culture there. Same, same, here. These may not be the same cultures, and as a result, the media may be wildly different, but media made for a different culture probably has marginal appeal outside of it's culture(unless it appeals to shared constants between the two).

You're still assuming that media must be dominant and changing things from the top down, through some leap of logic that is not supported by variety alone. Breaking a mirror makes it reflect many things, but it doesn't turn a mirror into a laser.

Tyn said it pretty much exactly as I would have. You want to complain that I was talking about culture like it was one set thing Leth but then you seem to turn around (seem to) talk about media like it's one thing. Media isn't one thing. If culture isn't one thing it's going to cast a multi-faceted spectrum of media. With the internet we see this even more, where lesser funded and lesser founded media forms are taking rise. Tumblr, the Blogosphere, etc.



This is where I have to stop you, because you are objectively wrong.

Now on to you. :smalltongue: I'm not objectively wrong. The number one thing a company aims to do is make money. That's...just the way it is...


Commercial television wants money.

As does...anything commercial...


National televisions are controlled by national leaders and pursue whatever goals they might have. It is not rare at all for national networks to push forward public service announcements or pure political propaganda even when it costs them money.

This is...one of the most hilarious things I've heard really. Sadly can't delve too much into it. I'll just say this. Governments wants to make money too.


Secondly, no television network is perfect money-making machine.

You don't have to be perfect at something to have it be one of your main goals. What the hell are you talking about?


The people in charge don't magically know what impact media will have before that, and every once in a while, crap slips past the radar and kicks up a ruckus. You can tell when this has happened when a nation suddenly engages in attempts to censor such works after-the-fact and history is rife with examples.

Yeah...that's why companies spend millions of dollars in things like focus groups and market testing. To figure these things out.


And, as pertains to rest of your discussion line, media and culturr exists in a feedback loop. A movie might only have an effect because the audience was already amenable to the message, but that's not the same as the movie having no effect.

Think of a flame. A flame needs heat, fuel, oxygen and an on-going chain reaction to exists. But just as well the flame creates heat and hence can cause itself to expand outside its original limits. You may argue it can only do this if fuel and oxygen are plentiful in the surrounding environment, but that doesn't mean those things would catch fire on their own.

Media is that flame.

You can't have a candle without a wick. Likewise you can't have a fire when there's nothing to burn.

[Lethologica]

Tyn said it pretty much exactly as I would have. You want to complain that I was talking about culture like it was one set thing Leth but then you seem to turn around (seem to) talk about media like it's one thing.
No, I don't. None of my arguments are predicated on media being uniform. In fact, all of my arguments work better if media isn't uniform. So you can drop this clumsy tu quoque.

Now, I don't know why you quote Frozen_Feet under my name, but I'm happy to catch some of the low-hanging fruit for him. For example:


Now on to you. :smalltongue: I'm not objectively wrong. The number one thing a company aims to do is make money. That's...just the way it is...
That's entirely compatible with Frozen_Feet's position, and it isn't compatible with what you said before, which is that the only thing a TV network aims to do is make money. Good job changing your mind and agreeing with him, it's something that should happen more often.


You don't have to be perfect at something to have it be one of your main goals. What the hell are you talking about?
When it comes to emulating existing culture in the slavish pursuit of money, though, you do have to be perfect at it in order to not accidentally deviate and influence culture. (Assuming emulating existing culture is the point in the first place.)


You can't have a candle without a wick. Likewise you can't have a fire when there's nothing to burn.
You're agreeing with him again. I hope you weren't intending to disagree. That would be awkward.

[Razade]

No, I don't. None of my arguments are predicated on media being uniform. In fact, all of my arguments work better if media isn't uniform. So you can drop this clumsy tu quoque.

I was verifying if that was what you were saying or not. Neither of us think media is uniform. Which is good, because we're both right. Isn't that grand?


Now, I don't know why you quote Frozen_Feet under my name, but I'm happy to catch some of the low-hanging fruit for him. For example:

Dunno, it's fixed now though.


That's entirely compatible with Frozen_Feet's position, and it isn't compatible with what you said before, which is that the only thing a TV network aims to do is make money. Good job changing your mind and agreeing with him, it's something that should happen more often.

Oh we're on this now are we? Wonderful, I curious when you'd trot it out. Here it is, now we can all get comfortable. I'm happy to change my mind Lethologica when the evidence is compelling. Hasn't happened in this thread yet though. I don't see where I changed my argument. Companies (National Television included) want to make money. Everything they do is a means to that end. That's...consistent with what I said above. Good job not catching that though. Gold star.


When it comes to emulating existing culture in the slavish pursuit of money, though, you do have to be perfect at it in order to not accidentally deviate and influence culture. (Assuming emulating existing culture is the point in the first place.)

No you don't. That which can be asserted with no evidence can be dismissed similarly. You need to demonstrate a perfect something before you can start asserting how something has to be perfect to do something.


You're agreeing with him again. I hope you weren't intending to disagree. That would be awkward.

Except I've been saying this from the get go. In fact Frozen has agreed with me previously on this point.


Razade is right that majority of media is reflection of already existing opinions, but minority voices broadcasted in great enough volume will change that opinion.


We just disagree on that last bit, and the disagreement wasn't big enough for me to single out really.

But hey, you keep up that patented smugness Lethologica. This forum wouldn't be the same without it.

[Darth Ultron]

Take Johnson, a Straight who doesn't like Gay people. He has a circle of friends, but his friends are all neutral on the Gay issue. Now Brokeback Mountain is released, and he and his neutral friends go to see it, and while he stands back a little, his friends get into conversations and generally break the ice and are swayed by the humanity of the depicted homosexual relationship--and the fact that there is a large audience for this sort of thing judging by its box office returns--and so move a nudge towards thinking positively towards Gays. What's Johnson to do? His opinions are no longer as welcome as they were, and since he values his friends, he alters his behaviour. In other words, he's conditioned to change his behaviour. Even if Johnson's opinions haven't changed, he is part of a kind of conditioning of the populace, if we view the populace as a single animal.

Sadly, this is the belief of many on that One Side of things. They think Only They are Right, and everyone who thinks differently is wrong. And they just know if they can make that one special movie or other work of fiction...that they can open everyone eyes to the light and change the world. It's why a lot of people become part of the media: they want to change the world.

After all, the world is full of a lot of Mikes:

Mike is a Straight guy who only likes fiction about straight people. He has a circle of friends feel the same way. Now Brokeback Mountain is released, and he and his friends don't go see it. Even if they got free tickets, they still don't go see it. Almost no one Mike knows has seen the movie, other then a couple of women, chronic movie watchers and a weird guy or two he knows in passing. The movie did well, so it is said, but Mike knows that numbers and people often lie. Mike might wonders that if the movie was so liked, why has there not been a ''number 2'' or a ''copycat movie'' . Mike tries to think of even another gay character in any movie after that, and does not remember any. It seems to make the movie more of a ''one hit wonder fluke''. So Mike and everyone he knows does not change.

[Lethologica]

I was verifying if that was what you were saying or not. Neither of us think media is uniform. Which is good, because we're both right. Isn't that grand?
It's lovely. It also leaves you in the position of not having addressed my points in any way. Up to you.


Oh we're on this now are we? Wonderful, I curious when you'd trot it out. Here it is, now we can all get comfortable. I'm happy to change my mind Lethologica when the evidence is compelling. Hasn't happened in this thread yet though. I don't see where I changed my argument. Companies (National Television included) want to make money. Everything they do is a means to that end. That's...consistent with what I said above. Good job not catching that though. Gold star.
Backtracking from "the only thing" to "the number one thing" is certainly a nice way to avoid having to defend the former position when it's easily refuted. The mere existence of a number two thing, though, admits the fact of media that does not simply pander to the exact social values of its current audience for cash. Once you go there, you get media influencing culture. So by backtracking you've lost the ability to defend your original position (that media only reflects social norms and never 'propels' an idea).


No you don't. That which can be asserted with no evidence can be dismissed similarly. You need to demonstrate a perfect something before you can start asserting how something has to be perfect to do something.
I really don't. All I have to do is describe how the imperfections make doing that something impossible. Which I have previously done, in ways you have never addressed.


Except I've been saying this from the get go. In fact Frozen has agreed with me previously on this point.



We just disagree on that last bit, and the disagreement wasn't big enough for me to single out really.
Yeah, a very minor disagreement, it's just the conflict underlying the argument you've been pursuing for the entirety of the thread over whether media can influence audiences' social values.


But hey, you keep up that patented smugness Lethologica. This forum wouldn't be the same without it.
What patent? My application was denied. Turns out, thanks to you, there's plenty of prior art in the area.

[Tyndmyr]

You say the position is compatible with varied cultures, but immediately zoom out to the point where 'dominant cultures' are uniform across entire nations. This is not making your point at all.

Well, to be fair, you do at least establish that cultural variation can exist without different parts influencing each other through media--if there's a sharp boundary with very little mixing. But those assumptions only apply because you've zoomed out so far. Nobody was arguing that media in Singapore influences culture in Saskatchewan.

Sharp boundaries are irrelevant. Plenty of places in the US with Spanish channels, because there's a significant enough subculture to serve them. That doesn't mean that those channels matter one whit to other cultures, who simply don't watch them.

Cultural intermingling happens as well, but it happens as a result of people intermingling, not merely as a result of a tv channel or similar being available.


What? No, I'm not. I'm claiming that media is not entirely subordinate. I'm claiming there's a feedback loop. Media draws from us, and then we draw from media, and change happens in both directions. (Maybe I should just stop talking for myself and communicate entirely in quotes of Frozen_Feet's posts, it'd save time.) There's also a lot of ways for culture to change without media input and vice versa, obviously.

This is a popular viewpoint. The data does not support it. If it were a feedback loop, then exposing someone to violent programming WOULD make them more violent.

The facts don't support it, so...the viewpoint is wrong. That's how science works.


And the mirror analogy is a pile of bull, honestly. So is Brecht's hammer. Art does not hold up a mirror to reality; nor does it only shape reality without reacting to reality. Forget the metaphors. Art offers a stylized representation of reality to consumers whose own vision of reality may or may not match the art at all. Different people will respond in different ways according to what matches and what doesn't, and some responses are much stronger than others, but the point is that there is a response, and that response changes the consumer's internal landscape. Multiply that across the entire audience and you get a non-zero shift in culture.

This is all belief and hokum, I'm afraid.

It's the idea that there IS an effect, but somehow not one that numbers can capture, because people are special. Unfortunately, large scale studies exist to capture just these effects. The fact that people are different does not impede measurement, and the idea that individual variations make it impossible to measure net effects simply doesn't square with modern studies.

The net effects are what is being measured, and they are what don't exist.

[Stan]

For most of my life I've heard, and defended, the narrative that depictions of violence in media products have no measurable negative effect on audiences. Viewing and hearing violence in the media does not make anyone more violent, and the notion that it does is risible and dated.


This is commonly stated in many sectors of the population but it isn't entirely true. The effects are small and complicated, with many provisos, but they're real - both short and long term effects. Organizations of pediatricians, doctors, and psychologists have all looked at large bodies of research and concluded that there is an effect. There have been enough controlled, longitudinal studies to get a good idea of direction of causality.

Some of the data is covered in this meta-analysis from JAMA, which covers hundreds of studies and tens of thousands of participants:
http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=204790

If you want to claim there is no connection between violent media and behavior, start by refuting this article.

[Lethologica]

Sharp boundaries are irrelevant. Plenty of places in the US with Spanish channels
Yeah, because language barriers aren't sharp.

(Well, sometimes they aren't. Depends on how much of a subtitle industry there is. Do we want to cover that?)


Cultural intermingling happens as well, but it happens as a result of people intermingling, not merely as a result of a tv channel or similar being available.
This is compatible with my position and I never said anything to the contrary. Media being an element of cultural influence =/= media being the sole determinant of culture.


This is a popular viewpoint. The data does not support it. If it were a feedback loop, then exposing someone to violent programming WOULD make them more violent.
That's just a stack of grouping fallacies. For media in general to have some effect does not imply that a specific kind of media must have a specific kind of effect. And I guess I just have to start linking prior parts of the discussion now (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21262258&postcount=21), since people are making uncritical counterclaims without addressing the existing ones.


This is all belief and hokum, I'm afraid.

It's the idea that there IS an effect, but somehow not one that numbers can capture, because people are special. Unfortunately, large scale studies exist to capture just these effects. The fact that people are different does not impede measurement, and the idea that individual variations make it impossible to measure net effects simply doesn't square with modern studies.

The net effects are what is being measured, and they are what don't exist.
That's a nice assertion. Here's a book on the subject (https://books.google.com/books?id=IjqRAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&ots=p7yf7F5Dyl&dq=does%20media%20influence%20society&lr&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false), including a nice discussion of the limitations of research into whether media effects exist in different areas according to various meta-studies; while the author agrees that it's likely not all media has effects in all areas, it's pretty clear that some media has effects in some areas, not coincidentally including violent media affecting viewer aggression (though this must be tempered by Frozen_Feet's comments about those effects being short-lived, and that's some research I would like to see more closely).

Your turn.

[Frozen_Feet]

@Razade: do you want me to, say, post all non-profit programs put on air by Finland's Yleisradio? Or list all the programs which never returned their costs? Because your dismissal of my argument with "governments want to make money too" is just gross. It completely glosses over my second point, which was that even if they want to do that, it doesn't mean they always achieve it, because they are not perfect.

Nations, television networks, companies, all waste money and can accidentally work at cross purposes to their own goals. Which means that no media is ever completely free of dissenting voices or controversial messages. This in turn means the potential for change is always there, the question is whether it is powerful enough to overcome resistance. This is not all that different from natural selection as pertains to mutations in a genome, which is why Richard Dawkins came up with his concept of memes.

You and Tyndmyr are both weakening your own argument pointlessly by making it overgeneral. For example, in response to my analogue, you cannot say "there is no fuel" or "there is no wick". That's something which needs examining in each case separately.

Similarly Tyndmyr's "large scale effects are not there" is overgeneral. Large scale effects of what? Would you apply the same argument to Twilight and the Communist Manifesto, or to Brokeback Mountain and Death Mills?

Because while I have no proof of the former of both pairs having large-scale effect on culture anywhere, you'll have a hard time convincing me the latter were as irrelevant to changing culture as your arguments would suggest.

[Darth Ultron]

, which covers hundreds of studies and tens of thousands of participants:


Of course the problem with studies is people will wave them around if they happen to agree with them and try to hide them if they don't. And for a lot of things you can find studies that go both ways.

And even if you want to say the people doing the study (or paying for it, wink, wink) are a pure as the wind driven snow, you still have the problem that most humans are not honest.

[Stan]

Of course the problem with studies is people will wave them around if they happen to agree with them and try to hide them if they don't. And for a lot of things you can find studies that go both ways.

And even if you want to say the people doing the study (or paying for it, wink, wink) are a pure as the wind driven snow, you still have the problem that most humans are not honest.

The overwhelming majority of researchers are honest, more honest than the average person. These are generally people who have passed on higher paying jobs because they have an interest in science. There are too many studies for me to look at them all, but the majority of them are likely funded by NIH, NSF, and the like, who don't have a great deal of interest in finding a particular answer.

The study I linked above is a large meta-analysis took into account all studies that fit a set of criteria, so it's not something easily put together just to support a viewpoint. It wouldn't be in journal like JAMA if it was half assed.

Not all studies find effects because the effects sizes are small and the study has to be properly powered. The common refrain that the studies are mostly correlation is partially true, but it's similar to the case of smoking and cancer, eventually you have to stop and think. Longitudinal studies into questions like this are correlational for ethical and financial reasons. However, there have been many well designed experiments that have also shown short term effects.

Violent media doesn't have to trigger violence to haven a negative effect.