the Big Brother turkey slap incident

[Hamal]

I am sure I went in to some detail about not using the "effects argument" here.

You expressed the desire that the 'effects argument' not be a factor, but unfortunately it is. I explained why.

[Nigel]

Its not. Full Stop. To be perfectly blunt. the effects argument aussmes a posision that denies any other factor. To take the effects route in any analysis is fool hardy and pointless. There is not one shred of evidence that "proves" the effects arguments validity and there never will.

[Hamal]

Its not. Full Stop.

Such conviction. This should be interesting.

To be perfectly blunt. the effects argument aussmes a posision that denies any other factor.

What do you mean by this?

To take the effects route in any analysis is fool hardy and pointless.

Why?

There is not one shred of evidence that "proves" the effects arguments validity and there never will.

Yet entire industries (such as possibly the largest industry on the planet right now: advertising) gamble their very existance on the 'effects argument'.

[Nigel]

Point 1.

I teach media studies for a living at University. I am doing a PhD in Media Studies. I spend the majority of my time wrapped up in Media Studies. A large part of which is dispelling the myth of the validity of the effects models (which most first year students seem to have becuase they have not learnt to see deeper into WHY audiences behave the way they do.

Point 2.

There are multiple reasons why people / audiences act. You need to look at all of those factors (Health / culture / society / finance to name but a few) before you start assuming the media "influences" people.

Point 3.

Because its a simplistic argument.

Point 4.

Not true. Your forgetting the most essenctial element (and the reason the effects model fails). People have choice. How they engage in a text depends largely on what they want to get out of their text. Advertiers gamble on people WANTING to engage in their product.


For more information look up "the Hyperdermic model and Magic Bullet Theory". and examin the problems both these theories have.

[Hamal]

Point 1.

I teach media studies for a living at University. I am doing a PhD in Media Studies. I spend the majority of my time wrapped up in Media Studies. A large part of which is dispelling the myth of the validity of the effects models (which most first year students seem to have becuase they have not learnt to see deeper into WHY audiences behave the way they do.

That's rather interesting. I'm currently studying "Digital Media" at University which is mean to be a fusion of Media Studies and Computer Science, but I have found it does lack coverage on some important theoretical communications topics

Point 2.

There are multiple reasons why people / audiences act. You need to look at all of those factors (Health / culture / society / finance to name but a few) before you start assuming the media "influences" people.

Yet it is an undeniable truth that the media most certainly attempts to influence people, refines the process of influencing people and touts its own ability to influence people.

Point 3.

Because its a simplistic argument.

On the face of it you could argue it is simplistic, however we cannot ignore it or totally discount it. Actually, I'm not too sure if we're actually talking on the same wavelength here. I believe you may have a different perception of what "effects argument" means considering our differing levels of experience in the field.

Point 4.

Not true. Your forgetting the most essenctial element (and the reason the effects model fails). People have choice. How they engage in a text depends largely on what they want to get out of their text. Advertiers gamble on people WANTING to engage in their product.

I do not disagree with this at all. It does raise the subject of whether what people WANT to engage in is in their best interests. I'll give you an extreme and indisputable example: suicide.

For more information look up "the Hyperdermic model and Magic Bullet Theory". and examin the problems both these theories have.

Fascinating reading, although I don't think I was attributing the blame to the so called Silver Bullet theory. During my readings I discovered the much more widely acclaimed "Two-step flow of communication" model that is more in line with my own beliefs on this subject. For those not familiar with the model, it basically states that the media can enjoy some success in influencing demographics by first targetting 'early innovators' to use and disseminate information and opinion on the product. Similar to the uptake of Mobile Phone usage I would assume? A much more subtle, yet still effective effect (and technique).

[dvestate]

[Enforcer-J]

Lol, you guys are both reading way too much into this, as did the media. Everyone's moving away from the incident itself.
my views......

Some dude turkey slapped some bird.

They all enjoyed it.

No one was injured physically or mentally.

If any kids have actually seen the incident then they must have access to the net in which case they have access to a lot more "socially/morally unacceptable" things than that. Also, you must be over 18 to view the stream anyway.

Apparently it was shown on 7 & 9's respective current affairs shows. Looks to me like an attack on N10 rather than real concern of the incident.

News and Current affairs show much more graphic and offensive or immoral human acts daily.

Big Brother is 2 steps closer to finishing..just like that!

[Nigel]

Point 1.

I teach media studies for a living at University. I am doing a PhD in Media Studies. I spend the majority of my time wrapped up in Media Studies. A large part of which is dispelling the myth of the validity of the effects models (which most first year students seem to have becuase they have not learnt to see deeper into WHY audiences behave the way they do.

That's rather interesting. I'm currently studying "Digital Media" at University which is mean to be a fusion of Media Studies and Computer Science, but I have found it does lack coverage on some important theoretical communications topics

Point 2.

There are multiple reasons why people / audiences act. You need to look at all of those factors (Health / culture / society / finance to name but a few) before you start assuming the media "influences" people.

Yet it is an undeniable truth that the media most certainly attempts to influence people, refines the process of influencing people and touts its own ability to influence people.

Point 3.

Because its a simplistic argument.

On the face of it you could argue it is simplistic, however we cannot ignore it or totally discount it. Actually, I'm not too sure if we're actually talking on the same wavelength here. I believe you may have a different perception of what "effects argument" means considering our differing levels of experience in the field.

Point 4.

Not true. Your forgetting the most essenctial element (and the reason the effects model fails). People have choice. How they engage in a text depends largely on what they want to get out of their text. Advertiers gamble on people WANTING to engage in their product.

I do not disagree with this at all. It does raise the subject of whether what people WANT to engage in is in their best interests. I'll give you an extreme and indisputable example: suicide.

For more information look up "the Hyperdermic model and Magic Bullet Theory". and examin the problems both these theories have.

Fascinating reading, although I don't think I was attributing the blame to the so called Silver Bullet theory. During my readings I discovered the much more widely acclaimed "Two-step flow of communication" model that is more in line with my own beliefs on this subject. For those not familiar with the model, it basically states that the media can enjoy some success in influencing demographics by first targetting 'early innovators' to use and disseminate information and opinion on the product. Similar to the uptake of Mobile Phone usage I would assume? A much more subtle, yet still effective effect (and technique).

I will give you an example of how the effects models fail. Specifically violence in the media causing violence. I actually use this in my classes. The idea that violence actually causes and effects the audience to be violient has been a long standing effects argument. Indeed one of the great (and terriebly wrong) studdies was the Bobo Doll experiemnt which was an attempt to show that children that watched people punching a bobo doll ended up punching the doll in real life. This they cited was evidence that the Media caused children to act violently. Of course they didn't say that the doll was supposed to be hit, nore that they rewarded the children for it nore that the environment was artefitial. No where in that experiment did they take into account that the childs background might alter the way they engaged with the doll. Nore did they look at culture or examine whether or not the child was mentally well. Without first looking at the greater reasoning behind a persons actions you can not know EVER why someone acted the way they did. Moreover, each person has their own ideology and personality that they bring to their engagment. In order to prove the effects model, you would need to study each person individually and taylor specific critiria individually. For example the media / and various "effects" groups lept on Martin Bryant the port arthor killer as an example of how the media caused Bryant to act. He had, these groups had said "violent videos" at his home. These were given as evidence that the watching of these videos caused him to act the way he did. However, Bryants most watched film (watched to the point of obbsesssion) was the sound of music, and indeed it turns out he didn't have violent videos at all. The problem is the effects theory is backwards. It blames the media first before asking other questions. In fact you need to ask the fundamental question of WHY was a person who acted violently watching violent images rather than saying the imgaes caused an action.

People have choice, regardless of what we see we make our own choices about what we do with the text and indeed how we engage in it. For example, watching violent videos wont cause (unless there are other aformentioned circumstances) people to act out. However, that does not mean they will not act out IF THEY FEEL ITS SAFE TO DO SO. For example, in the bobo doll experent the children knew that the doll was part of a game. It was not real and they were aware of it. They also knew they were not hurting the doll at all. Again when kids see violence on TV they know its not really (study done on this showed that while 80% of boys liked watching violence on TV, only 8% of boys said they liked watching REAL violence on TV). They watch cowboys and indians and go out side to play. But thats all they do. They make a choice to PLAY and the make a choice to NOT go out and kill people for real.

There is a paradox here within the idea of choice However. People have a choice. They make concious desissions on what they do with a text. The Media MAY attempt to influence an audience. However whether audiences enagage in it is up to them. However, the space we have by which we have choice could be said to be limited to what we have to choose from.

My own area of speciallty is media theory specifically fandom, fans and how audiences actually missuse the intended porpous of a text.

[Nigel]

dp

[limbo]

My own area of speciallty is media theory ........how audiences actually missuse the intended porpous of a text.

note to self. do not quote fourthof5 anymore.

unless he was actually talking about dolphins in that last post

[Nigel]

Well it was written in a bit of a hurry; and this little text window is hardly the place to edit ones words properly.

[Sarsippius]

I just watched it then, no big deal at all if you ask me. It annoys me no end how conservative society is these days, you don't even have to prove that something is wrong or harmful for it to get pulled. Correct me if I'm wrong but they no longer show looney toons on tv anymore because of the violence, if there was ever anything wrong with looney toons a whole generation (maybe even two) would be violent criminals today, I'm sure most of us here grew up watching them. The prevailing attitude seems to be if in doubt then ban it.
Adults only bb was the only part of the show worth watching and I even learnt a few things watching it but now it's no more because dipshit parents let their kids stay up late watching tv and don't have the balls to educate them about sex and sexuality.

[Nigel]

I say bring back Benny Hill
That would fuck'm all

[limbo]

Well it was written in a bit of a hurry; and this little text window is hardly the place to edit ones words properly.

just takin' the piss mate. i make enough errors of my own to worry about anybody else's.
i just liked that one cos it changed the entire text, and thats what we were talking of. it tickled my 'sublime' gland

[Nigel]

Had a quick look at the "Two-step flow of communication" methodology as it was one that I was unfamiliar with. There are problems with that as well. It assumes that the audience is incapable of understanding the complexity of engagment and that it is the privliged few who dictate media content (good example of a high v low cultural argument). However, audiences (and fans in particular) tend to make their own content which suggests a much higher level of understanding than they have been give as an audience. There is nothing to stop anyone from making their own content or indeed their own media. A prime example of this would be bloggs which have redifined the concept of jorunalism.

The most important thing to remember about the effects model in all its forms is that it assumes the audience is Passive. This is incorrect. All audiences are active in their engagement.

[Scuderia_Alan]

This is probably repetition but I'd like to state I am in agreement that such a model is too simplified. Omitted variables is what shoots down cause and effect assertions. If something is not factored in (exogenous), then a model is inaccurate. Granted the perfect model would invariably need to explain the world but a study is good when it explains its limits.

A recent real example and not a tangent into another discussion about religion: Faith and lifespan. A study simply drew conclusions that religious faith was statistically correlated to a greater life expectancy. The study did not look any further into whether it was something involved in the practices of religious people which was a better signal of life expectancy (say) alcohol consumption or even homosexuality. And I am absolutely not casting assertions that these are probably indicators or why they should be, I could very well say hair and eye colour too.

Going back to television violence and commiting violence. The question is not only "is there is another factor apart from watching violent television that influences violent behaviour i.e. economic status, family situation" but whether it is perhaps the factors which govern whether a person watches violent television that could be the true indicators (and naturally you can go a step deeper again ad infinitum). Therefore if someone was watching a violent television series every week just to see the lottery numbers, you couldn't see it in the model because it stops short at watching violent television = propensity to commit violence i.e. exogenous.

[Gusto]

nige

Good explanations . Even though they didn't directly cover the 'effects argument' in my media theory classes (no idea why, seems the only thing missing from the degree; unless I should've done more psych), makes perfect sense

raises new questions about the government's potential actions (new internet broadcast laws which if introduced should make webcams illegal):
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common ... 69,00.html

[Woodee]

bit OT here... but have you read anything to do with the "Patriot Act" in the US? Now that is screwed up!

Edit : why does everyone feel the need to censor everything? How exactly is a naked body damaging?

[Gusto]

LOL nice bubble gum woodee

Latest news: a report from the ACMA finds that the internet broadcast (which only 130 people saw live) didn't breach any broadcasting standards (whereas perhaps the ACA and TT broadcasts might have?)
http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/enews/Repo ... 60706.html

[Gusto]

Here's a photo of one of the local hairdressers in Japan.