darth_ender said:
Frank your Majesty said:
darth_ender said:
Frank your Majesty said:
darth_ender said:
Sexual frivolity, infidelity, teen pregnancy, abortions, and the like are certainly much more prevalent than before. To what can we attribute this rise? Largely the media portrayal and acceptance of such behavior.
Or does the media portray this behavior because it is already accepted? I don't think the influence of books, movies and TV is that great, simply because most people wouldn't watch a movie or read a book if they are strongly opposed to its topic. The media mainly reflects the behaviour of the society, which is much more formed by social factors.
You are right. The media has no effect on public opinion.
No need to be sarcastic. Of course there is some effect, that's why I said mainly, but if something is massively overhyped it's because these people just waited for it to happen. There are erotic fan fictions on the internet for years, 50 Shades Of Grey is just the first one to be published as a book and therefore more easily accessible to these frustrated 50 year old housewifes that are now running to the cinemas.
Anyways, I understand that you have no interset in continuing this discussion since you have been personally attacked. I just wanted to let you know that I didn't mean to belittle or mock you or your beliefs and I hope you don't think I wanted to do such a thing.
I can get quite sarcastic, and I admit I've been a bit grumpier than usual lately, so I apologize for my tone, but not for the ultimate message. Let's examine your first quote where you say, "...the behavior of the society...is much more formed by social factors." Now let's consider a number of facts: the media is a social factor. In fact, one could say it is the dominant social factor. While we commonly refer to media as singular, it is actual plural for medium. A medium is a means of communication. And all social interaction is based on communication.
Now let's consider obvious facts connected with the media. There's social media, a form of media where socializing influences people. Then there are commercials, a format wherein companies influence people to purchase their products. There are political campaigns, wherein politicians influence voters to see things their way and vote for them. There is the news, where a persona watching Fox News and reading the Drudge Report will come away with a different view of the state of current affairs from a person watching MSNBC and reading the Huffington Post, and both will definitely see things differently from the Al-Jazeera viewer. Women viewing ads of skinny females develop conditions like anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa.
There is a user here named Nanner Split who helped devise the Slender Man character. There are those who have used Slender Man as an inspiration for crimes they have committed. People have cited death metal as motivations for suicidal attempts. The clothes you wore today were probably at least somewhat fashionable. Those fashion trends are not just naturally ebbing and flowing, but are in fact based on conscious decisions by clothing designers and the models who show them off. Why don't you dress like you're in the 80's? Because such is not fashionable anymore, because the media has influenced our sense of fashion.
While people are ultimately responsible for their own decisions, to say the media has no effect is wrong, utterly wrong. It is through the media that society changes most. And with the rise of the Internet, those changes have only increased in pace. Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie do actually influence people to make bad decisions, even if they didn't make those decisions for them. Movies like 50 Shades of Grey do in fact make sex cheaper than I personally feel it should be treated. It's not just because everyone's buddies started having premarital sex that it became commonplace. It's because it was actually portrayed more often in media than in reality, until it became a reality. Again, I don't wish to sound judgmental. One hundred years ago, such behavior was utterly disgraceful. Today it's expected.
There are articles upon articles about this. I have a BA in psychology and have taken classes on this material. I'm not making this up.
http://influence.bafree.net/negative-influences-of-media-on-the-society.php
Thank you for your lenghty reply, I'm glad you're still around here. Of course there's no need to apologize for your message and you didn't sound judgmental to me.
As you said, "the media" is all forms of communication, so ultimately, it's people communicating with each other and exchanging their opinions that changes society. Strictly speaking, there is no influence of the media itself, there's an influence of what people say through various media. I have to admit, that I didn't think of it this way when I made my first comment and you have opened my eyes to it. Nevertheless, these influences are small and only change one's mindset a bit. It's not one book, one movie or one song that's responsible for the whole "depravation" of society. Thus, changing society is a very slow process involving all existing media and I don't think you can fully seperate cause and effect of showing acceptance for something in the media and the society accepting it.
Especially movies, books and music only made for entertainment are aimed to appeal to many people, so they are likely to follow existing trends, 50 Shades Of Grey is no exception. No publisher would release such a poorly written book if he wasn't sure he could sell it. And he can sell it because a certain acceptance for sex in general and BDSM in particular was already prevalent.
(When I talked about social factors I was more talking about "people getting poorer leads to them commiting crimes which is followed by violence that's then shown by the media..." I should have made this clearer but I was short on time and couldn't think it through.)
