Mass Media Influence - part III

Mass Media and Politics

(Part 3)

Democracy is not a perfect political system. It is hard to require from people to make important decision on issues they do not know at all. Theoretically, in democratic countries people decide on future of their country, but in practice it is different. In Poland it is usual that political parties breach of promises. "Political parties do not make the question ourselves if their program is reasonable, but if it is attractive" said Carlo Schmid, German politician. I could not agree more with him. In my opinion political parties primarily want to govern, but not to keep promises.

Often political decisions are detrimental to our country. Some people are joking that in Poland we do not have politics, but we have only Public Relations (PR) competitions.:) We know that mass media are not objective enough. This is especially noticeable in Poland.

Our TV stations inform us of the conflict in front of the Presidential Palace in

Warsaw. We see people fighting for and fighting against location of the holy cross. Janina Jankowska, radio and TV journalist, commented on journalistic reports about the conflict: "Journalists at an incredible way impose their point of view. They should not only have a right to say the truth, but also respect a right of customers to have own opinions".

There was also a lot of information concerning designer drugs. There was a battle against them. But in fact, how many people go to a hospital because of overdosing designer drugs? And how many people go to a hospital or a sobering-up station because of overdosing alcohol? Then why alcohol is still legal? Media show designer drugs as a very evil issue, but there is still the lack of scientific information about their influence on people. Media ignore statements of designer drug sellers. So again, mass media show their subjective point of view. Some people say that mass media govern our country. We have democracy here, but mass media still have a big influence on our decisions, so maybe that is true...

Questions:

• What is Your attitude to the conflict in front of the Presidential Palace?
  (there was already topic and discussion about designer drugs, so I am asking only about holy cross)
• Which media in Your opinion are most objective?
• Why the politics of our country creates so many negative emotions among ordinary people?

Mass Media Influence - part II

a profitable business, but film tycoons were still

(Part 2)

 Currently commercials are an integral part of most media. They are the main source of profits for the television, the radio or Internet services. There is a great number of commercials in all media but  unfortunately, some of them are intrusive and very often misleading. Advertisers try to entertain and attract the audience in different ways. Classical commercials have become boring for people. People have  enough of a lady with a perfect smile, who is washing and then claiming that the clothes have never been so clear. People have enough of a lady, with the same smile as the previous lady, who is washing the floor and making it perfectly clear. 

Colgate TV commercial from 80's

Such commercials are constantly present in media, and this is the reason why potential consumers more likely choose these well known products. Poles prefer to buy cheap products, but of a good quality. Therefore, products presented in such commercials convince consumers  that buying them was a good choice. In example, there are commercials convincing that "just a blob" and everything shines.

So, how to make a commercial interesting? It should be something funny, catchy and eagerly quoted. For instance, many people associate  the commercial with "the beaver, that knows the 1000 bits" with mobile  telephony networks PLUS. The idea of hiring the popular cabaret in the TV commercial was the great idea and for sure it yielded profits.

"the beaver, that knows the 1000 bits" commercial

In short, commercials are often very tiresome and intrusive, but without them most of the mass media would not exist. In making  commercials important is to find the catchy idea to present products to the audience.

Questions:

Which commercial is most catchy? Share your opinion.
Some coffin salesman decided to use an image of half-naked women in the advertisement. What do you think about this idea?
How have commercials/advertisements hanged over time?
In which medium commercials/advertisements are the most common?

Mass Media Influence - part I

Polish children in front of the TV set

(Part I)

Photo: Aaron Escobar

Cable television has a bad influence on Polish children in school age. According to European Research on Preferences of Televiewers, about 60% of viewers from Europe have more than one TV set at home and according to research for Canal+ on Polish viewers, 73% of teenagers watch television from two to more than four hours a day. Unfortunately, watching television seems to be one of the major activities for Polish teenagers and children. Medium such as cable television has several advantages, for example the possibility to learn more about travelling, animals, history, or to be up-to-date with events from the whole world. But sadly there are more disadvantages of watching television by children.

First of all, there are many channels which show far more violence and sex than they should. There are programmes which present themes like drug or alcohol abuse. The above problems are shown almost in every movie in cable television. Watching such programmes has a bad influence on social and emotional development of Polish teenagers and children and generates aggression in their behaviour. According to Journal of the American Medical Association, in countries where children watch more television, there is more violence in schools. If there is no balance between positive and negative examples of programmes, young viewers may have problems with learning what is right and what is wrong. As states David Grossman, an expert in psychology of killing, in his book “About killing”, there is much evidence when it comes to children’s aggression.

vs.

Worth mentioning is also the fact that today’s Polish children and teenagers prefer watching movies to reading books. Students read less and this causes a lowering of the level of their erudition and grades in school. Children at the school age spend much time in front of the TV set, and this reduces their ability to play individually, because they lack motivation. Important aspect is that young viewers, who watch television habitually, are usually retarded intellectually. They read worse, very often even without understanding the text, and they get worse grades in schools. Many of Polish children at school age have problems with concentration even for a short period of time and short activities.

An equally important disadvantage of watching television by Polish students is its bad influence on family lives. Watching television is very popular form of spending free time not only among children, but also among their parents. TV set is the best way of resting and relaxing after heavy work, or boring lessons. So instead of spending actively time with parents, children turn on the TV set. In place of going and playing football in the garden, an average young Polish viewer watches a football match on the television.

Often young Poles watch the same programmes as their parents, for instance movies for adults, or channels such as Cartoon Network, which often shows very brutal and violent cartoons. Moreover, watching too much television may cause an addiction to this medium, and as a result children lose contact with families and friends.

But some people are saying that the cartoons violence disappeared

Finally, recent research demonstrate that Polish children, who watch television everyday, are more often at risk of obesity. Young Poles addicted to television consume far more unhealthy food, than children at the same age, who do not spend much time in front of the TV set.

To sum up, Polish parents should be careful, because there is a risk that television can be a reason of loosing control over their children. Frequent watching of television can cause an insufficient physical activity and lowering of the intellectual level of children. Parents have to establish rules with their children, for instance how many hours a day young viewers are allowed to watch television or which programmes are appropriate for them.

Questions:

• Which do You prefer, reading in books or watching in TV?
• Do cartoons have negative impact on children?
• Do You still love watching cartoons? What is Your favorite cartoon?

Designer Drugs

The New Poland Express I Friday 15th October 2010 I www.nwe.pl


Designer drugs fan to lobby cause


Friends and colleagues of Dawid Bratko, Poland’s so-called ‘Designer Drugs King’, are set to lobby in parliament in favour of legalizing designer drugs. “I want to help protect the freedoms and the rights of ordinary people who are addicted to psychotropic substances,” says Tomasz Obara of Poland’s ‘Free Hemp’ movement - an organisation aimed at promoting the legalisation of cannabis. But Obara, who has already officially registered as a lobbyist in Parliament, adds that he is also taking part in order to represent his mother who, he claims, is a constant victim of police harassment. “Police officers keep raiding my mother’s house in order to look for cannabis. That’s one of the reasons why I want to protect my mother’s interests.” However, while actively confirming that he is still lobbying on behalf of Bratko’s cause, Obara claims that he is in fact anti-designer drugs.
“I’m against designer drugs but I signed an agreement with [Bratko] that if we manage to persuade the authorities to legalise cannabis, then he will stop trading them.” Designer drugs, known in Poland as ‘dopalacze’ have made the headlines recently due to a fierce government clampdown on the booming sector which has seen around 900 shops closed down. Last week Bratko, dubbed ‘the Designer Drug King’ by the nation’s media for his large influence throughout the industry, was arrested for selling a number of proscribed substances. Despite a number of fatalities being linked to the new craze, numerous loopholes have kept the government’s hands tied. However it stated recently that it would try to push through legislation quickly in order to deal with what it sees as a growing problem.

What do you think of the whole campaign against designer drugs?
Is it just a part of political campaign?
Statistics say that in Poland more people day because of alcohol abuse than designer drugs but the media just do not talk about it.
Present your opinions please.

Why ordinary people do evil...or do good?

Watch also a very interesting talk of Philip Zimbardo and comment on it.

Stanford Prison Experiment

Have you heard of Stanford Prison Experiment?
I would like you to go through the description of it and then discuss the following questions.Moreover, watch the short films that discuss it.

Go to http://www.prisonexp.org/psychology/1
The questions:
1. What police procedures are used during arrests, and how do these procedures lead people to feel confused, fearful, and dehumanized?
2. If you were a guard, what type of guard would you have become? How sure are you?
3. What prevented "good guards" from objecting or countermanding the orders from tough or bad guards?
4. If you were a prisoner, would you have been able to endure the experience? What would you have done differently than those subjects did? If you were imprisoned in a "real" prison for five years or more, could you take it?
5. Why did our prisoners try to work within the arbitrary prison system to effect a change in it (e.g., setting up a Grievance Committee), rather than trying to dismantle or change the system through outside help?
6. What factors would lead prisoners to attribute guard brutality to the guards' disposition or character, rather than to the situation?
7. What is "reality" in a prison setting? This study is one in which an illusion of imprisonment was created, but when do illusions become real? Contrast consensual reality and physical or biological reality, and explain the implications of the following poem (by PGZ): Within the illusion of life,
Death is the only reality,
but
is Reality the only death?
Within the reality of imprisonment,
Illusion is the only freedom,
but
is Freedom the only illusion?
8. What is identity? Is there a core to your self-identity independent of how others define you? How difficult would it be to remake any given person into someone with a new identity?
9. Do you think that kids from an urban working class environment would have broken down emotionally in the same way as did our middle-class prisoners? Why? What about women?
10. After the study, how do you think the prisoners and guards felt when they saw each other in the same civilian clothes again and saw their prison reconverted to a basement laboratory hallway?
11. Moving beyond physical prisons built of steel and concrete, what psychological prisons do we create for ourselves and others? If prisons are seen as forms of control which limit individual freedom, how do they differ from the prisons we create through racism, sexism, ageism, poverty, and other social institutions? Extend your discussion to focus on:
* The illusion of prison created in marriages where one spouse becomes "guard" and the other becomes "prisoner"
* The illusion of prison created in neurosis where one aspect of the person becomes the prisoner who is told he/she is inadequate and hopeless, while another aspect serves as a personal guard
* The silent prison of shyness, in which the shy person is simultaneously his or her own guard and prisoner
12. Was it ethical to do this study? Was it right to trade the suffering experienced by participants for the knowledge gained by the research? (The experimenters did not take this issue lightly, although the Slide Show may sound somewhat matter-of-fact about the events and experiences that occurred).
13. How do the ethical dilemmas is this research compare with the ethical issues raised by Stanley Milgram's obedience experiments? Would it be better if these studies had never been done?
14. If you were the experimenter in charge, would you have done this study? Would you have terminated it earlier? Would you have conducted a follow-up study?
15. How can we change our real institutions, such as Attica Prison, when they are designed to resist critical evaluation and operate in relative secrecy from taxpayers and legislators?
16. Knowing what this research says about the power of prison situations to have a corrosive effect on human nature, what recommendations would you make about changing the correctional system in your country?

Retrieved from http://www.prisonexp.org/discussion.htm, 11.10.10

List of moderators

Choose a week of your presentation.Remember you cannot do it in pairs this term.


18-24.10
25-31.10 s3732
01-07.11 s5252
08-14.11 Hubert Kowalczyk
15-21.11 Tomasz Penza
22-28.11 Radosław Bruś
29-05.12 s5124, s3926
06-12.12 s5145, s3979
13-19.12 Michał Opoka
03-09.01 Michał Rapińczuk
10-16.01 s5560, Maria Kamińska
17-23.01 s3874, Adrian Wołczuk

Profiles

Create your profiles.
You can use only your names or your student ID number (e.g. s4025)
No single nicknames, please (e.g. Anjo s4025)
Moreover, write something about yourself we still do not know please.