"It has long been known that television, and so television hosts, had influence on viewers – and we suspected they could also have prescriptive power for ordering people's behaviour, including cruel and immoral behaviours, but until now it had never been shown."
...sure it's been shown. On Fox News and other places that influence viewers into the cruel and immoral behavior of voting for and supporting cruel and immoral candidates (Dick Cheney, anyone?) and causes.
I mean, sure, the nasty tendencies have to be there to begin with, but once a person feels they have society behind them to act on those hatreds it is a whole hell of a lot easier to start voting for rounding up your neighbours for deportation, etc. In large part, the media functions as "society" today, (because really, who goes out of their house to call on a neighbour when you have a gazillion 'friends" waiting for you at Facebook?)and those in the public eye tend to get some sort of credibility be it Dick Cheney or Pat Sajack.
God, now I'm more depressed than I was when I posted the link.
The article ends with,
ReplyDelete"It has long been known that television, and so television hosts, had influence on viewers – and we suspected they could also have prescriptive power for ordering people's behaviour, including cruel and immoral behaviours, but until now it had never been shown."
...sure it's been shown. On Fox News and other places that influence viewers into the cruel and immoral behavior of voting for and supporting cruel and immoral candidates (Dick Cheney, anyone?) and causes.
Exactly.
ReplyDeleteI mean, sure, the nasty tendencies have to be there to begin with, but once a person feels they have society behind them to act on those hatreds it is a whole hell of a lot easier to start voting for rounding up your neighbours for deportation, etc. In large part, the media functions as "society" today, (because really, who goes out of their house to call on a neighbour when you have a gazillion 'friends" waiting for you at Facebook?)and those in the public eye tend to get some sort of credibility be it Dick Cheney or Pat Sajack.
God, now I'm more depressed than I was when I posted the link.