Can democracy survive our media-saturated society?

[Elgyn]

I was doing some idle searching on the web (I typed in Brave New World + privatization in a search engine) when I stumbled upon this juicy article. I thought it might be relevant to the ideas about media addiction which are brought up in Vicarious. This is a theme which Tool writes about a lot.

So my question is this: Does overt media exposure constrain an individuals ability to 'think outside the square', to see events in their historical context, and to form independently sourced political opinions?

Here's the article:
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The suspicions and fears of parents and teachers are now confirmed by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a respected voice in the field of medicine and social issues.

As suspected, young people are spending many of their waking hours absorbed in media of one type or another, primarily television and other forms of visual stimulation. Bedrooms for youngsters ages 8 to 18 have increasingly become media centers, with televisions, CD players, radios, DVD players, video-game consoles and computers with Internet access.

Because there are only so many hours in the day, youngsters are simply packing more media into each hour — multitasking. Outside school, they spend about 6.2 hours a day with media, but much of this usage overlaps — for example, a youngster watching television and surfing the Internet simultaneously — so they are using a combined total of 8.3 hours of media every day, an increase of an hour in the past five years.

The inventive energy of American scientists is being turned on itself, as our distracted teens fail to compete in science and math with peers in other countries. We have created our own nightmare.

Parents have a difficult time even keeping up with the names of the newest electronics (MP3, TiVo, etc.), let alone their effects.

People who work with young adults already know that most of them have the attention span of a fruit fly, and that they are woefully ignorant of world affairs, or even local events beyond the realm of entertainment.

Graduates of some of our finest high schools have shown up in my classes unable to name the century of the Civil War or define rights protected by the First Amendment. But they know all the rap stars and top athletes.

They are obsessed with media — but seldom the news media or serious reading.

Several years ago, we began seeing an increase in college students signing up for journalism or communication majors. Colleagues in other schools noted the same; some schools of communication are among the largest in their universities.

Yet, only a handful of these students want to actually be journalists, working in the realm of news. Even fewer want to be reporters, foot soldiers of the news business.

Most simply came our way, I remain convinced, because they wanted to have something to do with "media" — invariably associated with television, seldom with newspapers or magazines.

Puzzled deans couldn't figure out why journalism, traditionally a low-paying profession, was attracting such interest among the materialistic students of the 1990s.

"Because they are saturated with media, it dominates their lives, and among university majors only journalism or communications seems to have an obvious link to 'media' as they see it," I told my deans.

Steeped in higher-education tradition, they didn't really "get it" or, if they did, they hoped it would go away and these young people would enroll in physics and Romance languages.

I don't think so.

The Kaiser study, "Generation M", is hard evidence of the importance of media in the lives of our young people. The explosion of cable television, cellphones with text messaging, video games and iPods has captured them and there is no return. Parental limits on media use do help, the study shows, but they seem like a rear-guard action.

Politicians and other mass-media hucksters are well ahead of parents and teachers. They know image trumps substance in a multitasking world. Farsighted authors (Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" in 1932, Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death," 1985) predicted a society in which a love affair with technology and entertainment stripped us of our capacity to engage in the serious thinking that sustains a democratic society.

We are seeing that right now as young people are the only segment of the population supporting President Bush's privatization of Social Security. Bush delivers his pitch on television, in carefully rigged campaign stops where he gets fawning, uncritical coverage.

Meanwhile, the frumpy old print media is universally blasting privatization, citing studies by respected experts and agencies. Older citizens — who still read — oppose privatization. Bush and his handlers understand the world of multitasking and its impact on harried, distracted young people.

In today's intense, media-dominated society, young people have no spare time to reflect, to think deep or long-range thoughts. They are never away from instant visual stimulation, often a mélange of media at the same time.

In the media-saturated world, the importance of image over substance dominates politics, and big money to purchase media time decides elections.

More ain't better, and our democracy is already feeling the effects.
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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002208706_floyd16.html

[bitter_enigma]

This is the way it's been for a while. People say that things are starting to get Orwellian...
We're already there.

Good read... but nothing new to those who have long been in the know.

I like the way students have become obsessed with journalism. We already have reporters making news about their own medium rather than reporting on things that are happening in the real world, which it seems they can't relate to.

[anopheles]

I don't buy this argument. The fact that students don't want to become foot-soldier journalists is because they don't have to, thanks to media. Their interest in journalism and such is, I think, because of information and not necessarily media (tv, radio, mp3, etc). I particularly like this paragraph:

"We are seeing that right now as young people are the only segment of the population supporting President Bush's privatization of Social Security. Bush delivers his pitch on television, in carefully rigged campaign stops where he gets fawning, uncritical coverage."

Could it be that young people see that Social Security, as it is, will not last until their retirment, and therefore are interested in private accounts to shore up what is theirs?

To your main point though, I think democracy can and will survive in this environment. It may not be pretty, but there are plenty of people, young ones included, that have opinions on politics. The beauty of the Information Age is that they can be singular and not governed by committee. As long as the ties to the current powers remain loose and fragile, we will survive. Hopefully.

[KwizatzHaderach]

Excellent article, Elgyn. And scary.

I'm reminded of that reality show on PBS, "Frontier House" or something like that. The participants were taken from modern society and put into a frontier setting. They had to grow their own food, chop wood, fetch water, etc. It was a hard transition for many of them, and they were busy all day interacting with each other and the land. I remember them interviewing the kids after they'd slipped back into modern society. One of the kids did nothing but constantly play video games upon his return. He told the interviewer that he had so many media options, that he found himself locked into one for hours on end. It just didn't make sense, but this article clarifies their behavior.

[Loveboat Captain]

I do media at college. But my classes are very informative in how the media manipulates you. The class actually goes pretty deep into the media manipulate you into believing what they want you to. You could say this coure has help "pry open my thrid eye".

The stuff about serious reading and newspapers is silly. Reading news papers and watching the news doesnt make you any less of a brainwashed fool. Neither does reading history books. How are we to know what is accurate and what is not? We Can't tell. What were the motives of the people who wrote the history books? Were they biased? Of course they were. Everyone is.

In answer to your question. No, it doesn't. Being exposed to media and being brainwashed by it are two very different things. If you know about how the media manipulates people then you arent being brainwashed by it.

[Loveboat Captain]

And thanks for this thread.

[theenlightened]

Interesting article indeed.

[TurdEye13]

I love Nard's voclas at the end!!

[Vastlee]

If you know about how the media manipulates people then you arent being brainwashed by it.

Excellent read, and I agree completely with the article. By the way, to Loveboat Captain, I disagree with you on this last quoted part. I am very aware of the bombardment of manipulative media, and do my absolute best to avoid it at all costs and shrug off all that I can... but realistically I can't. Short of finding a cave to live in hermit style it's impossible not to be affected in some way by it. You don't want to be, you fight against it, but it's become so massive and mainstream it's seemingly unavoidable.

[987]

I'd love to voclas his end!


p.s. interesting read.

[kmatrixg]

"To your main point though, I think democracy can and will survive in this environment. It may not be pretty, but there are plenty of people, young ones included, that have opinions on politics. The beauty of the Information Age is that they can be singular and not governed by committee. As long as the ties to the current powers remain loose and fragile, we will survive. Hopefully."


The thing that has me with this statement is...these young ones are usually the ones with the opinion, but without the argument. As we saw with Ashlee Simpson's act of stupidity, the anarchy symbol is now hated by true anarchists these days. It was absolutely used and abused by the crave for 'individuality' that everyone had, and now, we have kids running around with anti-bush shirts sold by hot topic which is owned by abercrombie and fitch, which has lobbyists throwing millions of dollars at todays politicians. Money = Power = Control

This country and democracy itself is losing control.

Bush telling his citizens if they are not for the war, they are for the enemy. How much democracy does that statement have? Bush is an extreme nationalist who can only be described to no other leader than Adolf himself.

[Elgyn]

Could it be that young people see that Social Security, as it is, will not last until their retirment, and therefore are interested in private accounts to shore up what is theirs?Perhaps that's it... Then again, as this article seems to suggest, it could just be that young people are too absorbed in 'the now' to be concerned about their future in retirement. Isn't social security in America farked anyway?
To your main point though, I think democracy can and will survive in this environment. It may not be pretty, but there are plenty of people, young ones included, that have opinions on politics. The beauty of the Information Age is that they can be singular and not governed by committee. As long as the ties to the current powers remain loose and fragile, we will survive. Hopefully.I don't think there's any doubt it'll survive, so the question then becomes; how effectively will it operate? Personally, I think it has potential, but I'm not keen on the idea that the majority of (television watching) people's opinions are formed by privately owned broadcasting corporations, who clearly have political agendas.

Excellent read, and I agree completely with the article. By the way, to Loveboat Captain, I disagree with you on this last quoted part. I am very aware of the bombardment of manipulative media, and do my absolute best to avoid it at all costs and shrug off all that I can... but realistically I can't. Short of finding a cave to live in hermit style it's impossible not to be affected in some way by it. You don't want to be, you fight against it, but it's become so massive and mainstream it's seemingly unavoidable.
I agree. As much as I try to avoid my thoughts being manipulated by the media, it's difficult. I see it most often with advertising. I don't have brand loyalties, but when I need to buy a particular item, I'll usually remember advertisements and am drawn to that item. Aside from that, I try to absorb the content of news, rather than the biased padding that surrounds it. That way I can apply my own bias. Haha.

Cheers.

[14thDosage]

Excellent read, and I agree completely with the article. By the way, to Loveboat Captain, I disagree with you on this last quoted part. I am very aware of the bombardment of manipulative media, and do my absolute best to avoid it at all costs and shrug off all that I can... but realistically I can't. Short of finding a cave to live in hermit style it's impossible not to be affected in some way by it. You don't want to be, you fight against it, but it's become so massive and mainstream it's seemingly unavoidable.

Absolutely agree, the techniques used in media manipulation today are deeply psychological and simply being aware of it is far from being unaffected by it.