Impact of The 'Media.'

T The Big Brother Phenomenon The impact of the Big Brother phenomenon seemed in its initial stages to have incalculable effect upon the Nation as a whole. The concept of watching ordinary people in a ‘reality T.V. show’ wasn’t exactly an altogether new one, as video-diary documentaries had been aired before but, the idea of placing a collection of complete strangers in a house for an extended period of time whilst the whole nation watched over their entire existence was an idea that hadn’t been attempted before. Watching how these people coped mentally with dealing with one another’s personalities and how they operated their personal diplomacies towards one another was one aspect that made this programme extremely intriguing and captivating for the viewer. Achieving astronomical viewing figures, it soon became evident that this was going to be a successful show and had revealed a rather sadistic fascination in the mass audience for watching people compete on an interpersonal level for celebrity status. The hype that was generated around the show had grown to such an extent that the programme was even competing with unrivalled soap opera’s transmitted on other stations and soon achieving acclaim, uncovering a new formula of ‘tele-visual’ entertainment. A significant impact upon the public consciousness became quickly evident both in perception and behaviour, fuelling a generative intensity of taking pleasure from watching people failing and also, attributing fame to the successful contestants for doing nothing other than eating toast whilst on national television. Of course, to the mindful viewer, much more could be witnessed to be taking place. On a psychological level, one had to ask whether this was a true reflection of what was really happening. Had we really got to see the real personalities of these individuals? Was it a fair competition in as much as, some of the individuals could have been completely ignorant in terms of psychology whilst others could have been well versed? It certainly presents as a distinct possibility that some of the contestants selected could have simply been keeping quiet for the benefit of the cameras for the period whilst they were on the show. They could have been charismatic and charming whilst the cameras were filming but, in real life, they could be obnoxious and abhorrent. They were on a T.V. show after all and they were in competition with one another, this could quite easily have coloured their behaviours in innumerate different ways. Whether this is the case or not, the contestants themselves and the conscious viewer may have been aware of this fact and depending upon how one chooses to look at the situation, could be considered an irrelevance to the precept. There really was no way of telling and for this reason, this commercial variation of the notion that ‘the camera never lies,’ on a scientific level, had absolutely no significance whatsoever. Beyond this, on an objective level, the more conscious viewer may ask, was this simply a cleverly crafted piece of entertainment or a much more sinister experimentation upon the idea of round the clock video monitoring, a parody of the security-camera age that we now live in. A paranoiac effect evolved visibly in individuals within the general public, where the ideation of being watched had destabilised their consciousness and introducing a ‘George Orwell style 1984 effect.’ A tremendous achievement one might say for, a T.V. quiz show. Depending on one’s political persuasion, it could be argued whether this was a positive or negative impact and the ramifications of what this has had upon our society as a whole, could be debated. Since its broadcast, a dynamic for inviting oneself into the business of other individual’s lives certainly seems to have developed. The public themselves now seem to have been influenced in the general direction of violating the boundaries of personal privacy almost as though they have the divine right to do so, a development that any Government that revels in mind-control would be more than proud to have accomplished. Regardless of any criticism that one may choose to voice about the format of this show and its content, it did for the sake of argument, succeed in hitting a winning formula and looking at the show retrospectively could be viewed to be a wasted notion as the programme has continued to be produced, extending to ‘celebrity Big Brother’ and further transmissions beyond. The Trend for Violent and Explicit Films Much controversy has been caused by the use of bad language, violence and sex in film for many a decade and its usage has stirred much debate. The biggest argument that seems to have occurred as a result of violence in movies is the issue of ‘copy-cat crimes,’ where scenes have been re-enacted by individuals who supposedly were unduly influenced or traumatised even by the content of what they had watched. This argument on the whole hasn’t really been taken too seriously by the World of clinical psychology and hasn’t been seen as an excuse for unacceptable behaviour by the Courts. In fact, the only times that this argument would appear to have been given any credibility at all, is in the instance of that of children who have acted outside the bounds of normal behaviour. In ‘the Jamie Bulger’ case a two year old child was led off by two ten year old boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. They had walked the child over two and a half miles, stopping only occasionally to torture him. Once they had reached their destination point of a local railway track, they kicked Jamie, threw stones at him, rubbed paint in his eyes and pushed batteries up his anus. What they actually did to this child in way of murdering him went much further than this description even and was so horrific that the boy’s mother was prevented from identifying the body. The two perpetrators knew what they had done was wrong and had left the body to be run over by a train to make it look like an accident. In their defence, they claimed that they had been influenced by scenes in a movie that they had watched and offered this as part of the explanation. This had brought the issue forward somewhat in the collective conscious of the mass public and has been the subject of argument ever since. Whether accepted or not, the arguments faced by the subject of the subliminal influence of T.V. on the general public is still a present one and has posed very serious social questions for a great number of years. Early experimentation by the BBC’s hit T.V. comedy show ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus,’ at influencing the viewer by single framed shots of, ‘VOTE LABOUR’ and ‘The Young Ones,’ attempts to pacify the nation with single frames of a white dove certainly have to be considered and taken seriously as chosen methods of affecting behaviour. Indeed, it is not to be underestimated what impact suggestation can have upon a viewing audience but, in the modern day age, are we really supposed to take seriously the idea that the audience of the BBC’s show, ‘The League of Gentlemen,’ are realistically going to go off after viewing the show and start salivating over the notion of savouring some of the special stuff? It does in fact, appear a preposterous notion and we have to consider at this point that a change in culture and of time has added a significant alteration to the capacities to accept the bombardment of disturbing ideas and images to the modern twenty-first century mind. It is in fact, a sign of the change in time and one could argue that society, television, film and advertising are all so saturated by the concept of atrocity that it may well have started to reduce any feelings of shock or distress that the individual perceives or feels on encounter. In scientific or psychological terminology, this is generally referred to as desensitisation and has there again, to be considered as a serious phenomenon. Whether this is positive or negative would be yet just another argument that could be debated and it would seem that it is down to the individual to decide whether or not this is an issue for redress. In fact, it does remain a pertinent discussion in terms of relevance to the minor viewers and has raised further debates about ‘the water-shed,’ and parental responsibilities to restrict the viewing of certain types of T.V. programmes and films for the younger viewer. However, it seems to have been assumed by T.V. and film producers that older viewers would demonstrate an unwillingness to accept images that they don’t want to see but, it could well be that they now feel powerless to do anything about it and so don’t bother. Censorship does in fact, still exist in the form of standard’s committees and broadcasting standards laws but, still viewers are offended by what they see and hear. In counter-argument one could say that to not be offended ever, would be to live a permanently pampered false-consciousness within a fictitious reality of interior-felted ignominious falsity that would perpetuate the incorrect notion that one lives in an ordered World were chaos has no part to play and that nothing bad ever happens. For the benefit of the sci-fi enthusiast we may assume that a ‘Logan’s run style process of renewal’ will take over at this point and we have to ask, do we really wish to exist in this artificially induced state of consciousness? PAGE 2 T. Forshaw Unpublished C.R.A.S.S. Handouts 2004 T. Forshaw Unpublished C.R.A.S.S. Handouts 2004 Tristan A.A. Forshaw Media Studies: (Level 3) Module Two Marguerite Heywood Impact of the Media on attitudes and Behaviour Access Course