By the age of 18, the average viewer has witnessed 200K violent acts and 16K murders. 61% of programming contains violence. Children’ s programming is more violent than general programming. The Bobo Doll experiments conducted in the 60s by Albert Bandura at Stanford demonstrated the effect of viewed violence. Children observed an adult’s violence against the doll. The modeling of aggression was enough to stimulate violence. One factor that makes televised violence appealing to children is that it used to achieve socially desirable goals. Good crushes evil. In 1985, The American Psychological Association studied the affects of violence on children and found children exposed to televised violence to be… less sensitive to the pain of others more fearful of the world more likely to behave aggressively.
Although Franklin Roosevelt’s fireside chats were used as political communication directly with the American public, it wasn’t until the Nixon-Kennedy debates in 1960, that electronic media may have changed the outcome of an election. The first of the televised debates that year showed a tanned JFK just returned from vacation, young, vigorous in appearance and wearing a blue shirt that was best suited to the lights and cameras of the day. His opponent, possessor or a naturally heavy beard looked haggard and perhaps sinister by a “five o’clock shadow.” he lights bothered Nixon. Before long, his upper lip was beaded with sweat and drops of perspiration traced down his face leaving a trail through pancake make-up. Experts say that Nixon showed better mastery of the debate content in the first debate. Kennedy swept image race that television demanded. During the elections of 2004, 675k commercials were aired in a handful of key battleground states . At the 1960 Republican Convention, there was one journalist for every delegate. By1964 at the Republican and Democratic Conventions, NBC and ABC having expanded to thirty minutes of national news nightly, there were two journalists per delegate. If the election of 1960 turned on a series of debates, a single airing of a single commercial may have turned the election of 1964. The "daisy" commercial, while superimposed a nuclear mushroom over a little girl’s image. The message was that Barry Goldwater, the Republican Candidate, was not to be trusted with a nuclear arsenal. President Johnson, who ultimately became a wartime president by expanding the conventional war in Southeast Asia, was depicted as a leader to be trusted. By 1968, media coverage draws violent protesters to the Chicago Democratic convention. The equally violent reaction of Chicago police telecast on the news broadcast at the dinner hour, divided the country on the issues of peace, protest and Viet Nam. This election, Nixon won by promising a secret plan for “Peace with Honor.” By 1980, we elect a former actor to the highest office in the land. The “Great Communicator” Ronald Regan uses camera presence and charm more effectively than any candidate in the history of the Republic. In the election of 2000, political parties begin to target the key demographics of “soccer moms” and “NASCAR dads.” The GOP in particular targeted church-affiliated groups such as Focus on The Family to build its political base. The divide that is created by these target demographics were so effective in splitting the country that the election came down to a national obsession in the counting of “hanging chads,” subjective judgments about the intentions of inept voters. All this was played out on the 24 hour news platform invented by Ted Turner’s TNN (later CNN). By 2004, targeted local commercials in battleground districts required previously unimagined media budgets. In just one week immediately before the election, Kerry spends $3M; Bush $29M. Over the course of the election, Kerry spends $351M; Bush $229 in just the top 100 markets. The role of media in politics had certainly come of age But the promise of media is tainted in this election. By 3PM on election day, political bloggers with access to exit poll data report that Kerry has won the election. The exit polls, some taking as long as forty minutes to complete, over-report data on the unemployed, retirees and college students. Kerry hasn’t won the election after all. By the second Bush administration, an actor is used to ask strategic questions on behalf of the administration at Presidential press conferences and news corps briefings. This actor poses as a news correspondent. He is discovered to be a former porn star. Questions remain about the effects of television on voting. Polling places are still open in western states when winners are projected. Exit polls offer a mixed informational blessing. In a democratized media biased projections spread quickly via the internet.
The first network of linked computers US Defense Dept ﾕ s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) 1971. www- in 1993 623 sites, by 2000 2.1B pages by 2004, 786M users of the internet.
Volti says... Cherokee Indian Chief Sequoyah invented a written language for his people : ﾒ M uch that red men know, they forget; they have no way to preserve it. ﾓ (183) Beginning in 971, the Chinese began producing a 5,048 volume compilation of Buddhist scriptures using technology.(184) Guttenburg’ s press was responsible for the Protestant Reformation. Luther later calls unguided reading of the Bible ﾒ d angerous ﾓ (188). Korean development of moveable type is impeded by elitism. The aristocracy understands Chinese and so clings to old forms. By the middle of the eighteenth century in England, 40% of men and 60% of women were still illiterate(190). This is a key to democracy- rotten boroughs, aristocratic rule. Marshall McLuhan: ﾒ T he medium is the message. ﾓ Electonic media promotes l inear v. non-linear thinking. This means that the thinker is bombarded by simultaneous stimuli. It becomes impossible to anticipate what “comes next.” Acta diurnia news published in the Roman Forum (191). Boston News-Letter 1704- the first American newspaper (191). The ability to issue 20,000 draft notices per hour was significant in the Union victory during the Civil War (192).
