Category Archives: Media Effects

Zuckerberg’s Dream of Connecting the World: What Can We Expect? (Part 3)

30 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by in Media Effects, Psychology

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Recapping the earlier posts on this topic, Mark Zuckerberg’s new non-profit consortium of information and communication technology (ICT) corporations would like to connect the remaining 5 billion inhabitants of the planet to the Internet who are not now connected (Internet.org, 2013). Many of the five billion people in question will most likely come from collectivistic non-western cultures. What effects can we expect?

As connecting the world’s populations has never been attempted before, literature focusing on the potential effects is non-existent. As a result, a reduced scale of the effort can be examined in regard to the insertion of Western ICT into countries that have not been previously exposed to it en masse or subject to its effects.

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Quote

Ian Bogost – The Georgia Institute of Technology

25 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Media Effects, Psychology

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“…the result of any media experience throughout history has been a change in the reader, viewer, or interactor’s ideas and actions in the world, even if in subtle ways” (Bogost, 2008, p. 16).

References

Bogost, I. (2008). Fine Processing. Persuasive Technology (pp. 13-22). Oulu: Springer.

Marshall McLuhan & the Print-to-Digital Shift Which Undermines Nationalism

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in Media Effects, Politics, Psychology

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Here’s an interesting snippet discussing Marshall McLuhan’s theories and how media may lead to the end of nationalism due to a change in the linearity of human relationships and experience. It’s part of a larger post authored by Mark Bou Mansour at Catch21. Food for thought.

Alexander Kuskis's avatarMcLuhan Galaxy

Published on November 25th, 2013

– by Mark Bou Mansour

Do new media technologies just carry on the developments of print media? Or are new currents underway today? Marshal McLuhan argues the latter. McLuhan was a Canadian philosopher, media guru and intellectual celebrity ….  McLuhan is known for coining the phrase “the medium is the message”, popularizing the notion of “the global village”, and for pretty much revolutionizing the way we look at media’s role in shaping human societies. McLuhan, who is credited with quotes such as “diaper spelled backwards is repaid. Think about it” and “I don’t necessarily agree with everything I say”, is also credited with predicting the internet thirty years before its commercialization.

In his game-changing book The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man, which we don’t have space be give justice here, McLuhan studies the way technology for documenting and communicating has influenced human cognition and…

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Zuckerberg’s Dream of Connecting the World: What Can We Expect? (Part 1)

13 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by in Media Effects, Psychology, Social Psychology

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There’s been a drive in the first part of this century to bring information communications technology (ICT) to parts of the world that have not previously enjoyed it. In 2007, and in the years since, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), funded at various times by companies such as AMD, Google, Intel, and News Corporation, has provided computers for children in various countries to enhance their educational experience (One Laptop per Child, n.d.; Martins, 2007).

In June, Google announced it would bring wireless connectivity to Africa by blimp. This left some Africans criticizing the move as addressing the wrong problem—it’s the cost of equipment that prevents access, not the ability to connect (Stibbe, 2013; Talbot, 2013).

In August, Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer of Facebook, published a white paper entitled Is Connectivity a Human Right and shortly afterwards established a nonprofit organization called Interent.org. This consortium is made up of major corporations that include Nokia, Samsung, and Ericsson (handset makers), Opera (a browser manufacturer), and both Qualcomm and MediaTek which are both infrastructure manufacturers (Levy, 2013; Zuckerberg, 2013). Continue reading →

Children and Internet-Related Concerns

10 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by in Media Effects, Media Literacy

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Lynn Schofield Clark’s comment below exemplifies George Gerber’s cultivation theory that states the more time we spend watching televised news and entertainment, the more likely it is that we will perceive the views and claims presented as being reality. Cognitively, our brains slip into Alpha wave dominated patterns when watching TV which are the same wave patterns exhibited when we are close to sleep or hypnotized (a state when one is highly open to suggestion). Continue reading →

Chris Hedges on Media Psychology

01 Friday Mar 2013

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“We are entranced by electronic hallucinations which peddle fantasy, which most Americans believe.  These systems of propaganda and brainwashing and miscommunication are very, very sophisticated. If we sever ourselves from a print based culture, and we rely on these systems (which many people do already for their understanding of reality) then we are in essence captives.”

–  Chris Hedges, Death of the Liberal Class, Q&A.

Media Psychology and ‘Call of Duty’ Video Game Impact, Part 1

05 Tuesday Feb 2013

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The influence of popular violent video games, such as the Call of Duty series, has penetrated into the global consciousness and culture as an example of the media psychology. Last year Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 grossed $1 billion dollars in sales within 15 days of its release and $500 million dollars in the first 24 hours (LeJacq, 2012). Averaging $60 per game, that’s more than 1.5 million copies sold in 15 days. Its predecessor, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, sold 8.8 million units in the United States alone in its first month (LeJacq, 2012). Two recent examples seem to point to it becoming a cross-cultural phenomenon. The first example being of an Agence France-Presse (AFP) photo of a French soldier during combat operations sporting a facemask that resembles a character in the game known as “Ghost” to protect himself from dust. Continue reading →

The Manti Te’o Hoax: What the Hell Were Thousands of Media Professionals Thinking?

21 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in Media Effects, Media Literacy, Psychology

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What an entertaining ride for the fans! This has to run the full psychological gamut, from reactions of sympathy and admiration for his performance in tribute to his “dead girlfriend” to betrayal, not only his, allegedly by Tuiasosopo, but by the media who didn’t do their job. It’s interesting as well that this “story” continues to hold the fan’s attention. It’s just another soap opera but this time with a sports twist. Standby for Katie Couric’s interview on the 24th.

Confirming the Obvious – With Data

12 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by in Media Effects, Psychology

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I’m often amused by the scientific need to confirm the obvious – it can’t be real until it’s been tested, documented and peer reviewed, which I fully understand has a purpose.  A recent study claims to show causality between video streaming and viewer behavior. Causality in itself is a significant term indicating that there is a proven relationship between one factor and another establishing cause and effect. Typically what science documents is that there exists a correlation between two or more factors. Correlation indicates a relationship, but not cause and effect. In this case, relying on more than 23 million video playbacks and more than 6 million unique visitors, the study released late last year documents that a video “start” delay lasting for more than two seconds causes viewers to begin to abandon the video (Sitaraman & Krishnan, 2012). Continue reading →

Media Psychology Irony

28 Friday Dec 2012

Posted by in Media Effects, Psychology

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A late Christmas gift appeared at the house today which was wrapped in a bit of media psychology irony. Jacques Elull’s “Propaganda, The Formation of Men’s Attitudes” arrived in an Amazon wrapper emblazoned with a bold advertisement for the militeristic action video game “Call of Duty, Black Ops II.” Somehow the juxtiposition between “The Formation of Men’s Attitudes” and the media content in “Call of Duty” struck me in regard to the amount of militainment Americans consume on a regular basis these days, wether they choose to or not. It’s no wonder that at a cognitive level we are so “accepting” of so many of the activities we witness taking place in the world today. What’s a little desensitization matter in the long run (the diminished emotional responsiveness to a negative or aversive stimulus after repeated exposure)?

Amazon's wrapper for Call of Duty.

Amazon’s wrapper for Call of Duty.