Doug Kipperman - EdTec 653

...how the media influences society.

Written by: Doug Kipperman
Final Report - EdTec 653 - Spring 1998

Before you start reading this paper several points are important to take into consideration. This paper is not solely based on empirical research. The references are from accepted educational and commercial sources and cover theory, practical application, factual events, and insights from experts in their respective fields - of course, I have placed my bias and perspective on the selection of these references and my interpretation of what the author(s) wrote.

The initial premise, may at first, appear far fetched; however the development of the thesis is based on two theories, synectics and constructivism.

Synectics involves taking unrelated topics and finding, through a process, the connections.

Constuctivism emphasises the need for students to construct their own knowledge.

I am not a traditional learner and find that the process involving both synectics and constuctivism feeds my need to explore and make my own connections. Not to mention, be different.

This paper represents what I feel is critical to developing new paradigms in education, business, and in life - the ability to look at relationships in different ways to construct more viable and flexible solutions to constantly changing problems.

I hope you find the connections that I have made valuable and entertaining.

NOTE: This paper might best be read with a glass, or three, of milk and a bag of Oreos.

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Never go grocery shopping when you are hungry, or how the media influences society.

Oreos* are like television programming.
(*This link shows some "interesting" perspectives on the whole Oreo world. These do not necessarily coincide with moi, but everyone should be able to have an opionion.)

When the television is off, we are tantalized, enticed, and seduced by what lays buried beneath the dark screen. Once we succumb to the alluring promise of the light, we find that it is nothing more than a fatty concoction of useless fillers combined to make a sickening paste.

Yet, when we are beckoned to the rich dark cover again, we invariably yearn for more of the addictive creamy delight.

Disclaimer: Although I am admittedly addicted to television, I strongly feel that television offers a powerful source of information that provides an enlightening window to the world. The benefits of television, when viewed with some intelligence and objectivity far out way the "fatty concoction of useless fillers."

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Everyone has done it. Gone to the grocery store for milk, or eggs, or some insignificant item, only to end up buying many more items than anticipated.

If you made the mistake of going to the store when you were hungry, the likelihood of your buying more items increased. I try to resist, but I'm seldom able. Invariably, my lower brain functions take over. I end up buying items that appeal to either my basic physiological functions and instinctive behaviors (R-Complex), or my basic social and emotional behaviors (Limbic System), rather than my advanced intellectual behaviors (Neocortex) (Romig, 1997).

In short, I'm hungry and those Oreos look damn good. Forget the fact that they are filled with fat and other non-nutritional ingredients. They taste good. I'm hungry. So I put them in my shopping cart and eat several while I continue my primal quest. Certainly, I know better, but I'm not talking about knowing better. I'm talking about basic physiological needs, instinct, and emotion. I'm hungry and when I see that bag of Oreos my stomach screams to my brain, eat them now!

Why? Certainly, that reaction had to come from somewhere. Why Oreos? Naturally, I like Oreos, but how did I first find out about Oreos? Was it by random chance? Was it because I saw someone whom I respected and admired eat them? Was it because I saw a commercial on television? Just how did the sight of the bag of Oreos trigger my overwhelmingly irrational desire to eat them on the spot?

Is there a corollary between my craving for Oreos and our societies craving for self-indulgent entertainment/fluffycontent-based media, specifically television and the Internet?

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Decision Making Theories

As our knowledge base increases we are finding that studying subjects such as impulse buying, a subset of consumer buying behavior, is not limited to one field. Buying behaviors are of interest to experimental psychologists and brain researchers, but ultimately, the people most vested are motivated by money and power. This group is comprised of many different sectors and industries, but a growing segment includes those directly, or indirectly related to the media. For purposes of this paper I shall direct my comments to television and the Internet, although they are just a portion of what would commonly makeup the media industry.

Psychologists have developed theories to explain how people make decisions. Rational choice theory is one model that, like many other theoretical models, look good on paper but in practical application fall short. The premise of rational choice theory is that individuals predict outcomes associated with the choices available to them and choose a course of action based on those forecasts. In essence, expectations, choice, and rationality are very closely related concepts in economic theory and reality (Harvey, 1996).

If that is the case, why did I buy the Oreos?

Clearly, the predicted outcomes of my purchase were non-beneficial. Therefore, it was irrational for me to select them. According to revised theory, people do not follow a process of subconsciously calculated probabilities in reaching a decision. Instead, they rely on a few rules of thumb to simplify the decision-making process (Tversky and Kahneman 1974, p.1124). If psychologists are correct, rational choice theory is an excellent guide to how decisions should be made, but it does not reflect how decisions are made (Harvey, 1996).

Unlike the theoretical domain of experimental psychology, business, specifically marketing, looks at how to affect consumer behavior and the bottom line. Accepted marketing theory delves into the consumer buying decision process and its related components to understand and influence the consumer's buying habits (Rajaratnam, 1997). Market researchers focus primarily on two forms of data - demographic and psychographic.

Demographics quantifies consumer attributes such as age, gender, race, education, income, etc., where psychographics qualifies psychological information such as opinions on abortion, religious beliefs, music tastes, personality traits, etc. (Matador, 1997).

Psychographics and lifestyles are terms that are somewhat interchangeable, but psychographics usually refers to a formal classification system such as Stanford Research Institute's (SRI) Values and Lifestyles (VALS), that categorizes people into eight specific types (Actualizers, Fullfilleds, Achievers, Experiencers, Believers, Strivers, Makers, and Strugglers) (SRI Consulting, 1997).

In general terms, lifestyles refer to systems that organize people according to their attitudes or consumer behavior, such as their involvement with and spending on certain categories of recreation, entertainment, or necessities such as cycling, dancing, or home improvements. Although the information derived from these data may seem soft, they often use statistical measures such as factor analysis to derive the segments (Crispell. 1995).

According to the article "The Frontiers of Psychographics," by R. P Heath, there is a "growing number of researchers who are looking at ëpsycho-qualitative' techniques to make some sense of an increasingly chaotic consumer environment."

The difficulty in making accurate predictions based on the demographic and psychographic data may be seen through the study of systems dynamics. A working definition of which is: an arrangement of component processes (steps or objects) so related or connected as to form a unity or organic whole. Within each of these broadly named components are subsystems, which are systems in themselves. Anything that happens in one part of the system (subsystem) has an effect on other parts of the system. To understand the whole system one must look at the interrelationships among all the other parts (systems and subsystems) (Moore & Kearsley, 1996, Webster's, 1976). By applying the definition of systems dynamics to the collection of both demographic and psychographic data, we see that the layers of systems and subsystems that go into representing each bit of information and its relationship to other bits of information are extremely complex.
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Again, why did I buy the Oreos? How are marketers going to predict that I will, in fact, buy the Oreos? How will they make business decisions based on my actions? Or, as many would prefer, how will they make business decisions that dictate my actions?

According to an article in "Wired Magazine," by R. Rothenberg, no one understands how, or even if, advertising works. I would suggest that the same would hold true for television and the Internet. The author asserts that the system of production, distribution, sales, and communications is so large and complex, that it is impossible to isolate the effectiveness of a single element. He quotes Bill Bernbach, a prominent figure in the advertising industry, who said, "advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art." Rothenberg, goes on to write that because advertising is so complex, advertising agencies have exploited the confusion by urging clients to buy more pages, more spots, more billboards and by creating more gimmicks. He also quotes historian Daniel Boorstin who has labeled these gimmicks as "pseudo-events" - news conferences, press releases, and stunts that "someone has planned, planted, or incited" to fill the print space and broadcast time. Other such gimmicks include copywriting, market research, psychological research (VALS), sales promotions, and public relations. All of the gimmicks were, and are, intended to distract people from the fact that the results derived from advertising, the media, are unverifiable.

The end result, is what Rothenberg calls the "Knowability Paradox."

"The less we have known about how advertising and the media work, the more advertising and media there have been. Conversely, the more advertising and media there have been, the more they have shaped the culture they saturateÖthe forms and conventions that are as familiar and invisible as the air we breathe owe their existence to the fact that we don't know what works to attract consumers, or why." (Rothenberg, 1998)

It may be a case of the more we know the less we know. Clearly, more and more people are making decisions based on less rational criteria. Take a look at the large number of people who smoke cigarettes even though there is overwhelming evidence that smoking is a major detriment to one's health.

Determining a person's decision making process based on demographics and psychographics helps, but with the relationships and complexities explained through the study of systems dynamics, I question the effectiveness of market research. Market researchers would have us believe that there is a high degree of effectiveness. However, as with rational choice theory and many other theories, the practical use of these theories provides a good place to start, but leaves something to be desired.

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Literacy and the Metanarrative

Now that I have set the stage with some theories related to the decision making process, I will redirect the focus to how the media, primarily television and the Internet, have changed, what Fred Saba, calls the "metanarrative," how a society defines itself (Saba, 1997).

Throughout history societies have had leaders and followers. Invariably, the leaders possessed the power and dictated the preferred behaviors and attitudes of the followers to insure their loyalty and servitude. Knowledge has always played a critical role in determining who had the power.

In the pre-modern era, the church, in whatever form it manifested itself, had always been the keeper and purveyor of knowledge. Only the educated had the power. The source of all knowledge came primarily from the church guided and directed by people dedicated to formal study and teaching with a strong desire to maintain their power base.

Prior to Johannes Gutenberg's printing press, approximately 1450, learning took place primarily through the spoken word. Books were hand-written by scribes, they were expensive, and literacy was limited to the wealthy or those within the church. By maintaining illiteracy those in power found it easier to manipulate the masses.

Upon the growing availability of printed materials, more and more people had the opportunity to become educated. The more educated people became, the more people shared ideas, the more those ideas spread across geographic boundaries, the more cultures redefined themselves. Although, in many cases, even today, the church still defines how people think and how people act within a society.

History is a constant record, the accuracy of which is certainly questionable, of how cultures have changed. By the twentieth century, the modern era, improvements in transportation, communication, and technology again helped societies to redefine themselves. Rather than the church determining the focus of societal beliefs, technology became the driving force. Technology gave us hope that the quality and direction of life could be changed. Society pursued technological answers in lieu of spiritual answers to life's conundrums.

The more technology advanced the more we pursued technological-scientific solutions. The natural evolution of which is the information age, the post-modern era. With the rapid exchange of just-in-time on-demand information we have effectively reduced the size of the planet to where we are seeing live-action footage of events and receiving cutting-edge information as it is unfolding from around the world.

Universal literacy is growing. We view events and access information in real time. But that does not mitigate the fact that the foundation of our education, and now, the mass invasiveness of the media, determine the control of information and how we process that information. The people and systems in control are still closely guarding the dissemination of information.

Is that changing?

As the world population increases, as literacy increases, as just-in-time on-demand information technology increases, as our own metacognition develops, will we splinter into non-geographically based ideological subcultures, or will we fight to maintain our nationalistic, racial, or religious identities?

Perhaps, most importantly, who controls the information and how we process that information?

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How We Acquire, Process, and Apply Information

Just as history has been told with a bias, I too have applied my own filtering process. I have selected bits of information from sources to make certain points about how we react to the media. I have confidence in the credibility of the sources that I have used, but again, someone filtered through history to chronicle their perspective and I, in turn, am doing the same.

I was born in 1950, just five years after the introduction of television and approximately 19 years before the introduction of the Internet. My parents are both well-educated, independent, and forward thinking. My father has always been on the cutting edge of technology and I have adopted the same propensity, tempered however, by my experiences and his mistakes.

I have come to realize that I learn differently from how I was taught. I was brought up in a traditional education system that focused upon lecture and reading. The content was filtered and processed by people who, like those in the pre-modern era, had an agenda and wished to perpetuate their well-established myths.

The behaviorial sciences, which looked to modify learning through cause and effect relationships, were the focus of instructional delivery while I was in school.

Although the study of cognitive development started around 1921, by Jean Piaget, at the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute in Geneva, it was not until the 1960s that large numbers of American psychologists adopted his theories (Biehler/Snowman, 1997).

In 1983, Howard Gardner published his theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner identified seven different types of intelligences and how they relate to learning styles. In a practical sense, how we acquire, process, and apply information (Gardner, 1993). Having taken the "Multiple Intelligence Inventory for Adults," developed by Thomas Armstrong, I found my strengths lie in the areas of visual/spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, and intra-personal intelligences (Armstrong, 1993).

Both the visual/spatial and intra-personal strengths lend themselves to learning via television and the Internet. Visual/spatial intelligence relates to the ability to form a mental model of a spatial world; e.g. drawing, color schemes, patterns/designs, active imagination, etc.

Intra-personal intelligence involves the capacity to form an accurate image of oneself, and to be able to use the sense of self to function effectively in society. This implies understanding one's own emotions and motivation, and managing one's own behavior, e.g. focusing/concentration, thinking strategies, silent reflection, metacognition techniques, etc. (Great Connections, 1997).

For people with similar learning styles, television and the Internet play an important role in how we acquire, process, and apply new information.

As more and more children are being brought up with television, computers, and the Internet will they develop skills that tap into the benefits of these multimedia platforms?

I firmly think so.

But, if we, as a global society are going to benefit from these multimedia platforms, we need to know the veracity of the information? Are we simply gathering more information faster? Is that information, as in the pre-modern era, a closely guarded resource disseminated by those who wish to maintain their self-interests?

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Media Influence on the Metanarrative

During the 1950s, 60s, and continuing on to today, the myths which had been perpetuated from power base to power base throughout the years collided with a series of events that changed how we view traditional information and their delivery systems.

The first of four "great debates" between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon was broadcast on Sept. 26, 1960, across the country, breaking new ground in presidential campaigning (AdvertisingAge, 1960s).

In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his "I have a dream" speech. Millions watched on television. In the same year, a sniper in downtown Dallas shot President John F. Kennedy. Television coverage of the assassination and the funeral gripped the nation and the world for four days (AdvertisingAge, 1960s).

In 1964 the U.S. Surgeon General issued a report finding smoking a health hazard (AdvertisingAge, 1960s).

Throughout the mid-1960s, until its end in 1975, the Vietnam War permeated our daily lives.

Each of these events, and countless others, brought an inevitable change to how we view our society. The events were perhaps not as important as the fact that everyone knew that they had taken place. Television brought the world into our lives. We could not escape the enormity of what was happening. We could not escape period. Television showed us in living, and many times, blood-drenched horrifying color that the world was in trouble. And like my irrational desire to eat the Oreos in the grocery store we have become addicted to a fatty concoction of useless fillers combined to make a sickening paste.

The Metanarrative Continues to Change

With the advent of the Internet in the late 1960s and the World Wide Web in the mid-1990s, information is becoming more democratic. Anyone, anywhere with very little to no money can publish anything they want; from cutting-edge scientific research, encyclopedic tomes on every subject imaginable, biographies, recipes for chocolate-chip cookies and nuclear bombs, etc.

Access to the Internet grows daily.

The question still remains, who controls the information? Will the impact of the Internet be any different from that of television?

As I was talking with my 85 year old mother, wishing her a happy mother's day, I told her about this paper. She went off! She said, "Tell the media to stop! I want the news, not the rehashing of what someone thinks about President Clinton's sex life, WhiteWater, or whether O.J. Simpson did or did not commit the murders." I agree we can't turn on the television without seeing and hearing about some pseudo-event that the media, the powerbrokers, and spindoctors are sticking in our faces. Even the Internet is filled with the same non-news, same non-content! Perhaps, because we are now able to voice our opinions for everyone to see, regardless of whether anyone cares or not. It all makes as much sense as my having an irrational craving to eat the Oreos at the grocery store.

But, we have a choice, or do we?

Just as with Harvey's assertion that rational choice theory is an excellent guide to how decisions should be made, it does not reflect how decisions are made (Harvey, 1996).

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Conclusion

What the hell do Oreos have to do with the media?

The correlation of Oreos and the media is that many times our cravings and actual consumption defies rational thought.

Many theories exist to tell us how we should behave within certain circumstances, but that the processes that determine the outcomes of our behavior are so complex that we can only, at best, attempt to make general predictions.

The more we feed our cravings the more we demand. As Rothenberg wrote, "The less we have known about how advertising and the media work, the more advertising and media there have been."

Does the media impact our society, and if so why?

Certainly the media has been as Rothenberg suggests, "as familiar and invisible as the air we breathe" We allow the media to permeate every aspect of our lives. It is impossible to go anywhere and avoid what Daniel Boortsin calls pseudo-events, events that are often fabricated to "sell" the media. Whether it is the alleged sexual exploits of President Clinton or the ongoing controversy about O.J. Simpson's innocence or guilt.

By the nature and cost of television, the players have traditionally been big and powerful. Perhaps no different from the wealthy ruling classes and the church of the pre-modern era. However, with the proliferation of the Internet, we have created a worldwide democratic forum possibly taking the place of previous media. Then again, possibly only giving the illusion of being democratic.

As information grows exponentially we may, by necessity, rely on the similar sources of information. We may send out our automated agents to sources that ultimately are being controlled by similar pre-modern era powerbrokers.

To predict the future would be as difficult as it would be to predict if I was to again succumb to the Oreos, or do the rational thing and pass them by.

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References
Although some of these references are not cited within the work, they had an impact on the work, and I think they are worthy of further exploration.

AdvertisingAge. (1997) History of TV Advertising, Special Reports, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s. http://www.adage.com/news_and_features/special_reports/tv/1940s.html
http://www.adage.com/news_and_features/special_reports/tv/1950s.html
http://www.adage.com/news_and_features/special_reports/tv/1960s.html
http://www.adage.com/news_and_features/special_reports/tv/1970s.html
http://www.adage.com/news_and_features/special_reports/tv/1980s.html
http://www.adage.com/news_and_features/special_reports/tv/1990s.html

Armstrong, T. (1993). 7 Kinds of Smart. Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.

Biehler, R.F. and Snowman, J. (1997). Psychology Applied to Teaching. Houghton Mifflin Company. Boston, MA. Pp. 49, 62

Crispell, D. 1995. Define Your Terms. Marketing Tools.
http://www.demographics.com/publications/mt/95_mt/9510_mt/mt359.htm

Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice. New York: BasicBooks

Great Connections. (1997). Multiple Intelligences Toolbox. ONE A.D.D. Place - Multiple Intelligences.
http://www.greatconnect.com/oneaddplace/mitool.htm

Harvey, John. (17 May 1996). Heuristic Judgment Theory. http://csf.colorado.edu/pkt/harvey/harvey.html

Heath, R.P. (1996). The Frontiers of Psychographics. American Demographics. http://www.demographics.com/Publications/AD/96_AD/9607_AD/9607AF02.htm

Lanier, Jaron. (1998). Taking Stock so, what's changed in the last five years? Wired Magazine. January 1998, Pp. 60-62.

Leiner, B.M.; Cerf, V.G.; Clark, D.D.; Kahn, R.E.; Kleinrock, L.; Lynch, D.C.; Postel, Jon; Roberts, L.G.; and Wolff, S. (1997). A Brief History of the Internet.
http://www.isoc.org/internet-history/brief.html

Matador Records. (1997). A Rational Argument - Psychographics.
http://www.matador.recs.com/survey/def_psycho.html

Moore, M. G., and Kearsley, G. (1996). Distance Education, A Systems View. Belmont, CA, Wadsworth Publishing Co.

Pescovitz, David. (1998). Idees Fortes Instant cultural literacy. Meme. Wired Magazine. Feb. 1998. p. 118

Rajaratnam, Dan, Dr. Associate Professor of Marketing. (1997) Powerpoint presentation for Introduction to Marketing, Marketing 3305. Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University.
http://hsb.baylor.edu/html/rajaratn/htmfiles/3305cb/index.htm
http://hsb.baylor.edu/html/rajaratn/htmfiles/3305cb/tsld003.htm

Romig, James, Ed D.(1997). sum ergo COGITO, CourseNotes in Development and Learning: An Educational and Cognitive Perspective. Drake University.
http://www.educ.drake.edu/romig/cogito/brain_and_mind.html

Rothenberg, R. (1998). Bye-Bye The Net's precision accountability will kill not only traditional advertising, but its parasite, Big Media. Sniff. Wired Magazine. Jan. 1998. Pp. 72-76.

Saba, Fred. (1997). Understanding Multimedia. SDSU. http://edweb.sdsu.edu/Courses/EDTEC653/F-9_Main.html

Stanford Research Institute (SRI) Consulting. 1997. [VALS] The VALS Segment Profiles.
http://future.sri.com/vals/vals.segs.html

Tversky, Amos and Daniel Kahneman. Judgment under Uncertainty: Heurisitics and Biases. Science,
vol.185 (27 September, 1974), Pp.1124-1131.

Webster's New World Dictionary, Second College Edition. (1976). Cleveland, OH: William Collins + World Publishing Co., Inc.

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