How does the media effect us and more importantly impressionable youth? Do you pick up the mannerisms of your favorite actors and copy what you see in TV and Movies?
Social Learning Theory suggests that we can learn and model new behaviors from viewing others perform them, especially when there is a perceived incentive to copy the behavior.
In the case of smoking cigarettes and youth, the incentive is to be cool. Just look at the photo above, don’t you want to look like them?
View this presentation which describes the issue and applies Social Learning Theory to better understand the process of modeling behavior seen on screen.
Commercials are all around us all the time, whether in print, television, or more commonly these days, online. They are vying for our attention 24/7 with the sole aim of trying to get us to buy a product. Does this work? Are we even aware of it sometimes? Did you ever suddenly have an urge for a certain food, maybe it’s a fast food hamburger, you know it’s not the healthiest thing you could eat but you WANT IT NOW! Maybe that’s because you’ve seen the commercial for that burger 1,000 times, and you now are convinced that you need to have it, whether subliminally or even sometimes more overtly.
Some ads use different tactics to gain our attention, comedy is often employed as a tool to sell products. One of the most successful ad campaigns of recent memory was the Old Spice man who keeps moving from scene to scene “Ladies, look back at your man, now back at me”. This was first aired during the 2010 Super Bowl, which is the “Holy Grail” for advertisers to reach their target demographics, sometimes paying millions of dollars for 30 seconds of airtime.
The fact is that it is important to be aware of the media that is being presented to you, and especially be aware of advertisers who are getting more savvy, and becoming less overt, sometimes launching social media campaigns or other types of product placement, where you might not even be able to tell that someone is trying to sell you something.
In one of the biggest reminders so far, that social media is here to stay, The Social Network, which is a movie based on the creator of facebook Mark Zuckerberg, won big at the 2011 Golden Globe awards. The movie took home the Best Film-Drama award, Best Screenplay-Motion Picture for Aaron Sorkin, Best Director-Motion Picture for David Fincher, and Best Original Score.
The fact that a movie about facebook could win big is a validation of how much of a part of our lives this little tool for communication has become. It lets us stay connected to the people we care about, to feel that we are still part of their daily life even if they are far away, as well as message and chat to stay in touch.
Facebook has also surpassed google as most visited site on the internet in 2010.
All of these facts lead to the question, “What does the future of facebook and of social media in general hold in store?”
The possibilities are endless, and as technology takes leaps forward so will our ability to stay connected with friends and family around the world. 3D technology has also become huge lately with the success of Avatar and other films like it. What happens when you merge social media with 3D?
The video below will give you something to think about in terms of what this new technology might look like…
Have you ever been sitting at your laptop doing some video editing, while on your iPhone in your left hand and been watching TV at the same time?
Well that was me last night.
It caught me off guard when I realized what I was doing. Lately I have had iPhone withdrawal symptoms and am on the web, texting, or watching something on my laptop or TV.
This is a new reality in our lives, the media overload that fills our lives, informs us and entertains us.
There are large parts of the world that are not at the point some are, but they will get there, as the information goes forth and reaches everyone on the planet.
One of the most striking differences between the local news broadcasts and the cable channel news are all the hot women being used on cable to sell the news. This is not to say that these women are any less capable as journalists, but you have to question the motives of why they are on there.
Sex sells everything. It is used to sell products, mainly to men who will be more likely to notice something that has an attractive woman attached to it. Commercials do it all the time, but now it seems that the news is getting sexier too.
In the early days of news, it was generally men who delivered news to the audience. It was also generally men, that you felt you could “Trust”. Men with gravitas, like Walter Cronkite, Ted Coppel, and Tom Brokaw.
There has been a shift in how we get the news. Woman became anchors, and there is no reason that they shouldn’t be. The problem arrises when they possibly become used to boost ratings. Men are generally watching the news, and If there is a hot blonde talking about a news story, it probably does not even matter what she is saying, a man will stay on that channel if she is attractive.
Below is the trailer for one of the funniest movies ‘Anchorman’. It deals with a news channel that is faced with a women becoming an anchor in the time when that was not common, and somewhat unthinkable.
There are women that were real trailblazers in news, like Barbara Walters and Katie Couric. I wonder what their thoughts are as far as women in the news today being called ‘Sex Symbols’.