3 ms·

Really? tectonic made all those arguments in one sentence, huh? Or did you just invent that? Every American sits and stares passively at ABC television for a

Really? tectonic made all those arguments in one sentence, huh? Or did you just invent that? Every American sits and stares passively at ABC television for about 6 hours per week, every week. It's totally silly to suggest that that could have any effect on culture though, right?

tptacek 14y ago
Yes, I think it's pretty silly to suggest that the average 6 hours of ABC television consumption is providing Disney with much control over our culture. ABC is led by the culture, not the other way around; that's why it (sort of) makes money for Disney. Think about it with an analogy. Google is more valuable than Facebook, despite the huge amount of time people spend engaged with Facebook, because Google's users come to the site with a task that inherently equates with purchasing intent. It is possible to capture a great deal of people's attention without changing their decisionmaking process. I dispute that there are many judgements people make that use Disney media properties as a resource. The Internet is already a far more influential force on our culture than any mass-media property is.
- nitrogen 14y ago
  I think you underestimate the effect of repeated subtle messaging thrown into an otherwise innocuous storyline. If it wasn't effective, Coca Cola wouldn't have paid to have their product barely visible in the background of a scene in War of the Worlds, for example.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    I don't estimate it highly, you're right about that. For your specific example, consider some other factors besides the intrinsic effectiveness of ambient product placement: (a) Coca Cola employs many thousands of marketing people who must, to justify their salary, come up with venues to feature the Coke brand. (b) Mass marketing is notoriously terrible with metrics, so it's not an extraordinary claim to suggest that maybe Coke is investing in some marketing that doesn't much help it. (c) Coke's business model has as much to do with its distribution system --- the fact that they can get a Coke into the hands of virtually any person on the planet in minutes --- as it does with its brand. (d) Copyrights and trademarks mean that motion pictures need to acquire the rights to feature many (in a Spielberg film, perhaps all) of the brands shown on screen, which creates a venue in which major brands like Coke are consulted as a matter of course simply because either they or their competitors need to be shown simply to create verisimilitude.
    - nitrogen 14y ago
      [This is also in response to your reply to my other comment] I can tell you that some of the television I watched as a kid had a very strong influence on my deepest subconscious philosophies, namely Star Trek TNG. My biggest argument against media consolidation, though, is that I simply don't trust any one entity with significant centralized power. While Disney+Lucasfilm is probably a pretty good fit for business and entertainment reasons, the sheer size of the various conglomerates is astounding. And don't think for a minute that there isn't blatant propaganda in some TV shows, even if the propaganda isn't coherent within a single media conglomerate. The example I found most bothersome was the justly canceled TV series "V", which had extremely overt xenophobic allusions to issues of the day, like illegal immigration and foreign policy.
      - res0nat0r 14y ago
        V was a remake from the TV mini-series from 1983 which was itself an allegory about xenophobia and Nazism.

tptacek 14y ago

Yes, I think it's pretty silly to suggest that the average 6 hours of ABC television consumption is providing Disney with much control over our culture. ABC is led by the culture, not the other way around; that's why it (sort of) makes money for Disney. Think about it with an analogy. Google is more valuable than Facebook, despite the huge amount of time people spend engaged with Facebook, because Google's users come to the site with a task that inherently equates with purchasing intent. It is possible to capture a great deal of people's attention without changing their decisionmaking process. I dispute that there are many judgements people make that use Disney media properties as a resource. The Internet is already a far more influential force on our culture than any mass-media property is.

nitrogen 14y ago
I think you underestimate the effect of repeated subtle messaging thrown into an otherwise innocuous storyline. If it wasn't effective, Coca Cola wouldn't have paid to have their product barely visible in the background of a scene in War of the Worlds, for example.
- tptacek 14y ago
  I don't estimate it highly, you're right about that. For your specific example, consider some other factors besides the intrinsic effectiveness of ambient product placement: (a) Coca Cola employs many thousands of marketing people who must, to justify their salary, come up with venues to feature the Coke brand. (b) Mass marketing is notoriously terrible with metrics, so it's not an extraordinary claim to suggest that maybe Coke is investing in some marketing that doesn't much help it. (c) Coke's business model has as much to do with its distribution system --- the fact that they can get a Coke into the hands of virtually any person on the planet in minutes --- as it does with its brand. (d) Copyrights and trademarks mean that motion pictures need to acquire the rights to feature many (in a Spielberg film, perhaps all) of the brands shown on screen, which creates a venue in which major brands like Coke are consulted as a matter of course simply because either they or their competitors need to be shown simply to create verisimilitude.
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    [This is also in response to your reply to my other comment] I can tell you that some of the television I watched as a kid had a very strong influence on my deepest subconscious philosophies, namely Star Trek TNG. My biggest argument against media consolidation, though, is that I simply don't trust any one entity with significant centralized power. While Disney+Lucasfilm is probably a pretty good fit for business and entertainment reasons, the sheer size of the various conglomerates is astounding. And don't think for a minute that there isn't blatant propaganda in some TV shows, even if the propaganda isn't coherent within a single media conglomerate. The example I found most bothersome was the justly canceled TV series "V", which had extremely overt xenophobic allusions to issues of the day, like illegal immigration and foreign policy.
    - res0nat0r 14y ago
      V was a remake from the TV mini-series from 1983 which was itself an allegory about xenophobia and Nazism.