Seeker explains how television entertainment can shape our political opinions

May 31 was National Autonomous Vehicle Day, but I didn’t celebrating it. Instead ABC’s cancellation of “Roseanne” prompted me to look at another technology, television — in particular, how television shapes our political opinions. Seeker explains in TV Shows Are Changing Your Political Opinions Without You Knowing It.

We all know the news can be biased, but what about entertainment TV? Can mindless, seemingly-apolitical shows actually change our opinions?

The answer appears to be yes, as the description quoted a press release on EurekAlert: People who watch entertainment TV are more likely to vote for populist politicians.

People exposed to entertainment television are more likely to vote for populist politicians according to a new study co-authored by an economist at Queen Mary University of London.The researchers investigated the political impact of entertainment television in Italy over the last 30 years during the phased introduction of Silvio Berlusconi’s commercial TV network Mediaset.

The press release struck an even more relevant note in its conclusion.

Dr. [Andrea] Tesei said: “Our results suggest that entertainment content can influence political attitudes, creating a fertile ground for the spread of populist messages. It’s the first major study to investigate the political effect of exposure among voters to a diet of ‘light’ entertainment. The results are timely as the United States adjusts to the Presidency of Donald Trump.”

Hence the image I used to illustrate this entry — Trump isn’t the only person to learn a lot watching television. All of us do, whether we’re aware of it or not.
Posted, as promised, when Vox explains how Russian trolls weaponized social media. Reposted with modifications from Crazy Eddie’s Motie News.

4 Comments

Neon Vincent on June 9, 2018 at 9:54 pm

The song for this diary is TV is King by The Tubes.

Arthur Gilroy on June 10, 2018 at 1:13 am

You write:

Trump isn’t the only person to learn a lot watching television. All of us do, whether we’re aware of it or not.

Precisely.

Almost the entire media culture now consists of subliminal propaganda.

Solution?

Don’t watch it!!!

Duh.

I have been saying this on leftiness blogs like this one for…oh I guess about 15 years now, one way or another. At the very least, do not watch TV in a passive state. Remain aware of the trance-state attempts of both the shows and…especially…the ads to lull you into a passive acceptance of “the way things are.”

This goes not just for “entertainment” TV, but for news TV, sports TV and most of the rest of it.

How many times have I posted variations on the following?

NEWSTRIKE!!!

MEDIASTRIKE!!!

CULTURESTRIKE!!!

VAYA!!!

Hundreds if not more.

Has it done much good?

No.

The trance state is too deep. They have almost all of us flapping our arms and making various kinds of chicken sounds like volunteers in a vaudeville-level hypnotist’s shtick.

WTFU!!!

Please!!!

Neon Vincent on June 10, 2018 at 12:31 pm
AG, I’ve mentioned John Michael Greer to you before as an “intelligent, unclassifiable outlier.” He wrote two entries on his Dreamwidth blog on the subject of television’s ability to produce trance states and how to combat it. From the first entry comes the following observation and action.

Several years ago, in a conversation with friends, one of them mentioned the way that their family members spent hours at a time in what amounts to a trance, staring blankly at a television screen, as though the jerky little colored shapes on the glass screen actually mattered. It occurred to me that there was a curious bit of folklore that paralleled this.

In the folklore of the Celtic countries, glamour — the ability to push illusions on people, which faeries are said to have — can be combated in several ways, but the most important involves a knife or some other piece of sharp iron or steel. There are traditional reasons for this in occult philosophy, which we don’t have to get into here. It struck me, though, that it was worth experimenting to see if the same thing would help counter the glamour of the television.

The short form is that it worked. My friend put a small pocketknife, open, under the television, and the other members of his family basically lost interest in it.

I’ve advised the same thing several more times, with equally good results. In one case, the television just up and quit working; in the others, though, having a sharp knife under the television seems to lead to a steady loss of interest in those jerky little colored shapes on the glass screen. It also seems to have a similar effect on obsessive interest in the internet.

He asked his readers to try it and reported the results in the second post.
At this point some of the results are in, and I’ve been able to draw some tentative conclusions and draft a hypothesis on which further experimentation can be based:

The effect seems to be real, and not just a matter of the placebo effect. Quite a few readers have reported immediate effects, not only on themselves, but on people who had no idea that the experiment was being tried, and who suddenly lost interest in television.
The effect isn’t guaranteed. Not everyone noted effects. In particular, when someone else in the household was using television, the internet, or their phone as a drug to avoid dealing with personal problems, that person’s addiction was pretty reliably not affected by the presence of sharp iron.
The effect can generate opposition. In a significant minority of cases, people who weren’t in on the experiment found the sharp iron objects and removed them, even when there was no obvious reason to do so.

My hypothesis is as follows: we’re dealing with a genuine effect here, but the glamour it appears to counter is only one of the factors in the phenomenon of television addiction. Some people watch television or use other electronic media obsessively for personal reasons unrelated to the glamour. There may also be other variables that influence whether a sharp iron point will decrease the hold electronic media has on people.
If you are as interested in the unconventional as you seem to be, you might find this magical solution worth considering.
- Arthur Gilroy on June 10, 2018 at 1:35 pm
  
  Thank you, NV.
  
  You write:
  
  If you are as interested in the unconventional as you seem to be, you might find this magical solution worth considering.
  
  I am not so much interested in the vast category of “the unconventional” as I am in the much narrower category of “truth.” Truth…real truth, in the Gandhian sense… is unconventional, but it is also very rare.
  
  Operations like this Celtic trick to combat the mind control of evil forces…if they last any amount of time in a fairly well-functioning societal system…are always the distillation of the experiences of one (or sometimes a few) of the real truth-seekers of that culture, only simplified for popular consumption and thus for the common good. All great religions (and their necessarily popularized mythoses) start in the same way for the same reason.
  
  As above, so below.
  
  I will look into this Greer person and his website.
  
  Thank you.
  
  AG

Neon Vincent on June 9, 2018 at 9:54 pm

The song for this diary is TV is King by The Tubes.
Arthur Gilroy on June 10, 2018 at 1:13 am

You write:

Trump isn’t the only person to learn a lot watching television. All of us do, whether we’re aware of it or not.

Precisely.

Almost the entire media culture now consists of subliminal propaganda.

Solution?

Don’t watch it!!!

Duh.

I have been saying this on leftiness blogs like this one for…oh I guess about 15 years now, one way or another. At the very least, do not watch TV in a passive state. Remain aware of the trance-state attempts of both the shows and…especially…the ads to lull you into a passive acceptance of “the way things are.”

This goes not just for “entertainment” TV, but for news TV, sports TV and most of the rest of it.

How many times have I posted variations on the following?

NEWSTRIKE!!!

MEDIASTRIKE!!!

CULTURESTRIKE!!!

VAYA!!!

Hundreds if not more.

Has it done much good?

No.

The trance state is too deep. They have almost all of us flapping our arms and making various kinds of chicken sounds like volunteers in a vaudeville-level hypnotist’s shtick.

WTFU!!!

Please!!!

AG
- Neon Vincent on June 10, 2018 at 12:31 pm
  AG, I’ve mentioned John Michael Greer to you before as an “intelligent, unclassifiable outlier.” He wrote two entries on his Dreamwidth blog on the subject of television’s ability to produce trance states and how to combat it. From the first entry comes the following observation and action.
  
  Several years ago, in a conversation with friends, one of them mentioned the way that their family members spent hours at a time in what amounts to a trance, staring blankly at a television screen, as though the jerky little colored shapes on the glass screen actually mattered. It occurred to me that there was a curious bit of folklore that paralleled this.
  
  In the folklore of the Celtic countries, glamour — the ability to push illusions on people, which faeries are said to have — can be combated in several ways, but the most important involves a knife or some other piece of sharp iron or steel. There are traditional reasons for this in occult philosophy, which we don’t have to get into here. It struck me, though, that it was worth experimenting to see if the same thing would help counter the glamour of the television.
  
  The short form is that it worked. My friend put a small pocketknife, open, under the television, and the other members of his family basically lost interest in it.
  
  I’ve advised the same thing several more times, with equally good results. In one case, the television just up and quit working; in the others, though, having a sharp knife under the television seems to lead to a steady loss of interest in those jerky little colored shapes on the glass screen. It also seems to have a similar effect on obsessive interest in the internet.
  
  He asked his readers to try it and reported the results in the second post.
  
  At this point some of the results are in, and I’ve been able to draw some tentative conclusions and draft a hypothesis on which further experimentation can be based:
  
  The effect seems to be real, and not just a matter of the placebo effect. Quite a few readers have reported immediate effects, not only on themselves, but on people who had no idea that the experiment was being tried, and who suddenly lost interest in television.
  The effect isn’t guaranteed. Not everyone noted effects. In particular, when someone else in the household was using television, the internet, or their phone as a drug to avoid dealing with personal problems, that person’s addiction was pretty reliably not affected by the presence of sharp iron.
  The effect can generate opposition. In a significant minority of cases, people who weren’t in on the experiment found the sharp iron objects and removed them, even when there was no obvious reason to do so.
  
  My hypothesis is as follows: we’re dealing with a genuine effect here, but the glamour it appears to counter is only one of the factors in the phenomenon of television addiction. Some people watch television or use other electronic media obsessively for personal reasons unrelated to the glamour. There may also be other variables that influence whether a sharp iron point will decrease the hold electronic media has on people.
  
  If you are as interested in the unconventional as you seem to be, you might find this magical solution worth considering.
  - Arthur Gilroy on June 10, 2018 at 1:35 pm
    
    Thank you, NV.
    
    You write:
    
    If you are as interested in the unconventional as you seem to be, you might find this magical solution worth considering.
    
    I am not so much interested in the vast category of “the unconventional” as I am in the much narrower category of “truth.” Truth…real truth, in the Gandhian sense… is unconventional, but it is also very rare.
    
    Operations like this Celtic trick to combat the mind control of evil forces…if they last any amount of time in a fairly well-functioning societal system…are always the distillation of the experiences of one (or sometimes a few) of the real truth-seekers of that culture, only simplified for popular consumption and thus for the common good. All great religions (and their necessarily popularized mythoses) start in the same way for the same reason.
    
    As above, so below.
    
    I will look into this Greer person and his website.
    
    Thank you.
    
    AG

Seeker explains how television entertainment can shape our political opinions

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Neon Vincent

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