Examples of How the Media Influences Your Behavior [article]

Dunhill Jalea (CUNY Hunter) replied to Alvin's poston July 9, 2007 at 7:14pm
When Top Gun came out....recruits for the Navy and Air Force shot up if I remember correctly.

I want to be a cool fighter pilot, but I'm colorblind. =(

     
Maimounah Masudi (Fayetteville) replied to Alvin's poston July 10, 2007 at 5:51am
Cool. So after we spent like $30 plus on seeing a movie with tickets n popcorn, it doesn't end there! loool

     
Brian Chiang (CUNY Hunter) replied to Dunhill's poston July 10, 2007 at 7:33am
lol that sucks. i just suck at math so i'm going army instead. to hell with the navy/usmc

     
Alvin Lin (MIT) wroteon August 7, 2007 at 9:04pm
bump

     
Steven Lin (Rutgers) wroteon August 9, 2007 at 10:39am

"In 1988, a Dallas morning deejay asked his listeners to send him $20, without giving them a reason. Within a week, the radio station had received over $240,000. (Campbell, Stan, and Southern, Randy. Mind Over Media, Tyndale House, 2001)"

That's pretty depressing.

     
Lillian Kim replied to Steven's poston August 9, 2007 at 12:40pm
not only depressing but scary. how easily are we controlled and manipulated?

     
Steven Lin (Rutgers) wroteon August 9, 2007 at 3:33pm
Everyone send me 20 dollars right now. PM for my mailing address.

     
Steven Lin (Rutgers) wroteon August 9, 2007 at 4:16pm
At least I tried.

     
Alvin Lin (MIT) wroteon August 21, 2007 at 6:14pm
i can't find the link right now (have to run soon), but today someone sent me something that said that right after marilyn monroe died from suicide, the suicide rate among young women spiked something like 12% up that year. pretty amazing. and scary.

     
Luc Mehmel (Mass. Art) wroteon August 21, 2007 at 6:29pm
I buy Old Spice because of the red color of the packaging.

     
David WAn replied to Luc's poston August 21, 2007 at 6:40pm
lol I do the same, cause I find they are all the same in the end.

     
Julian Chan (University of Toronto) wroteon August 21, 2007 at 7:11pm
I wonder what the Lord of the Rings series changed?

     
Alan Lu (Rutgers) replied to Julian's poston August 21, 2007 at 7:22pm
hmm more girls salivating over orlando bloom and escalated his popularity

     
Richard Ah King wroteon August 21, 2007 at 7:26pm
I bet 'Basic Instinct' was the cause of a drop in sales of panties since Sharon Stone didnt wear any! I bet Ice Picks rose or was the major cause of murders after that movie was released!

     
Alvin Lin (MIT) replied to Julian's poston August 21, 2007 at 7:26pm
lord of the rings launched orlando bloom simply because he played a cool elf character. outside of that trilogy, i personally don't find his acting skills, charisma, or even attractiveness to be anything special. but people have a funny way of not being able to separate an actor from his movie character.

richard, i don't know about 'basic instinct', but does anyone else read sports guy on espn? bill simmons openly admitted that he didn't start playing poker or going to vegas until after he saw 'rounders', and in the 'rounders' dvd special features section, ed norton takes credit for 'rounders' starting the poker obsession that is now on tv everywhere as well as for making the 'world series of poker' mainstream.

     
Julian Chan (University of Toronto) replied to alan's poston August 21, 2007 at 7:27pm
Lol!

I was thinking something more along the lines of the members of The Summoning noticing an increase in record sales.

     
Alan Lu (Rutgers) replied to Alvin's poston August 21, 2007 at 7:51pm
yeah i don't think orlando is anything special either

i didn't start playing texas until i saw espn's coverage of wsop and moneymaker years ago

     
Bryant Kou (UCSD) replied to Alvin's poston August 21, 2007 at 7:57pm
I think Orlando is popular because girls find him to be good looking. His character wasn't especially spectacular in that movie.

And someone explained to me that the WSOP became popular because a lower-ranked pro won one year, so many people joined the next year, and then Moneymaker won. Then everyone thought they could win so attendance skyrocketed.

     
Alvin Lin (MIT) replied to alan's poston August 21, 2007 at 8:03pm
world series of poker wasn't even broadcasted on espn until after rounders came out. i think an argument can be made it was multiple things, a snowball effect created from a popular cult movie.

     
Alan Lu (Rutgers) replied to Alvin's poston August 21, 2007 at 8:07pm
well, it was that year and moneymaker's affiliation to pokerstars that got me started with online poker haha... i have not seen rounders though

     
Richard Ah King wroteon August 21, 2007 at 9:15pm
How about gangsta rap that created the whole 'acting black is cool'? who would've thought that 20years ago u'd see a white guy talking "gangsta" and dressing up like those people in the ghetto.

     
Ronald Yip (Vancouver, BC) wroteon August 22, 2007 at 1:46am
i watched a movie with sammi and andy. i went to drink that tea andy was drinking. then i tried to find that beeotch thing from transformers, and converse after watching some tvb series. and of course got myself a death note that doesnt work.

     
Alan Lu (Rutgers) replied to Richard's poston August 22, 2007 at 7:16am
do you think eminem is responsible for that?
maybe vanilla ice too :D

     
David WAn wroteon August 22, 2007 at 8:14am
You know whats the biggest influence there is. The pricing of the food in a chinese restaurant vs a upscale European restaurant. I know some people might disagree but just bare with me for a second.

The quality of food, both types of foods are good food, and I dont think the chinese food is inferior. As someone who can cook most of these foods with incredible proficiency, there really isn't anything inferior about chinese food.
Since chinese food is highly acclaimed, I doubt people go to chinese restaurants just because it's cheap.


The only difference, and the key to a restaurant's success is the amount of advertisements they get. In this territory as you can see from movies and tv shows like Hell's Kitchen for example, as well as anything depicting a romantic dinner, are all geared towards advertising those types restaurants. Where as the current media is obsessed with slandering chinese restaurants.

In the end if a chinese restaurant wishes to succeed, it has to spend a large sums of money to fight the media, as well as advertising itself. Where as normal american restaurants are born with noticeable amounts of positive publicity, and very little money is required for them to gain fame.

My personal example comes from my friend's dad who owns their small restaurant. They are having a bit of money trouble right now. But before he started his restaurant he was this big chef in another restaurant. The boss there spent 100 grand to redecorate their restaurant by americanizing its looks and the food. It's chinese food, but presented in a very westernized way because that was the only way for him to nearly double the price of his food. That guy became pretty successful, and he opened up 4 more restaurants. Now, 70% of it is owned by some other corporation, but he's still making good money

     
Alvin Lin (MIT) replied to David's poston August 22, 2007 at 8:40am
david, it's a good point, and i remarked in another thread how some asians may be more into branding/social status/prestige than others, yet are so bad at creating their own high status images or things.

i think a lot of it has to do with a lack of understanding of marketing, pricing, and image management. asians compete basically only on price, they sell at the lowest possible price, which makes others think that their product is inferior in quality. believe it or not, people associate price with quality.

     
Alan Lu (Rutgers) replied to David's poston August 22, 2007 at 11:28am
good point! but have you been to an upscale chinese restaurant? sort of a contradictory idea if you have not though, yeah?

personally, i go to chinese restaurants because they're cheap and tasty :)

     
Alan Lu (Rutgers) replied to Alvin's poston August 22, 2007 at 11:29am
haha i think more asians associate price with quality

ex: there was this one time i had an asian woman asked if there was a difference between brand name benadryl or whatever and generic... same active ingredients and all, but she just didn't want to hear it and ended up buying the brand name :\

     
Richard Ah King replied to alan's poston August 22, 2007 at 2:28pm
aaah! That reminds me, I met the mother of a friend of mine in China, and she was proudly showing me her new house (which was huge, indoor pool, massage parlour, snooker room, wine storage). Telling me that the lighting in the pond came from Germany... that her living room was modelled according to Princess Diana's living room ... and how for breakfast, we had an asianized american breakfast i.e. porrige rice soup, cocktail saussages, spinach, boiled brown eggs, etc... the table was set with expensive plates and several different types of cutleries ... that was funny to see the length people go to to live like the rich n famous :)


Richard Ah King replied to alan's poston August 22, 2007 at 2:37pm
I think it's the popularity of hip hop ... eminem just convinced that white guys could actually act n rap like black gangstas. I can imagine white people who wanted to act and talk black felt complexed by the fact that they had no representatives in the "gangsta" rap industry before the breakout of Eminem. Since Eminem, how many guys have u seen dying their hair blond and wearing wife-beater shirts? :p

     
Alvin Lin (MIT) replied to alan's poston August 22, 2007 at 2:37pm
um, alan your example proves my point even more, that asians are more into branding than the average person. a lot of asians are obsessed with getting into a prestigious school, wearing very exclusive clothing brands and bags, driving expensively branded cars, etc etc.

do you see how this translates into media images? if whites are constantly portrayed, or branded, as the most prestigious image, then doesn't it make sense that some asians will be drawn to white as some sort of status symbol, or trophy?

     
Alan Lu (Rutgers) replied to Richard's poston August 22, 2007 at 2:45pm
that's pretty baller for china

     
Alan Lu (Rutgers) replied to Richard's poston August 22, 2007 at 2:46pm
it's always fun to see wannabe gangstas

     
Alan Lu (Rutgers) replied to Alvin's poston August 22, 2007 at 2:54pm
of course, that was my point too :)

oo that is a very interesting implication!!
that would make such an awesome research topic

     
Kimble Ngo (McMaster) wroteon August 22, 2007 at 5:33pm
Changing HIV/Aids trends in China
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6958908.stm


"Fear about a more rapid spread of HIV through sex comes just as China is starting to change its sexual behaviour.

In the recent past, it has been a conservative society - both in its attitudes and its practices.

That is changing. China's process of opening up to the outside world has exposed its population to more liberal ideas - from fashion to sex. "

     
David WAn replied to alan's poston August 22, 2007 at 6:19pm
I have been to a couple upscale restaurants, including the one that I mentioned after being decorated by expensive decorators. I'm saying that it requires substantial amounts of money to change and advertise these restaurants in order for them to be seen in positive light in the eyes of nonasians. Since they are using the media, they would also have to overcome the negative images from the media by spending more money, which the nonasian restaurants do not have to. And obviously sometimes advertising doesnt help especially like these days, and you lose everything. My friend's family has squeezed together 50,000 dollars last year just for redecoration and advertisements, and now they are debating whether they should spend the money or not because their business is having a lot of trouble lately

     
Alan Lu (Rutgers) replied to David's poston August 22, 2007 at 7:52pm
so the problem with upscale chinese restaurant is targeting the non-asians because not many asians will occasionally dine out at such a high cost, like maybe $300+ for a simple 5-course dinner. depends on the location too... where are you at? from my experience in a chinese newspaper, i really don't think advertising helps unless it's frequent and large enough to attract people.

     
Kimble Ngo (McMaster) replied to alan's poston August 23, 2007 at 8:24am
There are plenty of high rolling asian people.

Unfortunately for us, we are middle class Asians and really only know that bound. Some of us are inclined to know the low end of the economic scale to.

But in terms of meeting actually flithy rich Asians, they usually dont join groups like ours. The rich regardless of race, spend recklessly and lavisoushly. Only the breadwinner is conservative the rest of the family tends to spoil and overspend with little consideration. But usually because they have to afford the expense to network with other rich folk.

     
David WAn wroteon August 23, 2007 at 8:34am
This also brings up something else I have been noticing. These expensive restaurants have the style, the appearance, the connections, the whatever needed to make themselves high quality. But the recent newspapers showed that many of them still go to the cheapest suppliers of food they can find, which was revealed when people kept on asking whether these shrimp are from China or not, which many were and probably still are, or use some other supplier. So in the end it's still the same food compare to low quality restaurant, but only with expensive make up on.

     
Kimble Ngo (McMaster) replied to David's poston August 23, 2007 at 8:46am
Well that business. People arent coming for the food, its the atmoshpere, the stratification of money, and image based. Who wouldnt want to aspire to be wealthy if the wealthy lived like joe blows?

     
Alan Lu (Rutgers) replied to Kimble's poston August 23, 2007 at 9:57am
asians high rollers can still be cheap after all :D

but yeah, rich asian people could care less about our group haha...

     
Alan Lu (Rutgers) replied to David's poston August 23, 2007 at 9:58am
yeah! same food but a different more renowned chef

     
Kimble Ngo (McMaster) replied to alan's poston August 23, 2007 at 10:23am
Yeah but only the Bread winners. Those who are cheap have a very strong sense of financial and money's worth.

Those who spend lavishly not so much

     
David WAn wroteon August 23, 2007 at 4:12pm
Ahhh all of this fame, atomsphere image owe their existence to the media in someway, which just show how powerful and evil the media is

     
Alvin Lin (MIT) wroteon November 29, 2007 at 12:20am
Here are 5 threads I just bumped, since I somehow doubt new members automatically check out the 'master introductory thread' in the news section.

     
Alvin Lin (MIT) replied to Alvin's poston December 1, 2007 at 5:29pm
bump for the poster 'jay bulworth'

     
James Chou replied to Alvin's poston December 1, 2007 at 9:58pm
Some people actually joined World of WarCraft after watching that South Park episode.

     
Steve Hojiminy (Houston, TX) wroteon December 1, 2007 at 10:32pm
I think it's important to remember how subtle and pervasive media influence is. People look at how sales shot up after product placement in a movie, and they think that it doesn't get any deeper than that, that it's just weak willed people who see something on TV and then want it.

Just about everyone thinks that they are somehow above the masses because they see commercials and it doesn't instantly make them want to buy the products featured.

Almost every aspect of our lives is affected by media down to the clothes we wear, the food we eat, all the products we use and buy, even our hobbies. Just because you didn't start playing Dungeons & Dragons after seeing the Lord of the Rings movies doesn't mean that they haven't affected you.

     
Alvin Lin (MIT) wroteon December 2, 2007 at 6:36pm
great find by margaret tran:
------
Sydney metropolitan newspaper about the impact of Western films on Japanese women.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/on-a-lovestruck-mission-to-learn-english/2007/11/30/1196394619042.html
----------
On a lovestruck mission to learn English
Justin Norrie in Tokyo
December 1, 2007

When she left Japan, Motoko Ono was qualifed to be a Shinto priestess. But a lifetime of spiritual training could not prepare the 22-year-old for her first kiss, shared on the couch with "an Aussie man at the pub the other week".

"I'd never had a boyfriend so I thought, 'Oh my goodness, is it really happening?" gushed the shy Tokyo woman, who arrived in Sydney eight months ago to study English.

The next step, she says, could be getting a full-time Australian boyfriend to help sharpen her conversational skills and realise her akogare - a deeply entrenched notion of yearning felt by many Japanese women for a mastery of English, a Western emancipated life-style and often, a good-looking Western man.

Macquarie University researcher Kimie Takahashi spent five years interviewing young Japanese women studying English in Sydney, and found that almost all had arrived coveting a handsome and courteous English-speaking "gentleman" loosely based on their favourite Western film stars.

     
PeterLo (Santa Clara) replied to David's poston January 23, 2008 at 11:59pm
http://www.sinorestaurant.com/

The place probably does well because it sells itself as an exotic chinese lounge, but the food itself is rather westernized.

     
Kyle Robinson (Kennesaw) wroteon January 24, 2008 at 6:54am
I saw Cloverfield the other day, and I was thinking about this exact same thing - if the moviemakers charged a company to show their brand and model of camera as the one used in the movie, sales of that camera would shoot so high that the company couldn't make them quickly enough to meet demand!

     
Alvin Lin (MIT) wroteon May 20, 2008 at 2:23pm
bump for those who don't read the master thread

     
Nan Chen (Hawaii) wroteon May 20, 2008 at 4:49pm
Those are just anecdotal evidence. There's far stronger evidence from studies conducted by sociologists, psychologists, cognitive scientists, neuroscientists and others that the media has tramendous impact on how people see and respond to the world. There's even good evidence from the new interdisciplinary field of computational-neuroscience that media influence can literally, rewire the neuro-chemical, learning and perceptual structure of the human brain. People are literally, being rewired and reprogramed to respond in certain ways to media influences. A good laymen's introduction to this field of computational neuroscience is Read Montague's book, "Why Choose This Book?"

The media and especially those in the advertising industry are fully aware of their power and exploit it all the time.Remember, the advertising industry is a half-trillion dollar a year industry. Companies don't like to waste money so there's a very good reason they are spending so much cash to advertise.

People are not as free as they think they are. One of the first major studies to come out on how the news influences people's fears and prejudices was a classic study conducted by Duke university in the early 80s. WHat they did was to compare and rank the amount of "air-time" then current topics in the news recieved. They then asked a (very large) sample of Americans to rank what they thought were the most important issues to them concerning contemporary American society and the world. What the study found was that there was almost a 1.0 correlation between what the media had as recieving the most air-time and what the people thought as most important issues concerning society and the world. Moreover, to show that there was a one way relationship, it was found that there was a slight time lag between the changes in people's rankings and changes in news air-time rankings.

The media creates fears, demands, values, etc for the public at will all the time. It is even able to change the way people percieve visual stimulous.

     
Alvin Lin (MIT) replied to Nan's poston May 20, 2008 at 5:01pm
Nan, any links you can be provide would be awesome, sounds like you're knowledgeable about this stuff

     
Adi Kurniawan (Ohio State) wroteon May 20, 2008 at 5:02pm
hmm, this reminds me about that time I started to cross train in MT and BJJ after watching my first MMA match...

     
Nan Chen (Hawaii) replied to Alvin's poston May 20, 2008 at 5:24pm
This textbook on media persuasion is a good starter.

http://www.amazon.com/Persuasion-Media-PowerWeb-Timothy-Borchers/dp/0072993375/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=...

The Read Montague book is also pretty good. I often try to read articles published in journals on this stuff. Many of them you can find online or in a Uni. library.

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