FROM THE UK: FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A DECADE

Channel 4 overtakes BBC2 in ratings
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,1675337,00.html

MEDIA TREND

Noted by the Club of Amsterdam with approval, They are having a conference to bolster this media trend:

”Much of today’s media is dominated by sports - including football, athletics, cricket, volleyball, motocross, horse-racing, snooker and golf. Entire broadcasting, advertising, media and gaming industries rely on it. They feed off the passion it arouses within ordinary people.

“Players are traded as commodities as part of multi-million deals, while their intimate moments are the subject of popular envy and public press scrutiny. Perhaps, one day, all this and more will feed off the virtual gaming industry too. In the meantime, some musicians are composing songs for first release in computer games and video producers are using
gaming technology to design real-world TV sets, interaction scenarios for mobile phones and prepare shotlists before shooting a movie. Are we at risk if these virtual and real-world lifestyles are interacting so closely? Where do social media like blogs fit in? Ultimately, the convergence of gaming and broadcast is not just a new medium but a whole new world.”

A GREAT LOSS FOR MEDIA REEORM

George Gerbner has died. I was one of the backers of his cultural environment movement and an admirer of his many insight into how our media defrauds our democracy. Unlike many others, he had data and original scholarship to back him up.

He was a major influence….He was a friend of mine.

Myrna Oliver of the he LA Times wrote a long and informative obit:

”George Gerbner, an educator and pioneer researcher into the influence of television violence on viewers’ perceptions of the world, has died. He was 86.

Gerbner, the former dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, died Saturday at his home in Philadelphia of unspecified causes.

Always interested in storytelling, the Hungarian-born Gerbner became concerned as television and motion pictures supplanted family members and friends in relaying tales both true and fictional.

By 2000, after more than three decades of study, Gerbner told National Public Radio that he had ceased to view television as a medium.

“I call it a cultural environment into which our children are born, and which tells all the stories,” he said. “You know, who tells the stories of a culture really governs human behavior. It used to be the parent, the school, the church, the community. Now it’s a handful of global conglomerates that have nothing to tell, but a great deal to sell.”

He said average homes had a television set turned on at least seven hours a day, and that youngsters were learning to read by watching television commercials, developing a consumer mentality.

During his 25-year tenure as dean in the Penn communications school, which was funded by TV Guide magnate Walter Annenberg, Gerbner received numerous grants to study the portrayal of violence on television and in films and also to analyze how TV and films showcase particular professions and demographic groups.”

George Gerbner, presente. Mediachannel.org honors you for your courage and contribution to our understanding of the peversion of an important medium. His message: if you care about the natural environment, you must care about the cultural environment.

LA Times.com (search)

NEW POLL SHOWS MANY AMERICANS STILL MISINFORMED
http://jabbs.blogspot.com.