The difficulty with this study is that it is almost impossible to quantitatively measure the mental effect a film has on a person. We can measure the physical regurgitation of scenes and accents, makeup and fashion, but because these are physical, overt behaviors, one can deduce that there exists some sort of control and choice. When a girl bats her eyes like her favorite movie star, or wears her hair in a certain style, it is a conscious action, a choice to comply or rebel to the Hollywood image. It is what we can’t see and document that is more significant. George Gerbner, author of the article, “Living with Television: The Dynamics of the Cultivation Process,” speaks to this weakness of Blumer’s argument of direct effects when he says, “…this conceptualization of effect as immediate change among individuals has not produced research that helps us understand the distinctive features of television: massive, long term, and common exposure of large and heterogeneous publics to centrally produced, mass-distribute, and repetitive systems of stories”(20). Gerbner, who has participated in audience research for over thirty years and coined the term cultivation analysis, believes in long-term effects and that television viewers' beliefs about reality are shaped by heavy exposure to stable, repetitive, and pervasive patterns that television presents. It isn’t the audiences’ behavior that is changed after viewing one film, but their views and ideals about race and gender that are constructed over a period of time and have serious social implications. When a person watches a film that shows domestic abuse they normally don’t go out and begin assaulting women. However, as Gerbner points out, “The assumptions, beliefs, and values of heavy viewers [of television] differ systematically from those of comparable groups of light viewers […] most groups of heavy viewer score higher on our sexism scale”(29). Mr. Gerbner also highlights that there is a direct correlation to the amount of television someone watches, and the anxiety that they feel about the safety in their neighborhood. Television and other mediated messages do affect society on a daily basis. Nonetheless, it is the constant submersion in a television culture, with repetition of stereotypes and beliefs, which create the more subversive consequences that construct our knowledge of the world in a very frightening way.
Another hole in Blumer’s argument is that he lacks the recognition of prominent factors and circumstances. He gives no respect to issues such as income and location, arguing that there is no difference between child’s play with boys from the suburbs and those from inner city slums. He states, “The evidence we have been able to secure shows an essential uniformity in the kinds of movie-inspired play among children regardless of their social status”(21). In terms of difference in social background and income, Blumer’s claim is completely ludicrous. People are complex and different and do not read messages the same way, regardless of the fact that one is a neighbor or just an acquaintance. A child growing up in, as Blumer puts it, “the slums of Chicago” would not have access to as many theatres, playing as many kinds of films, as frequently, then a child that is more affluent and in a higher income location; that is a hard fact. Gerbner’s argument also highlights this hole in Blumer’s case because Gerbner accounts for many influences in a person’s life that would attribute to their behavior. He believes the effect of the media is, “subtle, complex, and intermingled with other influences”(23). To neglect the fact that income and living situation does not contribute to the understanding of media’s messages is negligent and privy to the idea that the Blumer studies weren’t as extensive or thorough as George Gerbner’s. It is the long term effects of television, not the direct influence, that shape and control our ways of seeing the world and living in it.
As Gerbner discussed the content of television to be one of the major sources in constructing our way of thought, one also must account for the larger picture of the capitalist mode of production. One can agree that there is decent programming in existence today. Content that is educational, thought provoking, and even programming that questions the larger scheme of its own creation. What is important to look at is the profit-laden motivations in all programming and how this constructs the audience. Oscar H. Gandy, author of the article “Tracking the audience,” speaks about the creation of audiences as products. When one sits at home watching television or reading a magazine it is considered leisure time. A time to relax, enjoy some entertainment and forget about the worries of the day. Gandy, in his writings, shows us how this isn’t entirely the case. He writes, “Commercial broadcasters ‘produce audiences’ or, more precisely, blocks of time during which it is possible to communicate with audiences, which they then sell to advertisers”(169). As an audience, we don’t see this; we are removed from our production of being a commercial item. This is known as commodity fetishism, the ability to erase the connection between the item that we hold and its journey into our hands. Gandy argues that there is a very close relationship between the media industries and the commercial and consumer aspect brought about by advertisers. One can see that there is larger perspective to contemplate than just effects when the audience has become a part of an economic strategy. In our media dominated world today, people are no longer people, but dollar signs. We have become valued as consumers and customers. What can one say about a society driven by profit and greed? It is the process of the increasing privatization and dissemination of the corporate and capitalist ideologies that push us farther and farther into a moral decline.
In the present time, with the ever-growing power of the media corporations and the increasing dependency on their technological devices, the future seems bleak. As Gerbner points out in the beginning of his article, “The longer we live with television, the more invisible it becomes”(17). The study of media effects isn’t to make one feel hopeless or even to offer an all-powerful panacea to this growing problem. The audience does still have agency. One has the ability to choose, to watch, to change the channel, and most importantly, to spend. The importance of media and audience studies is to make society aware of these conditions and to see through the smoke screen. With this knowledge and understanding the manipulation process will be that much more difficult.
Work Cited
Ross, K., Nightingale, V. (2003). Media and audiences: New Perspectives. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press.
Blumer, H. (1933). Movies and Conduct. New York: The MacMillan Company.
Gandy, O. (1990). Tracking the audience. In Downing, J. (Ed) Questioning the media- A critical introduction. pp.166-179. Newbury Park: Sage
Gerbner, G. et al (1986). Living with television: The dynamics of the cultivation process. In Bryant, J. & Zillman, D. (Eds) Perspectives on media effects. Pp.17-39. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum