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From: lab@qubix.UUCP (Q-Bick)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Indoctrination
Message-ID: <1479@qubix.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 29-Oct-84 14:54:35 EST
Article-I.D.: qubix.1479
Posted: Mon Oct 29 14:54:35 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 31-Oct-84 06:04:31 EST
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> [the inimitable Chuq]
> The media creates and manipulates the image. One thing going for their
> favor is almost everyone goes through a time when they are exceptionally
> vulnerable to indoctrination-- adolescense. Peer pressure is exceptionally
> high-- Madison avenue simply needs to put the image out, and your friends
> (all of which are just as insecure as you are, because all of your bodies
> aree changing and your minds and hormones are in chaos) will make sure that
> you fall into line, or ridicule you for it. Why do we have such a large
> problem with smoking and drugs and drinking and pregnancy during the teen
> years? It isn't the tobacco industry or the beer group or this or that, it
> is the fact that you go through a phase where you need to belong, and
> someone in the group that {sex,drugs,rock&roll,beer,smokes} is how you
> belong. The alternative is being ***OUTSIDE***, and that is worse than
> death. You may not like it, but you conform. And then, you will likely
> conform to some degree the rest of your life. THEY have you.

Right on target. But from the discussion I've seen here, I think the
media has still successfully pulled a goody. A lot of attention is being
paid to commercials and ads - but what about the programs themselves?
Those are also conveying values, trying to create and manipulate images.
(Or haven't you seen the results on T-shirts, in toy stores & gift shops,
etc.? Or, more disastrously, the violence spawned by ideas seen on the
tube or the screen?) And they are probably *more* effective, because the
viewer is more likely to identify with the character(s) involved therein
than with those in a commercial.

BTW, this also applies to radio, magazines, and movies.
-- 
		The Ice Floe of Larry Bickford
		{amd,decwrl,sun,idi,ittvax}!qubix!lab

You can't settle the issue until you've settled how to settle the issue.