The Influence of Mass Culture
In centuries past,family and teachers were the dominant,and sometimes the only,influence on children.Today,however,the influence exerted by mass culture(the broadcast media,newspapers,magazines,Internet and popular music)often is greater.
By age 18 the average teenager has spent 11,000 hours in the classroom and 22,000 hours in front of the television set. He or she has had perhaps 13,000 school lessons yet has watched more than 750,000 commercials.By age thirty-five the same person has had fewer than 20,000 school lessons yet has watched approximately 45,000 hours of television and close to 2 million commercials.
What effects does mass culture have on us?To answer,we need only consider the aormats and devices commonly used in the media.Modern advertising typically bombards the public with slogans and testimonials by celebrities.This approach is designed to appeal to emotions and create artificial needs for products and services.As a result,many people develop the habit of responding emotionally,impulsively,and gullibly to such appeals.They also tend to acquire values very different from those taught in the home and the school.Ads often portray play as more fulfilling than work,self-gratification as more desirable than self-control,and materialism as more meaningful than idealism.
Television programmers use frequent scene shifts and sensory appeals such as car crashes,violence,and sexual encounters to keep audience interest from diminishing.Then they add frequent commercial interruptions.This author has analyzed the attention shifts that television viewers are subjected to.In a dramatic program,for example,attention shifts might include camera angle changes;*shifts in story line from one set of characters(or subplot)to another,or from a present scene to a past scene(flashback),or to fantasy;and shifts to "nesbreaks,"to commercial breaks,from one commercial to another,and back to the program.Also included might be shifts of attention that occur within commercials.I found as many as 78 shifts per hour,excluding the shifts within commercials.ranged from 6 to 54 and averaged approximately 17 per fifteen-second commercial.The total number of attention shifts came out to over 800 per hour,or over 14 per minute.+
This manipulation has prevented many people from developing a mature attention span.They expect the classroom and the workplace to provide the same constant excitement they get from television.That,of course,is an impossible demand,and when it isn't met they call their teachers boring and their work unfulfilling.Because such people seldom have the patience to read books that require them to think,many publishers have replaced serious books with light fare written by celebrities.
Even when writers of serious books do manage to become published authors,they are often directed to give short,dramatic answers during promotional interviews,sometimes at the expense of accuracy.A man who coaches writers for talk shows offered one client this advice:"If I ask you whether the budget deficit is a good thing or a bad thing, you should not say,'Well,it stimulates the economy but it passes on a burden.'You have to say'It's a great idea!'or'It's a terrible idea!'It doesn't matter which."(Translation:"Don't give a balanced answer.Give an oversimplified one because it will get you noticed.")
Print journalism is also in the grip of sensationalism.As a newspaper editor observed,"Journalists keep trying to find people who are at 1 or 9 on a scale of 1 to 10 rather than people at 3 to 7[the more moderate positions] where most people actually are."Another journalist claims,"News is now becoming more opinion than verified fact.Journalists are slipping into entertainment rather than telling us the verified facts we need to know."
Today's politicians often manipulate people more offensively than do journalists.Instead of expressing their thoughts,some politicians find out what people think and pretend to share their ideas.Many politicians hire people to conduct polls and focus groups to learn what messages will"sell."They even go so far as to test the impact of certain words--That is why we hear so much about"trust","family,""character,"and "values"these days.Political science professor Larry Sabato says that during the Clinton impeachment trial,the president's advisors used the term private lives over and over--James Carville used it six times in one four-minute speech--because they knew it could persuade people into believing the president's lying under oath was of no great consequence.
*This is typically accomplished by using two or more cameras and switching from one camera to another.
+There are about eleven minutes of commercials per hour,the exact time varying by network and program.Thus,at a rate of 4 per minute,the total number of commercials per hour is 44.This calculates,therefore,to 78 shifts outside commercials plus 748 shifts(17 shifts per commercial X 44 commercials per hour)within commercials for a total of 826.
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自翻：
群体文化的影响
在过去的几个世纪，家庭和老师对孩子的影响占据着统治地位，甚至有时候仅有家庭和老师影响着他们。今时今日，无论怎样，群体文化（广播传媒，报纸，杂志，因特网以及流行音乐）通常对人们的影响变得更有力量。
成长到18岁的青少年花费11,000个小时呆在教室并且花费22，000个小时在电视机前。他们也许听了13,000场学校课程然而却看了超过750,000个商业广告。直至35岁，这批人少有能听过20,000场学校课程却会看大约45,000小时的电视，接近两百万商业广告。
这种群体文化会带给我们什么结果？为了回答这个问题，我们仅需要考虑在传媒中通常会运用到的装置以及程式。现代广告业通过名人的标识和证明来代言从而轰炸公众。这种方法被设计出来是为了让人们对生产和服务拥有情感以及创造出人为的需求。结果，许多人为了回应这种情感，推动力以及欺骗发展出了一些习惯。他们也注意到这与学校和家庭的教育所获得的价值完全不一样。广告通常带有更加娱乐的性质是工作给予不了的，个人满足带来的喜悦要远远大于个人控制，并且唯物主义要比唯心主义有意义的多。电视节目的设计频繁地使用场景的切换以及撞车，暴力和性镜头的出现去刺激观众，以免其减少。这些编剧已经分析出电视观众注意力的变化以便牵着观众的鼻子走。在一部戏剧化的剧本中，注意力的焦点也许包括了摄像角度*；故事主线的变化从一个角色（或者次要情节）转移到另外一个，或者从一个现在的场景转移到过去的场景（倒叙），再或者是一个幻想；同时这些变化成为有价值的报道，成为商业广告，从一个广告接着一个，最终回归到剧本之中。也包括了在广告中发生的注意力的转换。我发现除了广告中场景的变幻，每小时可以达到将近78次，这个数字在商业广告的的场景中可以达到6到54次，也就是平均下来可以精确到每15秒17次的广告场景转换。这使得注意力转化的总数超过了每小时800次，或者说超过了每分钟14次。
这种操作方式已经妨碍了很多人形成一种成熟的注意力范围。他们期望在课堂或者工作单位也能提供如电视机一样的这种恒定的刺激。那种需求当然不可能实现，并且当不可求时他们就会说他们的老师很无趣或者他们的工作很无聊。因为这些人们很少去练习读书这种可以让他们思考的事情，大部分出版商都需要通过名人写的美食替换那些严肃的书本。
即使当这些正统图书的作则设法成为了出版作家，他们仍然需要经常把精力用在面对促销会时给出简短而又鼓舞人心的回答，有时甚至在准确性上都会有所不足。一位专门从事训练作者如何面对促销会的人提出建议：“如果我问你赤字预算究竟是好事还是坏事的时候，你最好不要说‘它刺激了经济但是又脱离了责任。’你要说‘这是一个非常棒的主意！’或者‘这是一个糟糕的主意’无所谓究竟是哪一种。”（翻译：“不要给出一个中立的答案。给出一个过于简单的因为这样可以吸引关注。”）
新闻出版业也被娱乐界掌控。就像一个报纸编辑观察到的一样，“把人的话题标准分成1到10，新闻从业者致力于找到标准上的1或者是10的人（这种人有的话题性更能刺激他人）而不是3到7的那种人，实际上3到7的人群才占大多数。”另外一些新闻工作者声称，“现在的新闻变得比起事实真相，人们更愿意看到更多的看法，新闻从业者都陷入娱乐性而不是告诉我们所需要的真相。”
今天的政客在操作人们方面比起新闻工作者误导大众做的更过分。一些政客通过研究人们的想法并且假装这就是自己的想法，从而再表达给民众。很多政客雇人去引导票选并且集中人群去学习将要“出售”的信息。他们通过测试出的关键词影响力走的更远——这也是为什么我们近些年听过如此多的关于“信任”“家庭”“品质”以及“价值”这些词的信息。政治学教授Larry Sabato谈起在克林顿弹劾事件的审判中，总统顾问一次又一次的使用了“私生活”这个术语——James Carville在一次四分钟的演讲中使用了六次——因为他们知道这会说服群中相信总统的谎言并没有建立在违反誓言的基础上。
*这是一种使用两台或更多的摄像机来回切换使用的一种熟练手法。
+每小时大约有11分钟的广告，这个精确的时间变化是由网络和程序得出。因此，每分钟有四个广告，那么广告的总数每小时就是44个。通过计算，可以得出，广告之外的的78次场景转换加上广告中的748次场景转换（每个广告17次场景转换X每小时44个广告）得出了总数826次。
