"Fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled, more susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard-line postures. They may accept and even welcome repression if it promises to relieve their insecurities. That is the deeper problem of violence-laden television."
-George Gerbner to a Congressional subcommittee on communications in 1981.
George Gerbner, dean emeritus of the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, died on December 24th. He is remembered for his research on the effects television violence on society. The above quote was included in the NYT obit and I thought, "Wow, can that be directly applied to 24-hour news and the Bush '04 campaign."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment