BBC propaganda???

[Justin_Anstey]

The recent Sunday evening Channel4 series 'The History of Surveillance' mentioned how the BBC was used during the cold war to promote establishment approved values.

Judging by the type of thing they show nowadays, (home improvement, garden improvement, pet improvement, etc.), do you think that is still the case or are they now just pandering to a perceived demographic?

I suppose that the minds of people today were formed by the old propaganda as they grew up?

-Justin

dot23- "I definately think that TV is used as a tool of social control. Just look at the amount of people watching it. I can safely say that my girlfriend is addicted to tv, she gets home, turns it on, watches it till 11 then goes to bed. That's about 4 hours of tv per day. Luckily she's a very intelligent woman, and isn't sucked in too much by what is being offered, but I find alot of what she watches deeply deprresing. Gardening shows. home improvement, cooking, fashion. LADIES IT'S TH 3RD MELLENIUM NOW, TIME TO WAKE UP!!! I mean, this stuff is trash.

Consider the demographic of people who actually watch these programmes on daytime tv. Young mothers, the unemployed, students. None of these people actually act on the advice of these programmes.

TV cookery has replaced eating, home improvement shows have replaced living.

Most people who watch these shows are probably fairly poor, live in cities, have had little by way of practical domestic knowledge, and yet they're meant to be interested in this pap! It doesn't add up. Are they really watching these programmes as a means of enriching their inner lives? I don't think so. They are slowly brainwashing these people, the message is 'ignore your surroundings, your lack of education, your poverty, and live in la-la land with all the lovely smiling people'. This chinese water torture method eventually robs the viewer of any reason to live, and they eventually slip off their sofas in piles of gibbering goo.

As you can see, I'm not a big fan of tv."

'Non-lethal weaponry':
"Limitless cheap pleasure, not pain or suffering, is to be the ultimate weapon used in breaking the will of a population, without a drop of blood being shed."
-Colin Bennett, FT148: pg39.

Having said that, most of my posts here so far have been based on what I've seen in TV documentaries recently. Oh well.

-Justin.

 

[Mob1138]

intresting point made by a friend a couple of months ago.he pointed out how these shows have replaced ones like the clothes show & all the spin offs that populated tv about 6/7 years ago.

after some thought(& beer)we decided that people were just out to live through mindless decoration & nobody really cared about jeff banks any more.

but it is social manipulation.ive been sucked in a few times,god help me.its bloody easy.its just cheap tv for the braindead.i would not want anyone else in 1000 years coming into my house & redesigning it.i can think for myself.

 

[Anonymous]

This almost relates to something I said on another thread about music... These kind of shows - soap operas, home/pet/life improvement, 'reality' tv - encourage people to look outside themselves for meaning and experience.

People become happy with a sort of pseudo existance, a surrogate life through other people. Instead of taking part in life, they watch events in a soap opera. Rather than change their own environment, they are happy to see Lourence Lewellwelwleyn Bowen change someone elses.

Reality tv - big brother, survivor et al - is the same... Occupying the viewer with a fake (but less obviously so) life while their own ebbs away...

Having said that, most of my posts here so far have been based on what I've seen in TV documentaries recently. Oh well.

haha, this is probably true for me too though!

I'm actually glad that my working life, and the fact that I want and need to create music and pictures in whatever time I have left, leaves me little opportunity to watch television.

Bye

Martin

 

[JamesWhitehead]

Alarm at the dumbing-down of tv has been expressed recently
by many commentators. Accused by Lord Bragg of having no
arts programmes, the BBC was able to point to a forthcoming
special of the Impressionists - hosted by Rolf Harris!

The suspicion remains that it may be more Yarwood than Monet.

The reality of the dumbing down is hard to deny but as Polly
Toynbee remarked in the Guardian this week, the dumb yoof
market is beginning to seem tired in a country where ever increasing
numbers of young people have degrees. Not all of them from the
University of MacDonalds.

As budgets have shrunk, the level of public participation in shows
has been ramped up. The notion that anyone could market the
holiday activities of lager louts as entertainment is astonishing but
I suspect the audience is mainly made up of old voyeurs. There will
be no shortage of people willing to have themselves packaged as
eager punters for whatever indignities the companies invent.

I would mildly take issue with the view that underclass couch
potatoes swallow Lifestyle tv uncritically. Probably some do. But
there is an ambiguity to the "working-class" attitude to tv: fierce in
its comments about people who are too posh to watch the junk
that they are "compelled" to suffer. More Rab. T. Nesbitt than
the Royle Family. Not that I watch the thing myself, but the servants
often do.

 

[lucydru]

Justin

Why have two threads about the same thing? The only difference being the question marks!

lucydru

 

[Anonymous]

...The reality of the dumbing down is hard to deny but as Polly
Toynbee remarked in the Guardian this week, the dumb yoof
market is beginning to seem tired in a country where ever increasing
numbers of young people have degrees. Not all of them from the
University of MacDonalds...

The 'yoof' market is indeed becoming tired. In fact, it's fallen asleep and died in the night. However, it's unfortunate that the reason more people are getting degrees is that it's now so incredibly easy to get into university. Not the fault of the Uni's themselves (most of which are the old Poly's anyway) but because of the dumbing down of school-leaving exams, which in turn demand reduced expectations for A-levels. Soon it'll just be a case of ticking a box - do you want to go on to further education Y or N? Mind you, a good proportion would fail that,too...

 

[Mob1138]

its so easy to get into uni that some will accept you over the phone without a interview.the amount of times you see kids studying for media studies degrees at the expense of traditinal degrees is depressing.
its true that cheap stupid tv is the order of the day.the yoof market is high & the problem is its far too easy to be sucked in.after all how empty must your life be if you consider helen from big brother a celebrity.

 

[Anonymous]

an obervation of telly influence on people... when my mum was dieing of cancer my perviously sane-ish auntie went te gamut of Tv programs in emotion from Marcus Wellby MD (miricul cure) to District Nurse (euthanasia) to Eastenders ( tantrums and extravigant gestures) ...posibly they portray real life and emotions on telly but i suspect she thought thats how real people acted.