Any halfway decent content producer will tell you that the most popular movies/tv shows resonate in some way with what the audience already knows. You can push people's awareness around the edges, but the totally unfamiliar or unacceptable will flop.

The post assumes that tv makes society what it is, but the opposite argument is also valid. It's a two way process. Try limiting tv to reruns of the Beverly Hillbillies, the Flying Nun, Happy Days and Greenacres and see how the ratings go.

I seem to have a different concept of morrality than most on this thread.

I do not consider revealing clothes, nudity, exotic dancing, sex between consenting adults immoral. Nor prostitution or sex outside a partnership, wirh the partners consent, immoral. As there is some music/art I do not like, some sexual acts I find distasteful but not immoral.

What I find immoral is lieing, cheating, deceiving, conning, fraud, theft, exploiting and taking advantage of another for ones own gain.

So Polycarp if media promote that immediately above I think we should act to prevent it.

Gibo,
Perhaps I phrased it wrongly. Nothing we see today in the media is new.
All this debauchery (sex and drugs) has been a function of human nature since the year spot (you choose which creation suits your mind). If the media went prim and proper the problems would still be there and would continue as a steady state. They are influenced by other factors e.g. Homosexuality is a fact not a choice.

The moral decay I was referring to is that which comes from social disintegration when we are desensitized to the plight and responsibilities of others. This in my mind has occurred because of the ever expanding need to sell more. To facilitate this we are indoctrinated with half truths, biased information and false reasoning i.e. wants and needs are interchangeable, that current capitalism as it is now is THE only way.
Self is more important than We et al.

The media is just the vector NOT the cause WE ARE THE CAUSE because we buy all the goods from AMMORAL corporations that exploit the less powerful because it’s cheap or we’re willing to believe those goods will some how make us happy.

Logically if this Pap wasn’t effective then Commerce wouldn’t use it. We need to stop blaming non human victims and others for OUR failures. Then maybe we can then fix the world.

Well.... I guess it was not difficult to predict where the thread might go... but my intention was to examine the 'process' than focus on the 'sin and degradation' aspect.

The show which was my source was the Happy Days Re-Union.. and the character in question was 'The Fonz'.

According to the show, when the 'Fonz'...went to a library and took out a library card membership....the impact was so great and so measurable... that the enrollment for library cards went up by 500% after that episode.

The psychology of behavior (or at least Attitude) change is usually linked to opinion leaders.

This is not an issue that I think any reasonable person would argue against in principle.

The one where it appears argument does arise, is when the actual change is of a 'moral' nature. Library cards will hardly send us to perdition.

A study of this should look at:

1/ 'Is the change of a perceived 'negative' direction or positive'?
2/ 'If it is perceived as negative, how much will parental influence effect the outcome'?
3/ How much will Peer pressure/peer group opinion leaders add to the influence of the negative moral direction?

The Process might be:

a) Highly popular TV/Movie identity takes a morally negative direction, and the show portrays him as highly successful in that step. He seems to have gained reward.. satisfaction and perhaps a degree of glory.

b) Fan begins to question parental/accepted moral norms.

c) Peer group opinion leaders/shapers of the fan decide to opt for the same direction.

d)The fan and most of those who are followers rather than leaders modify both behavior and attitude in line with that of the Star/Show.

THE QUESTION. Which we seem to be debating here, is whether such change is in reality of a negative/positive nature?

The opinions seem to break down into the 'Christian' camp (me, Gibo Runner, katie and a few others.. you may refer to us from now as 'The Enlightened ones' :) (couldn't resist that.. to see if anyone is reading) and the 'rest'.

Deviant Behaviour “For example full mouth kissing of someone you have just met of the opposite sex in front of their partner, rather than (perhaps) a kiss on the cheek or a handshake.”

Polycarp… not sure I would call that deviant, unless your words have been “full mouth kissing of someone you have just met of the same sex “

I think we need to understand, the “media” be it TV, newsprint, internet, books, magazines, radio programmes or bark painting are not there to form our moral norms or values. They are not even there to necessarily reflect them.

Media can be divided into two categories, informative and entertainment.

The purely “informative” is providing information for us to consider, and for which "moral content" is irrelevant.

The entertainment component is there to entertain us, possibly by challenging our sense of what is "moral" and “normal” (versus "immoral" and “Deviant”) and not to dwell on turning us into righteous citizens, the SBS programme “Shameless” (which I enjoy for its “cringe value”) comes to mind.

Regarding “Thus.. it is up to all of us to ensure that our media maintains high moral standards in all productions and does not play fast and loose with community standards in the interests of 'ratings'.”

No, it is up to us to decide what we wish to watch, turning off or away form what we find either offensive or (more often) pointless and understand that what suits some of us does, not suit all of us and therefore everyone must expect some things to rancor with our personal standards and expectations

I was wondering what particular hook you had discovered to kick off this particular morality tale, Boaz.

You really don't check anything, do you, when you find the need to make a point.

>>According to the show, when the 'Fonz'...went to a library and took out a library card membership....the impact was so great and so measurable... that the enrollment for library cards went up by 500% after that episode.<<

This claim was made by the show's creator, Garry Marshall, and repeated on the Reunion show by Henry Winkler.

No evidence was provided by either individual.

Nor, according to the American Library Association, could any evidence have been produced, even if they wanted some.

http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=alafaq#46

"there is no report in ALA's American Libraries or in any other library press periodical telling of a surge in signups in the months following the episode. The number of library cards in the United States is one statistic that isn't collected for the Public Libraries in the United States federal survey series by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Neither does a number appear in The Bowker Annual Library and Book Trade Almanac. There's a hesitation to collect and present such numbers, due to the fact that the accuracy of them would vary from library to library."

It has never been checked, tested, verified or even vaguely supported by a second opinion or anecdotal evidence.

Yet on our wonderful, reliable internet, you will find twenty categorical, unqualified repetitions of the ridiculous, self-serving claim, for every one expressing reservations.

So, Boaz, given that the entire foundation of your argument that we are led by the nose by television personalities has been washed away in the oncoming tide of reality - what was your point again?