Joanna said: " I would be interested to know whether anyone on this list would feel that a ban on commercials would be an attack on freedom of speech?"
Why not go half-way, regulate the ad breaks on the air-waves, after all they are public property which stations lease. The only ones who will squeal are the stations but actually fewer ads in fewer breaks only makes the space more valuable - they would do alright I should think.
I don't know about the US but all air-time is already regulated officially, it is just that we let them get away with murder. This is where the censorship lobby stuffs us all up because it puts all liberal minded people in the same camp as the station owners - that is the nexus that needs to be broken. Anti-censorship but tough regulation, do not even try to control the content, but instead concentrate on how the content is presented. Half the crap on TV would loose audience once it was shown without ad breaks, that is poeople would be able to see it for what it is.
The ads break up continuity in such a way that the difference between rubbish and good is obliterated. In Australia we have two government funded stations the ABC which is not allowed to have an ads, and SBS which is partially funded out of ads but minizese their impact by.
1) Greater time space for each ad (this actually improves things). 2) Ads are concentrated in a few spots between programs. 3) Ads are not allowed to break into content.
The SBS model seems to me something worth insisting upon. The importance of TV in popular culture cannot be underestimated, the very least we should be able to do is at least make it available so that what content is there can be viewed coherently.
The best thing about this entirely reformist approach is that the owners can only answer it by decrying their profit loss which at least makes the relationship clear and anything to do with censorship of content is beside the point, in fact it could be argued that the present use of ads are a form of commercialist censorship designed to deprive the audience of culture in any form.
Sorry Joanna this is another one of my hobbyhorses. As for your observation on the effects of ads on narrative I agree entirely. I will point out another few effects.
The type of humour which can survive ad breaks in its twenty minute length can be nothing but a series of skits (Sienfield was excellent in being able to use this and remain coherent) more often the comedy is broken up into a series of one-liners (the Lucy approach - the Nanny being a good example of this). British comedies don't translate all that well when ad breaks are made, often the comic setups take most of the episode to work up to a cresendo and leave room for after-laughs (which leave a pleasant entertained feeling at the end of a show).
I could go on about how ads structure the content and how fairly simple and predictable tricks work only on basis of knowing that the narrative will be broken (Day-time US Soaps are dependant on it). The structure of game shows is consciously designed around the ads, while sport events which have a narrative in the form of a score remain popular because no coherence is necessary as the viewer will be told the score on returning to the event.
An interesting side issue is how quality shows (often very popular) are found where at least some stations are ad-less (the UK being a prime example in the English speaking world). As we get so much US stuff here (epecially the one-hour regulars) the staple of cop/law/hospital/detective all show an ad structure and a lack of coherence, often requiring tiresome dialog interventions to prompt the audience to remember vital details. Comparing this with the Bill, Morse, and other British crime shows is always revealing vis a vis quality - the US makes very few decent popular shows despite the fact that it makes many more than anyone else.
There are many reaons for the disparity in quality, but one major internal influence which never seems to be addressed is the effect of ad breaks which I believe hinders quality shows and makes crap appear good (really it makes everything appear crap its just that we are use to it).
Greg
--- Message Received --- From: Joanna Bujes <joanna.bujes at ebay.sun.com> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Date: Mon, 1 Apr 2002 22:33:24 -0800 Subject: Re: TV /Violence
Greg wrote:
"I do not expect the media to recognise its duty to humanity, but lets contextualise the psychological studies which take a simple and incoorect assumption of direct influence. The only reasonable conclusion from such studies is to sanitise the media (exercise the violence from the programs). Now this will have an effect on the media, it will make it in its present context even more barren and trivial and re-enforce its negative development cutting off what little potential it has for giving human social expression a meaningful avenue."
Thanks taking the time to write... a great post. I would not support the censorship of violence; but I would be interested to know whether anyone on this list would feel that a ban on commercials would be an attack on freedom of speech?
I sometimes try to explain to Americans that one of my biggest traumas was being nine years old, watching a movie on TV for the first time in the U.S. and having a commercial interrupt it. I was confused and then aghast. "Is it over" I asked. "No, no, it's just a commercial." The main message of that commercial for me being: we don't care who you are, we don't care what you're doing, we don't care how you feel, we are going to interrupt because we can. Fuck you. But it's really hard to express the horror of that experience, because that experience is just life; it's just reality here.
The only thing that was ever useful to me about commercials is that they made me understand the spectacle of the seven deadlies. All you out there who read any medieval stuff or even Marlowe's Faustus. Everything is going great for our hero, when they bring on the march of the seven deadly sins: lust, wrath, gluttony, sloth, etc. and the hero falls apart...sells his soul...whatever. I could never get that, why/how could someone come undone by watching this gross stuff parade across the stage. Then one day I was watching a commercial, when it suddenly hit me: this was it: gluttony, sloth, avarice, envy, lust...that's what commercials are selling and that's what they use to sell...AND IT WORKS!!!
I mean, to talk about violence without talking about the violence of advertising is silly. But hey, have they ever done a study on the effect of commercials on the human psyche? And, if they find out it's not to good, what then?
There's just one good thing to remember about this mess: if it were really true that we are inherently and inescapably greedy, lustful, angry, lazy....why do they need to reinforce it every ten minutes? Why?
Joanna
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Greg Schofield Perth Australia g_schofield at dingoblue.net.au ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ Modular And Integrated Design - programing power for all
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