notes on 'dumbing down and dumbing up'

Notes on dumbing down and dumbing up.

Media has been forever accused of making trash TV including texts that will make us increasingly stupid by ‘rotting our minds’.
Sarah mills article:
Dumbing down is the idea that the modern day society is becoming dumber and the media such as newspapers are becoming easier and more simplified
The comparison made is usually with some ideas about the olden days and how everything was more serious etc.
Commonly from an old person talking about how good things were back then compared to now.
Rather than trashy TV reflecting a stupider audience she thinks it meets the needs of a better educated and more informed audience
Bbc- lord Reith was in charge from 1922 to 27 and he set the tone and believed that it should focus on ‘intellectual and cultural’ improvements. He thought it was good for them. He didn’t consider what they wanted
‘Eat your greens’ mentality still underlies much of the BBC’s aim to inform and educate alongside entertain.
There has been an increase in mass education.
This means that people don’t need to rely on TV and radio for education.
We have rising schools of which all people are entitled to for free until the uni age. We have a lot more people going to study degrees now than the past which contradicts everything.
Times have changed; the stereotype of someone coming home to educational channels is over.
People are more likely to be fully literate, have GCSE’s to do than the above stereotype and need a form of escapism.
This audience is of whom wanted to satisfy a different range of needs.
Blumler and Katz’s framework suggests that people’s needs for diversion and entertainment and personal companionship and identity satisfies people a lot more than informing people in the modern day. This is because people don’t need to be informed anymore.
Role and purpose of broadcasting changed.
Entertaining the well-educated rather than filling educational gaps.
Today we don’t need to know the facts because we have the internet but old people complain our days are too easy because we work in a different way e.g. coursework exams. Old times were harder in general so it was easier just to know the facts
Being able to manipulate the mass info on the internet is a huge skill.
More information available now than ever before such as 24/7 news from all around the world.
Computer is often the main learning source not the old TVs.
TVs don’t give people as much info at the internet.
As a result shows are dominated to entertain people.
Now there are hundreds of thousands of channels because of new satellite TV. One channel no longer supplies our needs therefore don’t seek to balance input.
Only entertains a small section of people targeting a specific type of person e.g. pregnant woman.
Modern television caters for all needs, whether entertaining or intellectual like documentaries.
Quality of programs fall because the inevitability of the consequence of the number of channels
With a smaller audience share and less revenue from advertisers many programs have to become cheaper. cheaper to make or less expensive to buy
Loads of new ways to reach to an audience and minority programming is becoming more the norm.
Evidence of dumbing down: Trisha, Jeremy Kyle, big brother, wife swap.
They all share a focus on personal, domestic and social matters.
All been regarded as female by traditionalists.
As times go by, the older the person, the less the knowledge applies to our everyday life.
The world is changing too much, too quickly
The clear division of male and female roles in life no longer exists. This both widens the possible audience for trash TV programs and gives them a more prime-time status.
Now the single person home is more common than one where the extended family all live under the same roof, TV may help replace the lost community.
We now turn on the TV and relate closely to the TV characters, rather than row with neighbours’ outside.
Some people don’t like trash TV because of nuts and sluts it displays to the public.
She doesn’t’t believe that this is the decline of moral standards. That of today’s current affairs can relate to Shakespeare- but Shakespeare wasn’t seen as bad even though in theory it is worse.
This tells the audience that people have always loved the dramatic and extreme.
Also suggests that producers have always had to compete for audiences. They find that extremities draw crowds in.
Its cultural snobbery for those who reject chat shows and so on yet watch things in the theatre.
People may not like trash because they fear how it will affect its audience- hypodermic syringe model.
Middle class people can watch what they want and won’t be affected, but a working class person or anyone below can’t be trusted.
The effects of hypodermic syringe theory works in favour of the powerful people in society.
It comes down to personal choice
If trash TV is evidence of society dumbing down then she must be dumb too cause she likes it even though she likes intellectual things such as literature.