Some thoughts on the media and classical conditioning

But this morning, I woke up with this one thought I wanted to get across, and decided to go for it. Then my computer started giving me unhappy warning boxes about one thing or another, which sucked up precious minutes. I have way less time than I thought. But I'm going to write this thing, dammit. I just want to get this one idea across, and can revisit it later in depth.

It is used in advertising all the time--pair a product with something that already gives you a good feeling, and hopefully the viewer will learn to associate that feeling with your product. Let's say you are selling film, and your ad is going to show the vibrant, realistic colors your brand of film can capture. You might show, say, golden retriever puppies playing on a lush green lawn. That would certainly be a good way of demonstrating vivid colors, right? (The following is a lab and not a golden retriever, but it's a picture I've got, and I bet it will make many of you smile...)



There are, of course, many other possible images that could be used to make the point, "our film captures vivid, realistic colors". For example, say, live, up-close shots of open-heart surgery. What? You say that wouldn't give you a happy feeling? Me neither. So I'm not going to show you a picture of that.

The point, though, is that the people who make commercials make these decisions all the time--which images, music, lighting, etc. will create the desired positive emotion. Or, in some cases, negative emotion. You might want to evoke negative emotions if you are showing another company's product. Or a rival candidate. We see that all the time in political ads--using tone of voice, dark music, unflattering lighting, etc. to create negative emotional responses towards a certain candidate. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen only in political ads, but in contexts that are actually supposed to provide "news".

My dad is a lifelong conservative, and is always going to be against the candidates I like. On the issues, that's a given. But I think his strong, visceral distaste for Howard Dean went beyond the issues. I became aware of this one day when he was going on about Howard's angry face, and the way he yells and shakes his fist. And I realized that he gets his "news" almost exclusively from sources that reinforce that perception. They do this intentionally, of course.

One of Dad's most frequently visited web sites is Drudge. He is always incredulous that Demetrius and I don't like that site. He claims that it's just a clearinghouse of links to different articles. Sure. But it's also a propaganda tool. If there's a headline about Howard Dean, one of those "angry" pictures will accompany it. You certainly won't see a picture like the one I've got in my banner here. No, that wouldn't achieve the desired purpose. Another example of this kind of intentional use of pictures to evoke or reinforce a negative response is when right wing bloggers discuss Rachel Corrie. Of course they don't use the image you see on her memorial site. They use, instead, a very unflattering angry-looking photo. As if that should make people feel less compassion for her--less outrage over the manner in which she died.

So, back to the article about Maryscott O'Connor, which appeared in the Washington Post. I find it patently absurd that so much criticism was directed at Maryscott for the way she "allowed herself to be portrayed". In particular, the unflattering picture that was chosen to accompany the piece.  Why not direct the same amount of energy toward calling the media to task every time we see them trying to reinforce those "angry left" stereotypes?