Saleh Kayyali

The Product of Television. Commercial Television. Is the Audience.

Television delivers people to an advertiser.

There is no such thing as mass media in the United States except for television.

Mass media means that a medium can deliver masses of people.

Commercial television delivers 20 million people a minute.

In commercial broadcasting the viewer pays for the privilege of having himself sold.

It is the consumer who is consumed.

You are the product of t.v.

You are delivered to the advertiser who is the customer.

He consumes you.

The viewer is not responsible for programming------

You are the end product.

You are the end product delivered en masse to the advertiser.

You are the product of t.v.

Everything on television is educational in the sense that it teaches something.

What television teaches through commercialism is materialistic consumption.

The NEW MEDIA STATE is predicated on media control.

Media asserts an influence over an entire cultural spectrum without effort or qualification.

We are persuaded daily by a corporate oligarchy.

Corporate control advocates materialistic propaganda.

Television establishments are committed to economic survival:

Propaganda for Profit.

Television is the prime instrument for the management of consumer demands.

Commercial television defines the world in specific terms.

Commercial television defines the world so as not to threaten the status quo.

Television defines the world so as not to threaten you.

Soft propaganda is considered entertainment.

POPULAR ENTERTAINMENT IS BASICALLY PROPAGANDA FOR THE STATUS QUO.

POPULAR ENTERTAINMENT IS BASICALLY PROPAGANDA FOR THE STATUS QUO.

Control over broadcasting is an exercise in controlling society.

Seventy-five percent of news is received by you from television.

What goes on over the news is what you know.

It is the basis by which you make judgements, by which you think.

You are the controlled product of news programming.

Television programming dominates the exposure of ideas and information.

There is inherent conflict between:

COMMERCE,

INFORMATION,

ENTERTAINMENT.

There is a mass media compulsion to reinforce the status quo. To reinforce the distribution of power.

The NEW MEDIA STATE is dependent on television for its existence.

The NEW MEDIA STATE is dependent on propaganda for its existence.

Corporations that own networks control them.

CORPORATIONS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE.

CORPORATIONS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE TO GOVERNMENT.

CORPORATIONS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE TO THEIR EMPLOYEES.

CORPORATIONS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE TO THEIR SHAREHOLDERS.

Shareholders do not organize and enforce their will. Shareholders will buy stock in companies and don't even know what the companies do.

Corporations mitigate information.

Every dollar spent by the television industry in physical equipment needed to send a message to you is matched by forty dollars spent by you to receive it.

You pay the money to allow someone else to make the choice.

You are consumed.

You are the product of television.

Television delivers people.

Why commercial TV (or any other ad-supported medium can’t be taken seriously)

Television is technology that has the capability of completely changing the culture.

This book is about how television changes our views to politics, religion, news and a bit around education. More of being a social critic, raising awareness around problematic issues.

Neil Postman likes sports, but never watches television when it’s serious. It’s an embarrassment when respected journalists pretend that they’re doing something serious. Finds it embarrassing.

Why? It’s embarrassing because the function of TV in America is to gather an audience which can be sold to advertisers, it should be pointed out that when radio first came to the scene, conservative observers like Herbert Hoover (Secretary of Commerce) didn’t believe that it was possible that radio could be used for commercial purposes. He saw it as an education medium. But by the time television came along, it was well established that this would be used as an instrument for the advancement of corporate profits. So what TV (mostly in America) is an attempt to gather an audience for any reason.

TV is unprecedented. In the past, audience would gather for specific reasons like speeches or events. TV doesn’t do that, its job is to gather an audience, and it doesn’t really care what it uses as the means to gather an audience. In the book, he discovered that American TV knows that the best way to gather an audience is to provide something “amusing” and it may be that TV may not be good for anything else. That applies to American commercial television.  That’s why when they do something serious, within the first 8 minutes they would start with a commercial. The question here is that how serious could it be if it can be interrupted within the first 8 minutes?

That’s why seriousness can’t be achieved in commercial television because it changes the nature of communicated information.

Amusement is extended to the way news is presented. Because of the news teller. The same applies to debates. It can not be taken seriously by an informed public.

Secondly, it may even be that TV might not be a suitable medium for the communication of serious ideas. After all, an idea is sentences (language) and television isn’t comfortable with language.

On time and amusement

How come for a TV debate to be taken seriously when a candidate is given 3 minutes to answer a complex question?

It’s taking its values from show business.

TV might be a window to the world, but it’s a curious type of window. With different distortions and refraction. It presents a fragmented world. Example: “More shooting in Beirut today”, we see bodies, hear shots etc. So people know of Beirut, see a shooting in Beirut, but do they know the details behind that. Historical context? TV news doesn’t care about that, it deals with visuals. TV executives ask for footage before everything else.

Television’s fundamental issue is not letting people talk. Shows will have 2-3 guests to keep amusements, have to stop every 2-3 mins for a commercial. Continuity gets disrupted

People who try to master this medium understand what circumstances make it difficult to master.  

Now, This TV broadcasters came up with a new grammar, Now This is a special kind of conjunction that disconnects things from one another. This disconnect raises the question of what should audiences think about at the moment of the advertisement right after announcing terrible news.

Neil asks what if that technique was used in a book. People would react negatively and think of the author thinking of them as fools.

To a certain degree, people accepted that discontinuity is a feature of the medium.

People don’t accept advertising in movie theatre in the middle of a movie, but people accept it in a TV context. The audience is conditioned to this kind of continuity.

EU TV still has a lot of good people saying wonderful things. In America, it’s questionable because of the dominance of commercial television. 

Effects?

It may well be, that although the American public knows of many things, but knows about very little. (supported by a survey done by Postman on Iran)

What about VCRs?

Federico Filini talking about the remote (zapper), which makes each viewer a director and an exhibitor. That changes the nature of TV views and makes the view impatient, because of the reduction of their tolerance span.

About the VCR? Not clear. Can possibly change things to the better. In history of communication, printing press was invented in Germany in 1450, it took people about 70 years later to number the books after the invention. By numbering the pages, you change the function of the books. VCR maybe what changes the structure of network television. That might make TV a serious public form of communication.

One has to ask what's happening with language. Jack Ellul (French philosopher) recently published a book "the humiliation of the word", he makes the point that one of the characteristics of new media (all) is to humiliate the word, where it moves away the peripheral of culture and the visual takes the centre.

There are people who listen to talk, if it's good talk. If it stimulates their mind. Can that get you a mass audience? Unknown.

Historically, some US presidential debates lasted 7 hours. Lincoln/ Douglas debates (can we imagine) audience listening to a 7-hour debate?) (Very interesting to see that kind of argument coming back with lengthy podcasts)

Up until the 20th century, people suffered from a scarcity of information. One of the functions of school was to provide them with solid and important information that the students couldn't get outside the classroom walls. Now we have the opposite problem, we have information satiation.

Knowledge isn't always the answer. Computer technology compounds this, we have a situation where people have this problem of certain type of information being too relevant for them to know.

Why is concept mapping important?

It’s an important tool to “learn how to learn”.

“The purpose of an educational institution is to lead the students, who initially believe the educational institution is there to educate them, to the realisation that they must educate themselves”

In learning, memorisation is something, reasoning is another thing. It is as important and concept maps can help.

Although it’s presented in a medical context, I find it personally very useful and applies on many learning areas or applications (business, design)

Concept maps are the single best method for learning in medical school for every student.

Maps help you see more when reading, studying.

Maps are essential to discover hidden patterns.

Definitions

It’s a tool for organising knowledge

It’s a reading method (probably the most important)

Its constructions makes reading: analytical

It makes reading deep

It’s a time-management tool

It contributes vert strongly to long-term memory.

It’s an active learning method

It’s a “living” document

all new learning is connected to existing knowledge (constructivism)

It’s a tool especially suited to ADD/ADHD students’s knowledge

It’s a visual representation of student’s knowledge

The concept of Deliberate Practice (DP)

State-of-the-art method that has emerged from human performance research and it’s being applied in medicine like surgery.

It rejects the idea that practice makes things perfect, it suggests that practice makes things permanent. Huge difference.

Concept mapping involves skills that benefit from application of DP at the beginning of medical training.

Anatomy of a Concept Map

Circles or bubbles that represent topics. Formally nodes.

Nodes are connected by a link

All constitutes a sentence.

A lot of facts connected together.

When a node branches is similar to a sub-list under a topic.

Modifiers or verbs written on links are good but not always necessary.

You can use concept maps for studying.

a well-written modifier shows the clarity of the thinking process.

The cross link represents what links completely separate branches.

Concept maps discipline you to look for connections, but one needs to be careful. Don’t spend your wheels on cross links, don’t force yourself to find them.

Some concept maps are built center out, probably better for learning are the top-down maps. Makes things easier.

Concept Maps Construction

Short

List, Group, Compare

Group them by major topic

Compare by drawing cross-links

In Detail

Inspectional reading, scanning. List or highlight the major concepts from the notes or textTry a regular outline if more comfortable.

Identify in the list the most general concepts (grouping)

Arrange with most general concepts at the topLabel connecting lines to explain the relationship, if needed. Arrowheads can show direction, cause-and-effect, etc.

Try to branch out at each level of the hierarchy with more than one linkReading becomes more normal now.

Identify and draw cross-links between related concepts.This is a powerful step in developing integrative thinking. Active learner mind set. Requires “looking around”

Alternative patterns: A “spider” or cluster pattern can be constructed from the center outward, but this will not be seen as readily by linear learners.

Example of an OK starter concept map

Source: Journal of American Medical Association

Good example for a beginner’s concept map. It’s not high scoring though.

Very well organised, example: Medications BUT no detail.

Look at the Types, there’s are only two under it. Primary is detailed but secondary isn’t.

Remember: Maps organise reading.

A concept map isn’t always symmetrical.

Example of a very well detailed concept map

Very well detailed. Shows evolved thinking.

Remember: Maps are living documents.

Look at the cross-links: lots of them there. They represent deep understanding.

Learning Style Differences in Mapping

Sensing Types (linear learners): maps help them read for deeper meaning and use time better

Intuitive Types (integrative learners): Enhance ability to see more connections

Mapping helps revealing hierarchies/ relationships.

Increase time on task (reduces distraction)

Mapping helps increasing retention of details.

Mapping serves as Deliberate Practice for both sensing/ intuitive preferences.

On types on learners

Both linear and integrative learning are important.

Both types benefit from mapping but differently.

Sensing type: more linear

Intuitive type: more integrative, jumping all over the place. ADD but not to a clinical level, functioning.

Learning Cycle

Temporal integrative cortex is the hard drive. It’s the area that processes long-term memory. It’s the area we use first in a learning cycle. It’s the area (personal belief) sensing type prefers to use. Easier to use.

Temporal area looks the information that comes in, then tries to recognise if it has seen it before. If it doesn’t, then the front of the brain takes over and starts asking questions about it

Here’s where Deliberate Practice comes in. Because getting back to the sensing type, if they’re using the temporal area, they’re giving time up to some other area: prefrontal area looks into it. Front of your brain looks into

Front of the brain isn’t just asking questions, but also making decisions.

Then the brain acts on it. If you’re doing a test, your brain is making a decision. If you’re reading/ concept mapping, then your brain is making these connections.

Useful to read out loud while studying and concept mapping. Most of the points here were around medical school and medical exams.

Intuitive learners spend a lot of time using the front of their time, focusing less on the back of their brain. That’s why deliberate practice helps with facts and memorisation for them.

On the other hand sensing type need deliberate practice to be able to make connections and find patterns

To get the best value from concept mapping

Constructs your own maps. The magic is in building maps, not in the maps themselves. The decision making that leads to a map.

Don’t rely on maps that has been created by someone else. The value comes from the practice of mapping.

Additional Material

Success Types in Medical Education