(no subject)

'Best Job' winner stung by dangerous jellyfish

Broadcasters' woes could spell trouble for free TV -- I've been seeing ads on TV (bought by broadcasters) warning consumers that free TV may be a thing of the past if congresspersons (congresspeople?) aren't contacted. This article is written as though the change is inevitable.

By the way, folks . . . .

I picked up Science at the library today and came across a very cogent, important article: "Racial Bias, Unspoken But Heard" by John F. Dovidio. Four separate studies (joined by a common theme) detail how nonverbal information influences the attitudes of TV audiences. "Specifically," Dovidio states, "exposure to nonverbal race bias, via evaluative conditioning, may cause perceivers to associate race with affect and thus exhibit race bias themselves" (p. 1711). The findings are stunning in their implications:

Nonverbal race bias was thus observed across 11 shows, each with an average weekly audience of 9 million, suggesting that many Americans are exposed to nonverbal race bias. These biases may occur for a variety of reasons: because actors spontaneously exhibit nonverbal bias, because biased nonverbal behavior is written into scripts, and/or because directors persuade actors to change their nonverbal behavior. Regardless, the bias appears on a number of popular television shows and thus may influence viewers. (p. 1712)

For many years, many have thought that TV influenced how viewers perceived groups portrayed in various ways on TV; however, since the '70s, it's been assumed that merely changing the content of the story or the makeup of the cast was enough to shake up longstanding beliefs. I highly recommend reading the article in full, if possible (the only free virtual content is the abstract, linked above).

Of course, I'd like to see a similar study carried out with a group that is nonwhite, then have the results compared. (Every population in these studies were white, presumably to test for conformity of these racial views.)