From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
Subject: The Cultural Environment Movement, A Prospectus
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: University of Missouri
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 15:51:31 GMT


Subject:  The Cultural Environment Movement, A Prospectus
Keywords:  the medium is the message and the message is consume, shutup & die


    about a year ago i sent out an announcment about a conference that was
    gearing up in the D.C. area put on by something called the "Cultural
    Environment Movement," which included such luminaries as George Gerbner
    of the University of Pennsylvania and noted around the world for his 
    research in the field of televised violence.  wanna do something to
    save the world?  join the cultural environment movement and lend yer
    voice/energy/time/support to participating in a reawakening movement
    for the establishment of a truly democratic and inclusive society.
   
    so just last week my net friend fen sent me the following (plus two other 
    articles--commericals in the classroom, and politician watch--that follow 
    this one:


Date: Thu, 2 Apr 92 16:24:08 GMT
From: Fen Labalme <fen@us.oracle.com> Thu Apr  2 16:24:42 1992
To: dave@ratmandu.corp.sgi.com
Subject: The Cultural Environmental Movement

For years I have felt that what children need is a good, solid grounding in
media criticism.  We need to teach our children that the toys on TV may look
like more fun than they are in real life;  that the newscasters work for
large corporations with special interests of their own; and that, indeed,
their own teachers, though fonts of wisdom, are themselves fallable and
biased in their views.

This is especially important in a society in which the President's publicity
manager get's the "adman of the year award" from the National Advertisers
Association (Reagan, 1980);  when coverage of the Persian Gulf war is so
heavily censored;  and when our media spends more time on the sex lives of
candidates than on their voting records.

Why, it is only recently that I became aware that the film strips that I
watched in school on the benefits of milk and meat to one's diet (two of the
only recently debunked "four food groups") were bought and paid for by the
American Dairy and Meat Packer's Associations.  Don't get me wrong - I have
nothing against milk.  I grew up on it, and so will my children.  But it is
outrageous, imo, that people are fed a line that milk is one of the basic
four food groups when the only research that was done to support this was in
the advertising agency.

As ads sell products, so does the revenue from product sales buy ads and
direct the media to produce shows that will help to sell their products.  CEM
is a group that I have just heard about.  Below are included three articles
from a group that is working to bring these kind of issues to the forefront
of public knowledge.  It's exciting stuff.  I encourage you to contact CEM.

Yours in networking,
Fen

   
   
===============================================================================
Subject: CEM "manifesto"
   
                      THE CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT MOVEMENT
                      A prospectus - by George Gerbner
                      (Draft for comment, rev. 9/29/91)
    
      The cultural environment is the system of stories and images that
    cultivates much of who we are, what we think, what we do, and how we
    conduct our affairs.  Until recently, it was primarily hand-crafted,
    home-made, community-inspired.  It is that no longer.  It is now the
    product of a complex mass-production and marketing process.  We have
    just begun to take the measure of that transformation.  We now need to
    regain some measure of participation in its making.
    
      For the first time in human history our children are born into a home
    whose everyday cultural environment does not come from their family,
    their school, their church, their neighborhood, and often even their
    native country.  Three out of four American kids grow up without a
    full-time parent, but with television an average of seven hours a day.
    Most of the stories about life and values are told not by parents,
    grandparents, teachers, clergy or others with their own stories to tell,
    but by a handful of distant conglomerates with something to sell.
    
      Giant industries discharge mass-produced messages into the mainstream
    of common consciousness.  Channels proliferate through new
    technologies, while mergers and bottom-line pressures shrink creative
    alternatives and reduce diversity of content.  Who will own the cable
    that will bring all news, entertainment, advertising and other
    information services to every home?  What happens to the free library
    when all its holdings go on line for a price?  Who has access to the
    data bases that hold information about our every call, trip, bill,
    purchase and soon every move?  Media coalesce in a seamless integrated
    structure that transcends boundaries and constrains life's choices as
    profoundly as the natural environment defines life's chances.
    
      The changes are as far-reaching as they are diverse.  For many people
    they appear to be a broadening and enrichment of local horizons and a
    sense of vicarious involvement in the mainstream culture.  But for most
    they also mean an increasing commonality of perspectives and limitation
    of outlooks.  For media professionals the changes mean fewer
    opportunities and greater compulsion to present life in saleable
    packages.  Creative artists, scientists, humanists can still explore
    and enlighten and entertain and occasionally even challenge, but, on
    the whole, increasingly, their stories must fit marketing strategies
    and priorities.
    
      That condition did not emerge spontaneously or after thoughtful
    deliberation.  It was a radical departure overriding significant public
    opposition, a fact little noted in our history books.  Its world-wide
    fallout and human implications have only recently been studied and are
    just beginning to be understood.
    
      The average ten-year-old can name more brands of beer than
    presidents.  Our research has shown how the new cultural environment
    blurs diverse outlooks and interests, blends perspectives into a
    cultural mainstream, and bends that mainstream to the service of global
    investors, owners, managers and sponsors.
    
      We pay for all that as consumers.  We pay when we access every byte
    of information.  And we pay more for advertising-supported fare.  The
    price of a bar of soap includes money to pay for the "soap opera" that
    tells about a brand of soap, and a style of life.  We pay when we wash,
    not when we watch, and we pay even if we never watch or do not like
    what we watch.
    
      Furthermore, the money added to the price of goods buys more than ads
    and commercials.  It buys culture-power.  It buys the ability to
    subsidize information and entertainment, stories and values to hold in
    common.  It buys the cultural marketplace in which we are worth what we
    can spend.  And it buys the right to structure the public agenda.
    
       For advertisers, this is "free speech" and a tax-deductible
    business expense. (The cultural clout of a tobacco money-driven food
    and drink conglomerate, the largest single influence over commercial
    media, is supported by that tax exemption, not to mention tobacco
    subsidies, and a self-serving corporate interpretation of the First
    Amendment.)  But for citizens it is taxation without representation.
    And for society it is a way of preempting alternatives, limiting
    freedom of press to those who own it, divorcing payment from choice,
    and denying public participation in cultural decision-making.
    
      The Cultural Environment Movement is concerned with distortions of
    the democratic process that marketing priorities cannot resolve and
    often even exacerbate.  These include the cultivation of mentalities
    and behaviors that drug, hurt, poison, and kill thousands every day;
    the portrayals that dehumanize and stigmatize;  the cults of media
    violence that desensitize, terrorize, and brutalize;  the growing siege
    mentality of our cities;  the drift toward ecological crisis;  the 
    silent crumbling of our infrastructure;  the widening resource gaps in 
    the richest country that already has the most glaring inequalities in 
    the industrial world;  the costly neglect of vital institutions such as
    public education, criminal justice, the arts, and the financial system;
    make-believe media economics thriving on wasteful consumption but
    hiding long-term consequences;  and make-believe image politics
    corrupting the electoral process.
    
      How can we heal the wounds of all the stories that hurt and tear us
    apart?  How can we put culture-power to liberating ends and break the
    constraints that distort and debilitate?  How can we work toward a
    freer and fairer cultural environment?
    
      We must reclaim the rights gained through centuries of struggle and
    conferred by law, the Constitution, and the basic principles of liberal
    education and self-government in a democracy, and help others in
    similar situations to do the same.  We must mobilize Americans to act
    as citizens as effectively as commercials mobilize us to act as
    consumers.
    
      The new globalized and centralized cultural environment demands a new
    approach.  Working separately on individual issues, rallying to meet
    each individual crisis, while necessary, are not sufficient.  Dealing
    with systemic connections requires coordination and organization.
    Individual effort, local action, and national constituencies acting in
    concert can, together, help to begin that long, slow and difficult
    task.  We invite comment, suggestions, and further contributions to our
    proposals for specific lines of action.  These include:
   
     * Building a new coalition involving media councils in the U.S. and
       abroad;  teachers, students and parents;  groups concerned with 
       children, youth and aging;  women's groups;  religious and 
       minority organizations;  educational, health, environmental, 
       legal, and other professional associations;  consumer groups and 
       agencies;  associations of creative workers in the media and in 
       the arts and sciences;  independent computer network organizers 
       and other organizations and individuals committed to broadening 
       the freedom and diversity of communication.
   
     * Opposing domination and working to abolish existing concentration
       of ownership and censorship (both of and by media), public or 
       private.  That includes exposing use of the First Amendment as a 
       shield for power and privilege.  It involves extending rights, 
       facilities, and influence to interests and perspectives other 
       than the most powerful and profitable.  It means including in 
       cultural decision-making the less affluent more vulnerable groups 
       who, in fact, are the majority of the population.  These include 
       the marginalized, neglected, abused, exploited, physically or 
       mentally disabled, young and old, women, minorities, poor people,
       recent immigrants--all those most in need of a decent role and a 
       voice in a freer cultural environment.
   
     * Seeking out and cooperating with cultural liberation forces of
       other countries working for the integrity and independence of 
       their own decision-making and against cultural domination and 
       invasion.  Learning from countries that have already opened their 
       media to the democratic process.  Helping local movements, 
       especially in the most dependent and vulnerable countries of 
       Latin America, Asia, and Africa (and now also in Eastern Europe 
       and the Soviet Republics), to invest in their own cultural as 
       well as economic and political development;  opposing aggressive 
       foreign ownership and coercive trade policies that make such
       development more difficult.
   
     * Supporting journalists, artists, writers, actors, directors, and
       other creative workers struggling for more freedom from having to
       present life as a commodity designed for a market of consumers.
       Working with guilds, caucuses, labor and other groups for 
       diversity in employment and in media content.  Supporting media 
       and cultural organizations addressing significant but neglected 
       needs, sensibilities, and interests.
   
     * Promoting media literacy, media awareness, critical viewing and
       reading, and other media education efforts as a fresh approach to 
       the liberal arts and an essential educational objective on every 
       level.  Collecting, publicizing and disseminating information, 
       research and evaluation about relevant programs, services, 
       curricula, and teaching materials.  Helping to organize 
       educational and parents' groups demanding pre-service and 
       in-service teacher training in media analysis, already required 
       in the schools of Australia, Canada, and Great Britain.
   
     * Placing cultural policy issues on the social-political agenda.
       Supporting and if necessary organizing local and national media
       councils, study groups, citizen groups, minority and 
       professional groups and other forums of public discussion, 
       policy development, representation, and action.  Not waiting for 
       a blueprint but creating and experimenting with ways of community
       and citizen participation in local, national and international 
       media policy-making.  Sharing experiences, lessons, and 
       recommendations and gradually moving toward a realistic 
       democratic agenda.
   
   
                   For more information, please contact:
   
   Rick Crawford                    George Gerbner
   2804 Ganges Ave.                 The Annenberg School for Communication
   Davis, CA   95616                University of Pennsylvania
                                    3620 Walnut Street
                                    Philadelphia, PA   19104
   
      Electronic Mail (Internet and EcoNet/PeaceNet): 
   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
   crawford@cs.ucdavis.edu          fgg@asc.upenn.edu
   rcrawford@igc.org
   
   ========================================================================
   
   
--
                                             daveus rattus   

                                   yer friendly neighborhood ratman

                              KOYAANISQATSI

   ko.yan.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language)  n.  1. crazy life.  2. life
       in turmoil.  3. life out of balance.  4. life disintegrating.  
         5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.


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