{"id":47723,"date":"2012-06-07T11:30:51","date_gmt":"2012-06-07T16:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=47723"},"modified":"2012-06-03T17:40:00","modified_gmt":"2012-06-03T22:40:00","slug":"blaming-the-media-ii-the-will-grace-non-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/06\/07\/blaming-the-media-ii-the-will-grace-non-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"Blaming the Media II: The “Will & Grace” Non-Effect"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Montclair SocioBlog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

If a person thinks that the media are infiltrating his mind and controlling his thoughts and behavior, we consider him a nutjob, and we recommend professional help and serious meds.\u00a0 But if a person thinks that the media are infiltrating\u00a0other people\u2019s\u00a0minds and affecting\u00a0their\u00a0behavior, we call him or her an astute social observer, one eminently qualified to give speeches or write op-eds.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0previous post<\/a>\u00a0dwelt on economist Isabel Sawhill\u2019s Washington Post op-ed channeling Dan Quayle, particularly Quayle\u2019s speech asserting that a TV sitcom was wielding a strong effect on people\u2019s decisions — not just decisions like Pepsi vs. Coke, but decisions like whether to have a baby.<\/p>\n

That was Quayle, this is now.\u00a0 Still, our current vice-president can sometimes resemble his counterpart of two decades ago.\u00a0 Just a last month, Joe Biden echoed the Quayle idea on the power of sitcoms.\u00a0 On \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d in response to David Gregory\u2019s question about gay marriage, Biden said that \u201cthis is evolving\u201d and added:<\/p>\n

And by the way, my measure, David, and I take a look at when things really begin to change, is when the social culture changes.\u00a0 I think \u201cWill and Grace\u201d probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody\u2019s ever done so far.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cWill and Grace\u201d ran for eight seasons, 1998-2006.\u00a0 Its strongest years were 2001-2005, when it was the top rated show among the 18-49 crowd. Biden could<\/em> point to General Social Survey (GSS) data on the gay marriage question.\u00a0 In 1988, ten years before \u201cWill and Grace,\u201d the GSS asked about gay marriage.\u00a0 Only 12% supported it, 73% opposed it.\u00a0 The question was asked again in 2004, six years into the W+G era.\u00a0 Support had more than doubled, and it continued to rise in subsequent years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know just when in that 18-year period, 1988-2004, things \u201creally began to change.\u201d\u00a0 Fortunately, the GSS more regularly asked the respondent\u2019s view on sexual relations between same-sex partners.\u00a0 Here too, tolerance grows in the \u201cWill and Grace\u201d period (gray on the graph):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The graph is misleading, though. To see the error, all we need do is extend our sampling back a few years\u00a0 Here is the same graph starting in 1973:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The GSS shows attitudes about homosexuality starting to change in 1990.\u00a0 By the time of the first episode of \u201cWill and Grace,\u201d the proportion seeing nothing wrong with homosexuality had already doubled.\u00a0 Like Quayle\u2019s \u201cMurphy Brown\u201d effect, the \u201cWill and Grace\u201d effect is hard to see.<\/p>\n

The flaw in the Quayle-Biden method is not in mistaking TV for reality.\u00a0 It\u2019s in assuming that the public\u2019s awareness is simultaneous with their own.<\/p>\n

Why do our vice-presidents (and many other people) give so much credit (or blame) to a popular TV show for a change in public opinion?\u00a0 The error is partly a simplistic\u00a0post hoc<\/em>\u00a0logic.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWill and Grace\u201d gave us TV\u2019s first gay principle character; homosexuality became more acceptable.\u00a0 Murphy Brown was TV\u2019s first happily unwed mother, and in the following years, single motherhood increased.\u00a0\u00a0 Besides, we know that these shows are watched by millions of people each week.\u00a0 So it must be the show that is causing the change.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also possible that our vice-presidents (and many other people) may also have been projecting their own experiences onto the general public.\u00a0 Maybe Murphy Brown was the first or only unwed mother that Dan Quayle really knew \u2013 or at least she was the one he knew best.\u00a0 It\u2019s possible that Joe Biden wasn\u2019t familiar with any gay men, not in the way we feel we know TV characters.\u00a0 A straight guy might have some gay acquaintances or co-workers, but it\u2019s the fictional Will Truman whose private life he could see, if only for a half hour every week.<\/p>\n

Does TV matter?\u00a0 When we think about our own decisions, we are much more likely to focus on our experiences and on the pulls and pushes of family, work, and friends.\u00a0 We generally don\u2019t attribute much causal weight to the sitcoms we watch.\u00a0 Why then are we so quick to see these shows as having a profound influence on other people\u2019s behavior, especially behavior we don\u2019t like?\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe because it\u2019s such an easy game to play.\u00a0 Is there more unwed motherhood?\u00a0 Must be \u201cMurphy Brown.\u201d\u00a0 Did obesity increase in the 1990s?\u00a0 \u201cRoseanne.\u201d\u00a0 Are twentysomethings and older delaying marriage?\u00a0 \u201cSeinfeld\u201d and \u201cFriends.\u201d And of course \u201cThe Simpsons,\u201d or at least Bart and Homer, who can be held responsible for a variety of social ills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Montclair SocioBlog. If a person thinks that the media are infiltrating his mind and controlling his thoughts and behavior, we consider him a nutjob, and we recommend professional help and serious meds.\u00a0 But if a person thinks that the media are infiltrating\u00a0other people\u2019s\u00a0minds and affecting\u00a0their\u00a0behavior, we call him or her an astute social […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15,253,272,129,283,54,37],"class_list":["post-47723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-culture","tag-history","tag-marriagefamily","tag-media","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-sexual-orientation","tag-social-psychology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/258"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47723"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47762,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47723\/revisions\/47762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}