Effects of Media-Modulated Stress and Desire

Excerpt from forthcoming book—Copyright © 2009 by Christine M. Skolnik

The media often presents stressful information and images and also modulates our reactions to this information. Among the most common types of media stressors are local bad news, international crises, and television violence on the news and in entertainment programs. Though moderate stress can provoke learning (stimulate neuronal activity) in controlled educational and therapeutic contexts, emotional reactions can also inhibit reasoning. When the emotional or limbic regions of the brain are excessively engaged the rational, cortical regions are disengaged. Hence viewing stressful images presented in a melodramatic light can inhibit rational, critical responses, and also compromise the immune system (Lane, “Neural Substrates” 108; Chiappelli, “Consciousness” 259-64).[1]

Conversely the media is also capable of lending consumers a sense of control, and political agency. As a primary source of information (a locus of control) about the causes of bad news and violence, the media can help the public cognitively reframe and emotional distance themselves from various types of content. However emotions must be modulated before such information can be rationally processed. Deliberations conducted in a context of pervasive fear and stress often lead to conclusions that seem unreasonable in hindsight.

Individuals are clearly capable of resisting emotional modulation, and regulating their emotional responses to painful or stressful images (Beauregard, “Neural Basis” 164-65). However, most people are relatively unaware of the effects of stress on their emotional, mental and physical health. And even fewer are familiar with strategies for resisting external modulation or adjusting their own emotional states. The degree to which we lack awareness of media-induced stress, is the extent to which we can be unconsciously influenced and even made ill by sensationalist news reporting and even stressful entertainment programming. How can we tell the difference between real and imagined or fabricated threats? How can we find a middle ground between responding inappropriately to distant and even fictional threats on one hand and a culture of complacency on the other? How can we indemnify democratic processes against market forces within an economy driven by consumerism?

Media-modulated desires may create unreasonable and even damaging expectations of self, others, and a warped set of aesthetic, ethical, and material values. Individuals immersed in popular culture may be seen as reacting to each other not on the basis of genuine compatibility but on media-generated appearances or personae (Wolf, 174-77). And rampant consumerism can harm individuals and communities through both their consuming and producing activities. Thus, emotional self-regulation is crucial to the maintenance of self esteem, interpersonal relationships, and even political economy.

A central issue of media-modulated desire which has received much attention is the female body. Feminist critical theory has clearly laid out the means by which aesthetic ideals of female beauty are constructed, as well as the manner in which such ideals reinforce racist, sexist, and economic stereotypes. The unattainable ideal of feminine beauty has also been discussed as a cause of anxiety and depression in adolescent and older women (Kilbourne 133; Wolf 110, 130). Constant media exposure, in addition to general self-consciousness, and ruminating about their appearance, contribute to depression and dangerous eating disorders, in young women in particular who are generally more vulnerable to media influence (Pechmann 203, 209-11). The fact that the media also tends to inhibit real rhetorical agency for women, while encouraging women to express themselves by projecting a sexually alluring image, can further damage women’s self-image, esteem, and ethos (Kilbourne 140-42).

But men are also at risk. As in the case of fear, strong desire inhibits critical thinking and rational decision making. In addition to making bad choices in cars, and a wide range of products and services promoted through appeals to sexual desire, men can also choose emotionally unsupportive or destructive relationships and unsuitable mates (Wolf 175-77). Men are also increasingly vulnerable to problems with self-esteem and depression relating to body image as the media appeals to female consumers with an increasing focus on the male body and masculine sexual appeal, though women are generally less likely to identify the personal value and attractiveness of a man which his physical appearance and men are less likely to be victimized as sexual objects (Kilbourne, 278-80; Wolf, 174). Ironically, too, multicultural advertising can exacerbate the problem as cultural groups not previously invested in a given body image are now exposed to models that represent a diversity of cultures and ethnicities while still reinforcing certain homogenous aesthetic ideals.

To what extent is it possible for us to escape these cycles of fear and desire? To what extent can we step outside of a media-dominated culture? Are there any antidotes? Does multicultural education help or is it too little, too late for our collective media saturated psyche? How can we access a more genuine spectrum of desires? Would we recognize our “genuine” desires, if we were able to access them? And does such genuine desire even exist? Can we set ethical, aesthetic, and pragmatic standards that coincide with our own interests, or are we generally too immersed in the given standards of the cultures we inhabit to see beyond media stereotypes?

By and large we are caught in a double bind of self-replicating desire and inhibited critical thinking. If there is no outside to a homogenous set of aesthetic values then we have no choice, and genuine desire is no longer accessible. And if media-modulated drives inhibit critical thinking then it is even more difficult to get outside of this fabricated desire. We might perceive the beautiful as ethically good even if it is bad, or no better than average, as we rationalize decisions based on media-modulated emotions (Wolf, 163). Maturity can enhance impulse control though and broaden perspectives. Individuals who are exposed to historically, geographically, and culturally diverse models may be freer to experience and appreciate a broader range of ethical and aesthetic phenomena. Fostering good habits can also help individuals respond more responsibly to media-generated cravings, and formulate better judgments in general.[2]that encourage sensationalist information and entertainment programming? Though specific answers to such questions are beyond the purview of this volume, increased media literacy and emotional self-consciousness are certainly steps in the direction of greater self-knowledge and more genuine political agency, as I will discuss in a later section of this chapter.