Organizations, firms, politicians, and advocacy groups of all kinds are constantly engaged in a fierce battle to win the attention of the population. Mass media lure with sensations and scandals to make people buy their stories. Politicians expose their private lives and engage in humorous media stunts to win the public's attention and confidence. Advertisers use emotional and arousing images for capturing the consumers' attention and make them remember the name of their product (Lang 1990). Advocacy groups use demonstrations and dramatic actions to make their cause interesting for the media to write about and thereby communicating their message to the public. Charity organizations use button-pushing images of starving children for soliciting donations. Religious groups campaign for winning new proselytes. Government and official organizations campaign to inform the public about certain important topics. Terrorists even go as far as to commit the most shocking crimes just to make the news media write about them and their political cause, and the journalists obey (Weimann & Winn 1994).
Several sociologists have studied how different topics compete for the attention of the mass media in what has been called the social problems marketplace (Best 1990) or the public attention market (McManus 1995). The abilities of different campaigners to dramatize their cause has crucial importance for their success in getting access to the mass media and the public's attention. Who take the lead in this competition? Obviously the ones that are able to dramatize their cause in the most newsworthy and button-pushing way, rather than the ones that have the most important
message to tell. Charity organizations, for example, may need to use more money for campaigning than for their charitable cause in order to survive in this darwinistic competition (Brodie 1996).
The conclusion is that it is not always the most important topics that win in the competition for the attention of the media and the population.
Predictions for the new millennium By Agner Fog, january 2000
In my book i have claimed that my theory of cultural selection is useful for making predictions. Since people have challenged me to do so, and since the start of a new millennium is a perfect time for making predictions, i will here show that cultural selection theory is a better tool for making predictions than a crystal ball.
Major regal and kalyptic factors
As described elsewhere, a regal factor is a force that makes society more authoritarian and bellicose, while a kalyptic factor is a force that makes the culture more tolerant. The analysis must start with an identification of the most important selective factors:
war
International war will be rare in the future because of the intervention of the international community and because the cost in terms of interrupting economic and technological connections between countries will be too high. Civil wars will still be common for more than half a century as part of the process of disintegrating regal blocks in the Arabian countries, China, and several other regions. migration
Immigration from poor and regal regions is a major regalizing factor in Europe today, and will continue to be
so for many decades to come.
media panic
Fierce economic competition forces mass media to focus on dangers, horrors, and other bad news. This is an important regalizing factor in the USA today, and this factor will gain increasing strength in Europe and everywhere else as economic liberalism generates a global market for news media based on free economic market forces. Eventually, the need for independent funding of news media will become so obvious that intervention and regulations have to be implemented. But until the major news media become effectively independent of irrelevant commercial interests, media competition will continue to be a very strong factor
shaping the political and social climate.
terrorism
Terrorism and hostage taking is connected to media panic. The intense media focus on the suffering of hostages may force decision makers to give in to the demands of hijackers and terrorists, and thereby encouraging new terrorist acts. Media attention is increasingly being recognized as a precious and limited resource, and terrorism remains a very effective way of gaining publicity, though certainly not sympathy. Consequently, terrorism and hostage taking will be rampant until international conventions be implemented to restrict the media attention or new weapons be invented to effectively stop terrorists. economic crisis
The economic system in the industrialized countries is based on growth. There is a limit to growth, and when this limit is reached we are likely to see a major economic crisis with a significant regalizing effect. Since there is plenty of room for growth in the developing countries as well as advances in information technology and biotechnology, it will probably last several centuries before we hit the roof. ecological crisis
A complete exhaustion of World resources is so far ahead that there is time for implementing effective means of recycling resources of all kinds. But another hazard is more threatening: Genetically engineered organisms may spread in the wild and disrupt ecological balance. Such a disaster is very likely to happen sooner or later, but it is impossible to predict when. Mass media may exaggerate or depreciate the problem,