Archive for the 'Truthiness' Category

“Does Movie Violence Decrease Violent Crime?” was some freaky talk of the town last week. This is the most Punk idea I’ve seen yet. A study that inspired an article in the NY Times that says, and don’t laugh, “Economists Say Movie Violence Might Temper the Real Thing” and was conducted by two economists; it isn’t a psychiatric or medical study. Not too juicy in the end. But it is pretty funny! And it goes to show that any major corporation (moviemakers in this case) can lobby any real science into helping them prove a bizarre, albeit farfetched and stretched-to-the-limit, point.

Bottom line – some geniuses are using the new freakonomics (a word now…) to prove that yes, if you are a bad person who watches killings and rapes and muggings and the like, you will calm yourself from doing them – at least for a while. Really now.

“Economists Say Movie Violence Might Temper the Real Thing” (Pieces Of The Article)

The study’s authors acknowledge that their research does not refute and in fact lends credence to the findings of laboratory studies. Neither does it address the long-term effects of exposure to violent media, an influence they view as pernicious.

Rather, the research uses a decade of national crime reports, cinema ratings and movie audience data to examine what has happened to rates of violent crime during and immediately after violent films are shown.

Though such films may indeed stimulate a greater tendency toward aggression in audiences, the bigtime economist offers a rejoinder much favored by economists: Compared to what?

Young men are the most likely to commit violent crimes. In opting to see a movie — even one featuring, say, gang rape or chain-saw amputation — they forgo activities that have a greater tendency to encourage mayhem, like drinking and drug use.

“Economics is about choice,” he said. “What would these people have done if they had not chosen to go and see a movie? Whatever they would have done would have had a greater tendency to involve alcohol. If you can incapacitate a large group of potentially violent people, that’s a good thing.”

“It’s not as if these people watching violent movies would otherwise be home reading a book.”
Their entire study is super long, but I cut out a few choice snippets:

In this paper, we provide causal evidence on the short-run effect of media violence on violent crime. We exploit the natural experiment induced by time-series variation in the violence of movies shown in the theater. As in the psychology experiments, we estimate the short-run effect of exposure to violence, but unlike in the experiments, the outcome variable is violent crime rather than aggressiveness. Importantly, the laboratory and field setups also differ due to self-selection and to the context of violent media exposure. Using a violence rating system from kids-in-mind.com and daily revenue data, we generate a daily measure of box office audience for strongly violent (e.g., “Hannibal”), mildly violent (e.g., “Spider-Man”), and non-violent movies (e.g., “Runaway Bride”). Since blockbuster movies differ significantly in violence rating, and movie sales are concentrated in the initial weekends after release, there is substantial variation in exposure to movie violence over time.

The audience for strongly violent and mildly violent movies, respectively, is as high as 12 million and 25 million people on some weekends, and is close to zero on others (see Figures 1a-1b). We use crime data from the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and measure violent crime on a given day as the sum of reported assaults (simple or aggravated) and intimidation. We find no evidence that exposure to media violence increases violent behavior in the short-run.

After controlling flexibly for seasonality, we find that, on days with a high audience for violent movies, violent crime is lower. To rule out unobserved factors that contemporaneously increase movie attendance and decrease violence, such as rainy weather, we use two strategies.

First, we add controls for weather and days with high TV viewership. Second, and most importantly, we instrument for movie audience using the predicted movie audience based on the following weekend’s audience. This instrumental variable strategy exploits the predictability of the weekly decrease in attendance. Adding in controls and instrumenting, the correlation between movie violence and violent crime becomes more negative and remains statistically significant.

The estimated effect of exposure to violent movies is small in the morning or afternoon hours (6AM-6PM), when movie attendance is minimal. In the evening hours (6PM-12AM), instead, we detect a significant negative effect on crime. For each million people watching a strongly or mildly violent movie, respectively, violent crimes decrease by 1.3 and 1.1 percent. The effect is smaller and statistically insignificant for non-violent movies. In the nighttime hours following the movie showing (12AM-6AM), the delayed effect of exposure to movie violence is even more negative. For each million people watching a strongly or mildly violent movie, respectively, violent crime decreases by 1.9 and 2.1 percent. Non-violent movies have no statistically significant impact. Unlike in the psychology experiments, therefore, media violence appears to decrease violent behavior in the immediate aftermath of exposure, with large aggregate effects. The total net effect of violent movies is to decrease assaults by roughly 1,000 occurrences per weekend, for an annual total of about 52,000 weekend assaults prevented.

We also examine the delayed impact of exposure to movie violence on violent crime. While our research design (like the laboratory designs) cannot test for a long-run impact, we can examine the medium-run impact in the days and weeks following exposure. We find no impact on violent crime on Monday and Tuesday following weekend movie exposure. We also find no impact one, two, and three weeks after initial exposure, controlling for current exposure. This implies that the same-day decrease in crime is unlikely to be due to intertemporal substitution of crime from the following days.

While reading about the studies, I learned there’s actually a DVD player that automatically deletes all the juicy bits of movies. It’s a Mormon device.

It was invented four years ago, I read online yesterday–a trend I had no idea about: “What the world really needs now is more uptight little companies from Utah that will help us all block out the random messy naked blood n’ guts of the world. Companies that will, without anyone asking them to, protect us from media evildoers and exposed flesh and scary exploding things and that part in ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ wherein the universe is blessed, for the briefest of moments, with … Kate Winslet’s nipples.

…Utah-based ClearPlay, a shrill little corporation that has taken it upon itself to sit around the cube farm all day and watch countless Hollywood flicks and zap out any and all icky violent suggestive material in, say, “Lost In Translation.” For your protection. How kind.”

What is ClearPlay?

Great question! ClearPlay is a fancy DVD Player that can play regular DVD movies — but without profanity, violence and nudity.

Wow! How does that work?

It’s really quite ingenious. We create filtering information on a movie by movie basis, and then put those “filters” into the DVD player. This way, the DVD player knows when to skip or mute while the movie is playing.

But isn’t it choppy?

Nope. That’s the great thing about the ClearPlay service. We love movies just as much as you do, so we take great care to maintain the presentation quality of the movie– the only thing gone is “that one scene” you wish the kids never saw.

What about new movies?

Another great question! If you sign up for a ClearPlay Membership then we provide constant updates for your DVD player. This way ClearPlay works with new movies as they come out. It is really just that simple (and cool!).

Me again. The above was from their site. I’m wondering if parents do anything for their kids anymore. Besides cut their meat, of course.

Have you heard nuff? Go out and watch some gorey movies, kids, and I’ll see you on the street.

Dell is a dying brand. It has lost the point of difference that made it a success story and is now running on fumes. If you don’t believe me, go through the steps of buying (or almost buying) a computer from them, as I did yesterday.

I’m a Mac user but need to buy a PC to run a certain software program. I looked up online what Dell had to offer but quickly found their site is not Mac friendly and freezes when you try to get product details. As a computer manufacturer, this doesn’t set very high expectations of their products.

But I didn’t give up there. I called their sales people and told them I was interested in a cheap, basic laptop and gave them the model number I wanted to know more about. The sales rep was over-friendly and asked me a bunch of questions that seemed irrelevent and intrusive (home address, phone number and email address). She said the basic package I saw on their website would’t do it. I should upgrade processor speed and memory. Oh, and I need to get their 3-year warranty because, while “our computers are built to last forever” you never can tell. This stuff I was told I needed added another $300 to the price.

I said I wasn’t ready to make a purchase and was asked why. I said the price. She asked what the problem with it was. I said how big it was. She said oh. I said goodbye and was left with the impression of a company in desperate need of an overhaul. Here’s how:
1. Don’t pretend Mac users don’t exist. Woo them and try and convert them.
2. Enough of the complicated phone options and poor voice recognition. You don’t have any stores (although you’re about to become like every other computer manufactuer by starting to sell in Wal-Mart) so make the direct to customer experience amazing.
3. Don’t try and get me to upgrade before I’ve even decided I’m interested. In fact don’t get me to upgrade at all. If the package you’re touting on your website isn’t good enough, don’t feature it.
4. Don’t ask me for lots of personal details. We’re not even dating yet, so stop stalking me.
5. Don’t ask stupid questions about why I’m not completing an order today when it’s damned obvious. Makes you look desperate and dumb.

I’d love to get my hands on Dell to make it stand out once again as a great brave brand, not what it’s become. You can almost taste the failure. Consumers sense that and will leave (are leaving) in their droves. To buy a Mac, for instance.

Now if only I could that software to work on my trusty, sexy Mac…

Shopping at Sears is such a depressing experience. The decor is Dismal, the lighting Dull and the Displays dowdy. (Contrast this with Target stores, where you feel cool-as-shit just walking into the place.)

The only reason a consumer with any sense of style might be tempted to go to Sears is because of the prices on the boring stuff you just hafta buy - the vacuums, ovens and wotnot - otherwise you’d never make the trip. I went on one of those necessary-evil trips this weekend, to buy a stainless steel dishwasher. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot my heart sank. as I plodded through the store it somehow reminded me of an elderly person in a care facility just waiting to die.

But, beneath the dull exterior there are more sinister forces at play. Having picked a Bosch dishwasher as the one of my dreams and went to check out I was told the actual price was $200 more than the large sticker on the displayed model. Apparently the price shown was for the white model not the stainless steel. So, I wondered and asked, why put the cheaper price on the more expensive model? Eh? The shop assistant was sympathetic but unable to help. Apparently it is new company policy. Not something she agreed with, but there it was.

This practice that Sears head office has adopted in its wisdom is wilfuly misleasing. I think they expect people like me who are time poor to simply pay up. But, no, that would be succumbing to their wicked manipulative ways. I went home, found the same model online for way less than even the white model in Sears was being sold at and bought it there and then. (Shipping was free.)

So now I’ve been duped by Sears I won’t make the same mistake of thinking I have to suffer their stores to get a good deal again. I’ll order online instead and advise as many people I can to do the same.

Shame on you Sears.

A few weeks ago blogger, John Grant, seeking attention for his new marketing book criticized some online videos we’d created to promote Punk Marketing. Cool, no problem there. And what’s more he said he and his readers could do better. We said, great. In fact we said we’d even make any of the ideas people come up with that were better than ours. Fair enough, right? OK, so we waited. And waited. Nothing. Not a sausage. Tried to email him for an update. The email bounced back. Hmm. What’s up John? It’s fine to crticize - hell, we do it all the time - but if you say you can do better, do it. The offer still stands by the way. Thanks.

I was an issues reporter way back in the day (did Guerilla Consumer segments for Marketplace on Public Radio for seven years) so nothing gets me going as much as deception by major corporations.

Blockbuster Inc. takes the icing AND the cake, and in Punk we talk about their “end of late fees” debacle from a few years back after the micro-print (smallest disclaimers on consumer offerings) told us, well, you do get charged a restocking fee and etc. etc. They got sued by Attorneys General and the hoopla plus the offer came to a crashing end.

Now, however, they are getting away with a lot more, and the NY Times reports they even gained just shy of a million new members due their home-delivery service Total Access and the unearthed-till-now fact, ta da!, that they are lying again. Here’s the poop.

The whole NEVER BE WITHOUT A MOVIE campaign says you can rent a flick, have it sent to your home and with no due dates or no late fees, return it in the mail (free), or bring it to the store and return (no problem) for an exchange of your next chosen movie. Sounds cool. And a fantastically devised to stick it to Netflix, the killer competitor.

That’s not how it works, I found out harshly. During a conversation reminiscent of the time I asked the Starbucks counter person if she could “restart the modem for my Starbucks T-Mobile access” and I got stared down at my two heads….I tried the offer of free exchange at a Blockbuster on way home from a bar one night. I was carrying a copy of Take The Money and Run (vintage, hilarious Allen) in the BB sleeve it arrived in , and walked over to the Blockbuster to ask the man at the desk to take it back.

Oh no, he said, looking at me with the guile of a deer and his headlights. I can’t do that.

Oy, I decided. Here we go. And we did:

Turns out Blockbuster only allows us to return a movie in person if we have a separate “in store” account at that very locale. Now, how likely is that if you get discs in the mail? And if you should have an account, as was explained by the dude in the blue smock, you have to bring with you the postage-paid return envelope the DVD showed up in. Because, said he, the people at the store need to mail them back just like we do. Huh? Yes, he swore, they have no interoffice mail at Blockbuster.

Ok, sure, I brought the envelope it came with ….it’s right in my….

What the?

Anyway, a short while after the daily Times crowed about the new success in rental programs, Blockbuster’s CEO was profiled in the Sunday Times for his decision to advertise that offer proudly and loudly. Today I wonder why Netflix doesn’t just go all nuts proclaiming how easy it is to get a movie from them—with the added bonus of absolutely no free bullshit sold to their loyal customers.

Me, I’m doing nothing but Pay Per View now. At least I can hit the delete button without having to deal with a clerk whose actual job, I’m starting to imagine, is to disappoint me.

For more on this deception go to the following and especially the bottom where the asterisks are: Blockbuster’s been busted!