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Entertainment as influencer
The American Academy of Pediatrics had hoped to stop the premiere episode of a new ABC legal drama that it says could undermine children’s vaccinations. In the opening story line of “Eli Stone,” the mother of an autistic child is awarded $5.2 million in damages after it is revealed that the CEO of a vaccine maker kept his daughter from getting the company’s mercury-based vaccine.
This week, the American Academy of Pediatrics fired off a letter to network executives urging them to cancel the show. ABC refused, but agreed to air a disclaimer and a link to the CDC’s autism site.
The show’s producers say it is “even-handed” and presents both sides. They say they never intended to suggest that children should not be vaccinated and argue that viewers do not look to fiction for medical information.
But can we really deny that even fictional media–created purely for entertainment–still influence people? After all, isn’t that part of the point of all those fun Super Bowl commercials we will see this Sunday?
back to top11 Comments to “Entertainment as influencer”
Fiction as truth? Barack can’t be the first black President, there have already been two on “24.” One is now selling insurance for All State.
What do you want to bet that they are often addressed as “Mr. President?”
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Well, my brother once wrote a book in which a grade school was shut down to rid it of asbestos; the time it was shut down kept getting extended, and finally the parents of the book’s main characters got disgusted enough that they started homeschooling.
It was fiction, but it was clear that my brother thought both that that was overkill for asbestos and that homeschooling is better. In fact, I used a quick summary of this storyline when I was a potential juror in a trial regarding asbestos. The fact that my brother had written such a book, and that I had read it recently, was enough to get me off the jury, fiction or no.
Fiction really isn’t that divorced from real life.
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I hear John Edwards is looking for work again. Perhaps someone can point him to this resurgent market for suing those in the medical profession.
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I don’t know about medical information in particular, but fiction does have a powerful influence. A friend told me a story related to him by a sociologist at my university who specializes in religion. One of the things he studies is the economic and social consequences of the introduction of Christianity into cultures in the 19th century. He’s found lots of encouraging but apparently unpopular correlations. For example, the treatment of women tended to improve in places where Christianity took root. This professor told my friend that when he presents this work at conferences, it’s not uncommon for a few people to storm out. On one occasion, someone came up to him after his talk to challenge him using The Poisonwood Bible as evidence. I think this professor was accustomed to resistance, but it was still shocking to him that he had to explain the difference between fiction and fact to a person with an advanced degree.
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I don’t watch TV anyway, but even if I did, any medical information I heard would be double-checked before put into action. And if I heard medical information on a commercial I would dismiss it as fiction right away.
It would not surprise me if John Q. Public processes information differently, though.
But anyway, isn’t it truth that vaccinations *can* be harmful? I know a family who attributes their child’s autism to vaccinations. And look at the chicken pox vaccine. Children ended up getting the pox later because no-one knew that there had to be a booster. (Or some such thing – I’m not an expert and don’t have time to google a link.) We refuse the vaccine and try to expose our kids naturally. (We homeschool so have a few more years to find it naturally than those who attend a school and must abide by state mandates.)
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And how many children won’t get immunized and then will get sick? Can they then sue the TV show?
I don’t watch much television (Monk is about it), but I always have thought it bizarre we have programs about fictitious presidents of the US. When you think of all the fools out there with satellites willing to believe anything they see about this country, having a parallel presidency in prime time seems absurd and dangerous.
I think I’m getting old.
(My doctor friends all told me to skip the vaccine and let the kids get chicken pox. Which we did. Whooping cough and others, I wouldn’t skip.)
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Most people know that shows like this derive their story lines from real life. Sometimes the parallels are so striking that one can name the exact case or the exact person being represented. They are barely a step away from non-fiction.
Because of that, many people will think that this scenario actually occurred and that a link has been proven between autism and vaccinations. They shouldn’t make those assumptions, but some will. I’m with the pediatricians on this one.
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Kyle – Many shows do take real fact patterns as starting points for their fiction episodes. A prime example is “Law & Order” – notorious for its ‘ripped from the headlines’ episodes (and featuring a closing credit to Thompson’s West Publishing subsidary, which is probably the biggest publisher of court case decisions). I used to enjoy trying to identify the real case they used. The thing is that the shows often very substantially twist the real cases (often in a PC way) and a lot of the public doesn’t process that sort of thing very well.
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I hav not seen prime time secular television for years but I can recall it being extremely preachy (with a politically correct message).
It’s clear that they think of their medium as a vehicle for social influence.
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If it gets even one family to question the medical establishment and to research for themselves, then TV’s influence can definitely be for good.
When was the last time your doctor spent any time advising you of the risks of each vaccine?
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Michelle, I sometimes say the same thing–that I must be getting old. As Job said, “The thing that I feared has come upon me.” In the 1980’s I saw a lot of things coming that are here today–in fact, they’re worse than I expected.
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