Kurt Vonnegut Jr. used to say that he wrote novels in order to clean out all of the pop culture junk that had collected in and stuck to his brain.
Jim Salem, a professor of American studies at the University of Alabama, wrote a short essay about some of that junk, a piece he titled "The Onslaught Media."
"Unless you are living in a cave someplace in the Mohave Desert, you are soaking up an estimated 500 of these messages a day," Salem wrote. He cited not only TV commercials, print ads, radio spots and billboards, but also "more personal forms: T-shirts, bumper stickers, greeting cards, junk mail and graffiti. The Onslaught Media sell products, services, ideas, people, ways of life and feelings."
Salem wrote that essay in 1981, when I was a student in several of his classes. Now that e-mail, Twitter, the Internet, cable television with its thousand-plus channels, iPhones and Blackberrys are as commonplace in our lives as toast, I wonder how high Professor Salem would tally our daily intake of onslaught media?
Five thousand per day? More? Can most Americans go 10 even minutes, even at work, without being exposed to such onslaught messages?
Jim Salem, a professor of American studies at the University of Alabama, wrote a short essay about some of that junk, a piece he titled "The Onslaught Media."
"Unless you are living in a cave someplace in the Mohave Desert, you are soaking up an estimated 500 of these messages a day," Salem wrote. He cited not only TV commercials, print ads, radio spots and billboards, but also "more personal forms: T-shirts, bumper stickers, greeting cards, junk mail and graffiti. The Onslaught Media sell products, services, ideas, people, ways of life and feelings."
Salem wrote that essay in 1981, when I was a student in several of his classes. Now that e-mail, Twitter, the Internet, cable television with its thousand-plus channels, iPhones and Blackberrys are as commonplace in our lives as toast, I wonder how high Professor Salem would tally our daily intake of onslaught media?
Five thousand per day? More? Can most Americans go 10 even minutes, even at work, without being exposed to such onslaught messages?
Add one more to that tally. Filling up my auto at a Daytona Beach gas
station this week, I was treated to a new (to me) bit of onslaught:
something called "Gas Station TV" -- a TV screen right there at the
pump.
I remember seeing "NBC" on the screen as some game-show host-looking guy talked like he was coaching me how to peel a banana. I didn't see any remote control or channel-changing knob, so flipping over to F/X or the SyFy channel wasn't possible.
I refused to be onslaughtered and quickly tuned out.
I later Googled Gas Station TV and discovered on its Web site that "NBC Everywhere, the out-of-home unit of NBC Universal, and Gas Station TV, the largest provider of entertaining and informative TV at the pump," have formed a "strategic advertising and content partnership ... NBCU content will be seen by more than 30 million viewers each month during their routine weekly visit to the pump."
NBC Everywhere -- has a nice Orwellian ring, doesn't it?
Sorry, GSTV -- I'll be tuning out ... unless you're broadcasting a new episode of "True Blood" or "Dexter." But, come to think of it, I'd rather spend my TV time at home than in a place surrounded by gas fumes.
And, if some yahoo decides to feed his TV jones at the pump, and thus turns a three-minute fill-up into a 15-minute marathon, and lines at the pumps begin backing up to the street, I predict Gas Station TV will go down in flames.
In other news ...
Professor Salem considers bumper stickers a part of the onslaught media, and rightfully so. Here's a recent favorite I spotted while driving behind a car on Nova Road: "I'm a librarian and I will shush your ass."
Not-a-Sign-of-the-Times Department: Last Sunday's "Rudy Park" comic strip, which runs in The News-Journal, depicted an interracial married couple -- a black man and a white woman. Once upon a time (in my lifetime), such a scenario, whether in a comic strip, movie, TV show or, of course, in real life, would have caused an uproar in towns across the South.
One of the most talked-about items ever published by a newspaper where I worked occurred in the mid-1980s, when The Dothan (Ala.) Eagle printed an engagement photo of a black man and a white woman. Neighbors and strangers alike felt compelled to comment to me (as a "representative" of the paper) in hushed, shocked tones.
None of the responses I heard were overtly sinister or racist. The people I heard from were just befuddled that love could happen across the color line, and that folks would openly violate the South's unspoken rules that compelled romantic apartheid.
So far, I've heard no feedback about that "Rudy Park" comic. Are times finally a-changin'?
I remember seeing "NBC" on the screen as some game-show host-looking guy talked like he was coaching me how to peel a banana. I didn't see any remote control or channel-changing knob, so flipping over to F/X or the SyFy channel wasn't possible.
I refused to be onslaughtered and quickly tuned out.
I later Googled Gas Station TV and discovered on its Web site that "NBC Everywhere, the out-of-home unit of NBC Universal, and Gas Station TV, the largest provider of entertaining and informative TV at the pump," have formed a "strategic advertising and content partnership ... NBCU content will be seen by more than 30 million viewers each month during their routine weekly visit to the pump."
NBC Everywhere -- has a nice Orwellian ring, doesn't it?
Sorry, GSTV -- I'll be tuning out ... unless you're broadcasting a new episode of "True Blood" or "Dexter." But, come to think of it, I'd rather spend my TV time at home than in a place surrounded by gas fumes.
And, if some yahoo decides to feed his TV jones at the pump, and thus turns a three-minute fill-up into a 15-minute marathon, and lines at the pumps begin backing up to the street, I predict Gas Station TV will go down in flames.
In other news ...
Professor Salem considers bumper stickers a part of the onslaught media, and rightfully so. Here's a recent favorite I spotted while driving behind a car on Nova Road: "I'm a librarian and I will shush your ass."
Not-a-Sign-of-the-Times Department: Last Sunday's "Rudy Park" comic strip, which runs in The News-Journal, depicted an interracial married couple -- a black man and a white woman. Once upon a time (in my lifetime), such a scenario, whether in a comic strip, movie, TV show or, of course, in real life, would have caused an uproar in towns across the South.
One of the most talked-about items ever published by a newspaper where I worked occurred in the mid-1980s, when The Dothan (Ala.) Eagle printed an engagement photo of a black man and a white woman. Neighbors and strangers alike felt compelled to comment to me (as a "representative" of the paper) in hushed, shocked tones.
None of the responses I heard were overtly sinister or racist. The people I heard from were just befuddled that love could happen across the color line, and that folks would openly violate the South's unspoken rules that compelled romantic apartheid.
So far, I've heard no feedback about that "Rudy Park" comic. Are times finally a-changin'?
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