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By DIANE M. BALK
Associated Press
D ayton, ohio - thomas skill, Au
thor, teacher, and product of the tele
vision age, wants to know how television
influences people and vice versa.
He has written two books and several arti
cles on what many see as the softer side of pop
ular culture and television — the soap opera.
"Soaps, I think, tend to be kind of like sophis
ticated morality plays," he says. "Eventually
the stories do get resolved, good is rewarded
and bad is punished. It may take a year or two
years.
"An interesting thing is if a character is so
bad that there's no way for them to repent they
generally get killed off. That's like the ultimate
punishment, falling out of an airplane or get
ting pushed down a flight of stairs or ultimately
having a scheme of theirs backfire and they
get killed in the process."
Skill, an assistant professor of .communica
tion at the University of Dayton, believes soap
operas contain more realism than prime-time
series because daily serials revolve more
around character development. Weekly series
MTV f s influence on ads
CO <, W c
v—• :» c/2
tend to be more adventure and less character
exploration, he says.
Skill, 29, began collaborating with a former
faculty adviser, Mary B. Cassata, in 1977. Their
work at the State University of New York at Buf
falo led to a book in 1983 called "Life on Day
time Television: Tuning-In American Serial
Drama."
The authors examined lifestyles and demo
graphics of TV characters, images of the el
derly, sexuality on television and music in
soap operas. They also interviewed a tele
vision program executive for Procter & Gamble
Productions. Now, a second collaboration, a
bibliographic essay called "Television: A
Guide to the Literature," is being published by
Oryx Press. It will be sold as a resource for tea
chers and students of mass communications.
While some may consider TV as a strange
topic for traditional, empirical research or se
rious sociological study, Skill says the auto
mobile and television have been the most pro
found influences on 20th-century society.
"Popular culture is a very important part of
our society," he says. "It's culture that arises
out of interests of many people and it tends to
be our source of entertainment. Entertainment
has a very important function with us. It's not
just work. It has a lot to do with our social well
being and what we think of ourselves.,"
"America is popular culture," Skill says, not
ing it is a product of the democratic process
and free enterprise. "If it pleases a number of
people, it has a very important intrinsic value."
Historically, popular culture has evolved into
respected culture, he says.
"Shakespeare was popular culture," Skill
says. "Today everybody talks about the won
derful films of Frank Capra. At the time, they
called them 'capra-corn,' because they
thought they were so corny. It was popular cul
ture. Today, it's respected filmmaking.
"We're saying 'why not study popular cul
ture as it's happening right now.' Why wait for
50 years or 300 years ... to decide popular cul
ture is really high culture?"
H E'S PARTICULARLY INTERESTED IN THE
role of the family and how it is portrayed
on television — an interest sparked in
part by criticism that divorce rates have risen
as television became popular and that tele
vision has led to the breakup of the American
family.
"The family unit is essentially the one thing
that remains stable on television, Skill says.
"Sure, a lot of times they'll show problems with
divorce; they break up and tend to come to
gether in a new form."
Families tend to remain "core elements,"
with older characters the "tent pole characters"
that hold the family together, he says. â–¡
continued from page 1
music in advertising and advertising
in general."
Music is one of the most powerful
advertising and marketing tools, he
says. Segmenting and targeting in
advertising and marketing make-
music a powerful force because mu
sic can break down markets into
groups.
HE EMOTIONAL IMPACT
of music also makes it a pow
erful advertising tool. Creative
director Chuck Cilo writes about
emotion as an advertising tool in
Advertising Age:
"Most of the time, the facts of a
product are perilously similar to the
facts of its competition. That's when
logic should yield to emotion."
In other words, except for those
few times when a product is blessed
with outstanding capabilities or
unique attributes, consumers will
choose a product based on an emo
tional reaction.
"EP is a powerful advertising in
gredient that can give one product
an advantage over other similar
products in any given category," he
writes. "EP is the Emotional Plus
added to the facts of a product that
imparts a separable image and mo
tivating stimulus to buy.''
Consider the Oreo. The facts -
Oreos are cookies that taste terrific,
he writes. But so do a lot of other
cookies. Oreo's EP is that people
don't merely eat the cookie, they
play with it. .
While Oreos use an idea to accent
a product's, good points, non-adver
tising advertising such as Honda's
Lou Reed commercial sells an
image or an idea rather than the
product. Music plays an important
part in this emotional approach.
Palmer says music also can be
used to produce the creative com
mercials advertising needs to keep
its viewers' attention.
"Because the greatest fear is zap
ping (changing channels with a re
mote control)," he says the industry
must produce ads "that say to the
viewer, 'Excuse me, but this pro
gramming is filler for the advertising
you are about to see, which is the
most stimulating on TV.'"
A Bryan advertising agency ac
count executive agrees with Palmer.
"It's got to be something entertain
ing or people will just tune you out,"
Joe Buser Jr. of Joe Buser and Asso
ciates says. "People will watch a
commercial and you can ask them
what it was when it's through - and
they won't even know.
"So you got to have something
that they just look up and watch.
And a lot of that is with music - just
something that lets them know this is
going to be a good one - this is
something worth watching."
T he creative head of
Ogilvy Worldwide and presi
dent of Ogilvy and. Mather
/New York also says advertising
needs to be entertaining. Norman
Berry tells' Advertising Age:
"Consumers are far more sophisti
cated than we've given them credit
for in the past. They are exposed to
enormous amounts of visual and
musical stimulation. To cut through
this, advertising must be highly cre
ative."
He says advertising must reward
the viewer for watching, as well as
sell him the product.
"It must intrigue and hold the
viewer's attention, even if he has a
zapper (remote control) in his hand.D
Movies are listed alphabetically. The Grove movies will be shown on listed date only.
The rating and theater code name are in parenthesis. The theater codes are:
GR - The Grove 845-1515
ME — Manor East 823-8300
P3 — Plitt Cinema HI 846-6714
PO - Plitt Post Oak...: 764-0616
S6 — Schulman Six 775-2463
Back to the Future (PG,P3)
A new Spielberg film about a kid
who gets transported back to the 50s
and sees his parents as high school
sweethearts. Great Film.
The Black Cauldron(PG,ME)
New Disney film.
E.T. (PG,S6)
This tear-jerker starring our friend
from outer-space is back.
Fright Night (R,S6)
The PR reads: There are very good
reasons why you should be afraid of
the dark. Three teenagers suspect that
the newcomer to town (Chris Saran
don) is a vampire. One of the stars is
Amanda of "All My Children" fame.
Mad Max
Beyond Thunderdome (PG-13,S6)
Mel Gibson and Tina Turner star in
this Road Warrior sequel. Max is a.
little mellower, but there's still a lot of
action. It's worth it to see Tina.
The Man With One Red Shoe (PG,S6)
A Tom Hanks film that looks prom
ising. Remake of the French film "The
Tall Blond Man With One Black
Shoe."
My Science Project(PG,S6)
One of several movies that fall into the
"back-to-school" genre. If these are
the kinds of kids the school systems
are turning out, then I don't under
stand why people are complaining
that kids aren't learning anything.
National Lampoon's
European Vacation (PG-13,PO)
A second movie in Chevy Chase's ad
ventures. I hope it's better than the
first.
Pee-wee's Big Adventure(PR,P3)
This guy is strange; you'll either love
him or hate him. But this is probably
the most original film that was
released this summer
Real Genius(PG,S6)
Another example of what happens
when brains go awry
St. Elmo's Fire (R,PO)
Sort of a Big Chill for the college
crowd. Mixed reviews.
Sesame Street
Follow That Bird (G, ME)
A favorite for kids.
Silverado (PG,ME)
A great new western with an impres
sive cast. (Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn,
Rosanna Arquette, John Cleese, Ke
vin Costner, Brian Dennyhe, Danny
Glover, Jeff Goldblum and Linda
Hunt to boot).
Summer Rental(PG,P3)
John Candy goes to the beach for
some farcical fun in the sun.
Weird Science (PG-13,PO)
This new film looks remarkably simi
lar to another new film, "Real Gen
ius." But this should be renamed
"Real Weird". Stars Anthony Michael
Hall ("Breakfast Club," "Sixteen Can
dles").