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Please help improve the article or discuss these issues on the talk page. | Dumbing down is viewed either as a pejorative term for a perceived over-simplification of, amongst other things, education, news and television, or as a statement of truth about real cultural trends in education and culture. For other uses, see News (disambiguation). ...
Some authorities believe that the audience — be it of television or print media — is being fed a mass-produced, poor quality, and populist diet that leads to an ever-decreasing audience attention span. These ideas have been in circulation for many decades in the social science literature on mass culture argued, for example, by Richard Hoggart, Rosenberg and David Manning White, and Raymond Williams. The sentiment has its roots in the Matthew Arnold and F. R. Leavis approach to culture, particularly the former's Culture and Anarchy. Print media includes newspapers, magazines, and the like. ...
Attention span is the amount of time a person can concentrate on a single activity. ...
Richard Hoggart (born September 24, 1918) is a British sociologist, widely known for his 1957 book The Uses of Literacy. ...
Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 - 26 January 1988) was a Welsh academic, novelist and critic. ...
Matthew Arnold Caricature from Punch, 1881: Admit that Homer sometimes nods, That poets do write trash, Our Bard has written Balder Dead, And also Balder-dash Family tree Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic, who worked as an inspector of schools. ...
Frank Raymond Leavis (July 14, 1895 - April 14, 1978) was an influential British literary critic of the early-to-mid-twentieth century. ...
Culture and Anarchy is a book by Matthew Arnold, first published in 1869. ...
The concept "dumbing down" can point to a variety of different things but the concept always involves a claim about the simplification of culture, education, and thought, a decline in creativity and innovation, a degradation of artistic, cultural, and intellectual standards, or the undermining of the very idea of a standard, and the trivialisation of cultural, artistic, and academic creations.
The term can be seen as subjective since what is labelled as "dumbed down" often depends upon the values of individuals of specific groups. Pierre Bourdieu discusses how the practices of dominant groups in society are legitimised to the disadvantage of subordinate groups. However, there is also evidence that knowledge of areas outside that defined by popular culture has diminished progressively in the late twentieth century (see Dumbing Down link below). Subject (philosophy) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ...
Taste (sociology) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ...
Pierre Bourdieu (August 1, 1930 – January 23, 2002) was an acclaimed French sociologist whose work employed methods drawn from a wide range of disciplines: from philosophy and literary theory to sociology and anthropology. ...
Education
Increased participation in higher education has attracted the maintenance of distinctions through the construction of the category Mickey Mouse degrees. Media studies, psychology and political science are often the key targets in media discourse, although the representions of such disciplines are often inaccurate. La Distinction is a sociological book by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) based on his demographic research carried out in 1963 and concluded in 1967-8. ...
Mickey Mouse degrees is the dysphemism given by the national tabloids of Great Britain, nearly always in the summer the low point of the news cycle, to university degree courses deemed worthless or irrelevant. ...
Media Studies is the study of the constitution and effects of media. ...
Psychological science redirects here. ...
The Politics series Politics Portal This box: Political Science is the field concerning the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behaviour. ...
In the UK, there is now an annual moral panic every August when GCSE and A-level results are released. Grade inflation is attributed to rising pass rates. Comparisons between examination questions are often produced as evidence of dumbing down (in mathematics, for example, an algebraic equation would be compared to a recent question about a "real life" problem). Moral panic is a sociological term, coined by Stanley Cohen, meaning a reaction by a group of people based on the false or exaggerated perception that some cultural behavior or group, frequently a minority group or a subculture, is dangerously deviant and poses a menace to society. ...
“GCSE†redirects here. ...
The A-level, short for Advanced Level, is a General Certificate of Education qualification in the United Kingdom, usually taken by students during the optional final two years of secondary school (Years 12 & 13, commonly called the Sixth Form), or at a separate sixth form college or further education college...
Grade inflation is an issue in U.S. education and in GCSEs in England and Wales. ...
For other meanings of mathematics or uses of math and maths, see Mathematics (disambiguation) and Math (disambiguation). ...
This article is about the branch of mathematics. ...
In teaching history, Simon Schama has been accused of 'dumbing down' through his various television series and coffee table books, such as A History of Britain, The Power of Art, and Rough Crossings. Indeed, the term 'Schamafication' has been used to suggest that this is a neologism equivalent to McDonaldization or Disneyfication. Simon Schama Simon Michael Schama, CBE (born 13 February 1945) is a professor of history and art history at Columbia University. ...
A neologism is a word, term, or phrase which has been recently created (or coined), often to apply to new concepts, to synthesize pre-existing concepts, or to make older terminology sound more contemporary. ...
McDonaldization is a term used by sociologist George Ritzer in his book The McDonaldization of Society. ...
This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ...
And, of course, educationalists are increasingly concerned that Wikipedia itself is becoming a major source of ideas and information, and there are voices to be heard that this internet facility is also contributing to 'dumbing down'. Wikipedia (IPA: , or ( ) is a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia project, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization. ...
Media Increased competition and the introduction of econometric methods have radically changed mass media. Media consolidation has reduced both the breadth and depth of stories covered by mass media. Cost reduction leads to the elimination of foreign bureaus and correspondents in favor of news releases by political parties or businesses. Econometrics literally means economic measurement. It is the branch of economics that applies statistical methods to the empirical study of economic theories and relationships. ...
Popular press redirects here; note that the University of Wisconsin Press publishes under the imprint The Popular Press. Mass media is a term used to denote a section of the media specifically envisioned and designed to reach a very large audience such as the population of a nation state. ...
Concentration of media ownership (also known as media consolidation or media convergence) is a commonly used term among media critics, policy makers, and others to characterize ownership structure of media industries. ...
For information on Wikipedia press releases, see Wikipedia:Press releases. ...
Ratings and audience tracking promotes the most simplified writing and articles with the widest possible interest. This often means celebrity gossip, entertainment marketing, and sensationalism. Sensationalism is a manner of being extremely controversial, loud, attention-grabbing, or otherwise sensationalistic. ...
Complicated argument is made as simple as possible in order to "sell it" / communicate to the largest number of people possible.
There is an argument that television contributes to 'dumbing down'. Cultural theorists including Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams, Neil Postman, Henry Giroux and Pierre Bourdieu have all made statements against the uses of television. Stuart Hall, on the other hand, is more favorable towards the critical use of television. Richard Hoggart (born September 24, 1918) is a British sociologist, widely known for his 1957 book The Uses of Literacy. ...
Raymond Henry Williams (31 August 1921 - 26 January 1988) was a Welsh academic, novelist and critic. ...
Neil Postman (March 8, 1931 - October 5, 2003) was an American professor, media theorist, and cultural critic who is best known by the general public for his 1985 book about television, Amusing Ourselves to Death. ...
Henry Giroux, born September 18, 1943, is a US cultural critic. ...
Pierre Bourdieu (August 1, 1930 – January 23, 2002) was an acclaimed French sociologist whose work employed methods drawn from a wide range of disciplines: from philosophy and literary theory to sociology and anthropology. ...
There have been several well-known people named Stuart Hall, including: Stuart Hall - radio and TV presenter from the United Kingdom Stuart Hall - influential cultural theorist from the United Kingdom This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...
American rapper Lupe Fiasco addresses dumbing down lyrics Wasalu Muhammad Jaco (born February 16, 1982 in Chicago, Illinois) better known by his stage name Lupe Fiasco, is an American rapper. ...
American rapper Jay-Z was quoted saying on the song moment of clarity " I dumb down for my audience and double my dollars / they criticize me for it; but they all yell "holla!"/ Jay-Z (aka the Jigga, HOV and Hova, born Shawn Carter on December 4, 1970 in Brooklyn, New York) is an African American rapper/hip hop artist and record label executive; one of the most popular and successful rappers of the late 1990s and early 2000s. ...
Computing Some old-timers and hackers in the computer geek community regard the rise of GUIs in place of command line interfaces, the commercial exploitation of the Internet, and the consequent great increase in use by the non-technical public, as resulting in a great dumbing down in these areas, with the following of "proper" standards (technical and netiquette) declining precipitously. The term Hackers can refer to several things: Hacker - a type of person interested in exploration, usually of a computer or electrical engineering background. ...
The word geek is a slang term, noting individuals as a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, especially one who is perceived to be overly intellectual.[1] Formerly, the term referred to a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live...
GUI redirects here. ...
This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
Netiquette, a portmanteau of network etiquette, is the convention on electronic forums (Usenet, mailing lists, live chat, and Internet forums) to facilitate efficient interaction. ...
As a response to the growing accessibility to the internet, the phrase Eternal September was coined, referring to the period starting from September 1993 when 'newbies' were no longer encountered only at the start of the academic year. Eternal September (also Great September, September that never ended, perpetual September, or endless September) is a Usenet slang expressions for the period of time beginning September 1993. ...
Year 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar). ...
Developers of console-based computer games are also sometimes accused of dumbing down their products, particularly console-based sequels to earlier PC games. It is often alleged that the reason for this is the assumption that console owners are either less patient/intelligent, or simply prefer a more "direct" experience. Some recent examples of games accused of "console dumbing down" are Thief: Deadly Shadows (where several gameplay aspects of the earlier PC games are stripped out, such as the rope arrow and the swordfighting controls, and little or no reference is made to plot details of either of the earlier games) and games like Fahrenheit (which predominantly rely on simplified pattern matching and button mashing, usually with no actual relation to the operations they supposedly instruct the game to carry out, as opposed to skilled combination of manoeveures directly linked to input). Fahrenheit (known as Indigo Prophecy in the United States and Canada) is a video game that was released in September 2005. ...
Button mashing (a. ...
Other Uses of the Term The term has been appropriated as a jocular phrase for simplifying instructions, explanations, and so on, as in "could you dumb it down for me?"[citation needed]
See also Political correctness is the alteration of language to redress real or alleged injustices and discrimination or to avoid offense. ...
References
External links - Dumbing Down Review of the Dumbing Down phenomenon
- Is the internet dumbing us down? Review of The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture, by Andrew Keen
- The History of Schama Schama accused of dumbing down history
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