They introduced representatives of partner organizations which would help Positive Center provide continuous insight in media addiction rates and media unreality index to assist governments improve media strategies, raise public awareness about these issues and advise media how to fulfill their social role better.

Regional Audiovisual Attache of French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Michel Willefert opened the conference stating that recent events showed traditional media failed to fulfill their role.

“While 62.4 citizens use media more than 10 years ago, 21.3 % use new media more than old ones. When it comes to perception of media,  50.6 % citizens think new media are manipulative, while 77.4 % think this for mainstream media. Citizens thrust new media more than the old ones, but they show greater level of media addiction to new media. When asked about use of new media to establish relations with new people, 35.5% met someone by social network, 12.9 % of them started to socialize with new acquaintances, 9.6 % became friends, while 4.9% achieved intimate partnerships” said dr Brankovic.

He added that when it comes to what people want in media, 65.9 % of them demand more education, 34.3 % want more documentary programs, 25.4 % want more informative contents. As for the TV news, 63% of citizens wish more positive examples from society, 49 % would like to see more inspiring stories, while 61.4 % thinks we need less activities of politicians.

“Prevailing number of negative news indicate that media contents are unrealistic, additionally scaring their viewers, thus making them stay at home with TV screen on”, said Bojic. Citizens think we need less negative news (45.2 %) and that we have too much negative news on TV (76.6 %) compared to positive news, while 44.9 % of people feel news about crimes, disasters and diseases negatively affect their mood. In an interview for Radio Belgrade “Talasanje” prorgam, Ljubisa Bojic states we need to rethink effects of news about sporadic accidents, because these do not represent our reality in a valid way. He gave an example of a news about drowning in a lake, which may affect kids to stay at home, stuck to their screens. Bojic also mentioned devastating effects of recent news campaign about flu pandemics, as it was primed in mainstream media.

When it comes to media addiction indicators, 24 % feel to overuse media, 31.9 % often use media to forget problems, 26.1 % are not able to resist media use despite they want to do something else, 30.1 % feel the need to go somewhere without media use to work without interruption, 22.4% feel the need to close their social network profile because they cannot resist using media despite they do not want to.

“Initial reasons for media addiction may be some kind of stressful situations coming from the family, work environment or moral norms”, stated Bojic. He added that these people decide to substitute their direct worlds with the indirect ones. People repress their inner impulses, because it is too hard to face hurtful reality. Media addicts tend to entertain themselves, thus forgetting their problems. What they experience in media is a world far away from their realities, which pushes them into addiction even more. Instead of stimulating their realities, unrealistic media contents make our citizens “stay a sleep”. “Some citizens are aware of their addiction, but cannot resist using media, like drunks are unable to stop consuming alcohol”, states Ljubisa Bojic for Morning Program at National Television of Serbia. There are two types of media addicts: those who feel liberated without media access and those who feel happy with media access.

As for relation between demographics and media addiction, older and unemployed people show higher rates of media addiction.

“We need to rethink social role of media”, said Ljubisa Bojic. He added that results of this research put forward key questions of social representation. “Does great volume of negative news in media represent reality in a valid manner? What is the effect of “do more for less time in shallow way” philosophy of some content creators to the quality of media programs? Does this have anything to do with media addiction levels? In this sense, what is the effect of emotionally empty contents and constructed objectivity which is all too present in today’s media? These would be the topics of our future research inquiries”, concludes Ljubisa Bojic.

Initiative of Positive Center for Digital Media has been supported by Republic of Serbia’s Ministry for Culture, Media and Information Society.

After the presentation of research results, moderator of the conference Anita Todorovic  highlighted the role of Media Center Belgrade in implementation of Positive Center’s program. She also noted interest of Institute for Political Studies in Grenoble concerning involvement in future media addiction researches.

Svetozar Rakovic, Secretary General of Serbian Independent Journalist Association commented on how these research results could be used by media content creators.

Dr Zora Krnjaic and dr Ivana Stepanovic Ilic introduced research results of the Institute for Psychology at Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade concerning personal traits of media users.

Dr Dubravka Valic Nedeljkovic talked about research done by Department for Media Studies at Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad, concerning the use of  TV by kids.

Zoran Ilic, director of multimedia project My Hero elaborated on how their new media journalism is setting example for mainstream media.

Ljubisa Obradovic, editor in chief of Serbian National Broadcasting Corporation web portal talked about role of his media in realization of education component of Positive Center’s program.

To be clear, high quality media program does not have to be educational in its character, but it has to bear a connection with reality. Big Brother reality show lacks this connection, as people are being filmed in experimental conditions, like white mice in a lab.

Thus, viewing Big Brother does not make you stupid by itself, but it drags you away from yourself. Unconscious decision to commit an escape from yourself, by using reality unrelated media, may cause loss of connection to your emotional reality. In other words, it may make you a media zombie.

On the big scale, humans are blinded by different media like brands, social networks and TV, that they are losing grasp of themselves. It would have been different if those media were reality based. But they are more and more entertainment and ads rich, while less useful to their users.

For an example, when browsing daily paper, you can often see information about events happening tens of thousands kilometers away from you, but it is very hard to find local news relating to you. Also, negative news are plentiful in daily papers, making people stay at home, because of unrealistic fears.

Although more people are becoming aware of negative media effects to themselves and their families, it is hard to resist media use. Mass media affect our societies worse than alcohol or drugs. If you take a glass of vine, it can relax you, thus having a positive effect. Instead, if you drink lots of alcohol every night, this can be destructive to your health.

The same happens with TV, books and Internet use. Just that before, you did not have so many opportunities to dive into the “world of escape”, like now. With a mobile phone in your hand and Internet access, you can escape daily problems whenever you feel unable to handle its burdens. And this happens all too often.

Except being seductive in their nature, media are very deceptive, because in case of Facebook use, it seems you are communicating with other people, not seeking an escape from harshness of daily life. Similarly, when you drink alcohol, it appears you can warm yourself. But this is just a Fata Morgana.

In essence of modern “emotional substitution” lies human inability to handle pressure of increasing number of changing media. Media are becoming more deceptive, seductive and unrealistic at the same time. Above that, instead of giving you frames of reference, modern media bomb you with intensive content, which “kills imagination”. At the bottom line, why do you have to think and more importantly feel, if everything is served to you on the plate?

Media give us more detailed solutions and firm schemes of conduct, than ever before, thus destroying potential for imagination, which is at core of positive media effects. TV programs give us sights and sounds, making us lazy and thus less creative, while books can inspire us, with words only, by leaving us to imagine pictures in our minds.

Effects of Rock and Roll music in enslaving human kind is evident, when you scratch below its liberating surface. It may appear that young people, listening to this kind of music, express themselves by dancing. On the other hand, when you think of what appears a play, for young animals is preparation for their life, you understand that countless hours spent in night clubs in fact disable young people from expression, or touch with themselves, which would stimulate them to take active roles in their lives.

Also, media stream their audiences towards perfection, by depicting unrealistic female beauty as a goal for their users, not as a reflection of reality. By focusing on representation of materialistic values, media became media-centered, thus negating emotional reality, which they ought to represent.

Lacking emotional representation is a blink into unbalanced world of contemporary media content. Insane standards of objectivity set by journalist’s code of ethics are repressing their emotional expression and creativity in mass media, making our mediators of reality become robotized, which is at the bottom line transferred to zombify their audiences.

Another sign of unrealistic media content is ever-present lifeless statistics, which rather confuses audiences, than it makes any sense to them. Trivial figures are a good sign for materialistic approach to life in our media.

Big media programs fail to convey daily issues of our communities. Paths of media indulgence are usually not individualized as much as it is possible, especially when it comes to education. There are lots of universal concepts defined to the smallest details in all aspects of life, thus repressing individuality. The best illustration for this, include declining number of local media as a counterweight to the advance of international conglomerates. These tendencies make it hard for everyone to read “their personal set of books”, as there are no universal pathways of knowledge.

Media effects could be checked with children, in terms of unrealistic content. Today’s children start intensive media use from an early age. They usually watch unrealistic cartoons on TV, play PC games and access Internet on their cell phones. Children are applying unrealistic concepts from today’s cartoon to their lives, note pre-school teachers. Why is that? You can reach the answer by simply comparing contemporary and “old school” cartoon characters. You would see that Pokemon and SpongeBob ousted more realistic characters, including Cinderella and Donald the Duck.

Except Internet, TV, newspapers, mobile phones, radio, music, books, films and theatre plays, in my view, media include institutions like state, religions and corporations, but also other marks of cultural heritage such as architecture, medicine, science, education history and morals, as they tend to convey messages of human spiritual reality. I will describe lacking connection between reality and media both in philosophical book  Cultural Organism: Mass Symbols and Freedom and in my doctoral thesis. Thus, I am inviting you to participate in Media Use Survey (also available in French, Korean, Greek and Serbian), helping me to scientifically confirm these ideas.

Freedom of speech should empower individuals to publicly state who they love. Late last year, during my visit to Lyon, I was talking to young French student Tiphaine Lucas about politically incorrect statements. For her, it would be absolutely unacceptable if one states not to like Muslims. Because of this pressures, many French people omit to express their feelings.

Failure in expression is at core of western societies. Instead of freely discussing issues of prejudice in media, thus preventing social pathologies, today’s media repress emotions, thus taking the role of so called “objectivity” agents. Journalists are running away from their roles to represent sentiments of their viewers.

In essence of all media stands emotional representation, not robotized journalism. Future mass media would portray what people feel. Journalists would break ties with commercialism to establish firm influence of emotional realities. Journalism of tomorrow would relay on commentaries, live discussions and creative news programs, with less entertainment. Big brother show substitutes reality, as humans accept living in experimental conditions for the sake of partial popularity and some income.

If despite all restrictions, Big Brother participants express their societal stands they get punished, because they are not allowed to talk about anything but trivial stuff. Most of the shows in today’s media serve as mass anesthetizer, providing pleasant escape for their viewers from realities of life. In case modern media start to represent emotional realities, they would stimulate direct lives of their audiences.

By failing to represent emotional reality, content of today’s mass media continues to be trivial, making users disconnect with their inner selves. This is main effect of media-centered-media. Some of media users try to find meaning in retro music from the sixties, but these tunes do not represent present time emotional realities.

In today’s media, emotions are strictly prohibited for the sake of substituting audience’s inner impulses with media. A step in liberating direction comes with expansion of Wikileaks. Creator of this Internet medium, Julian Assange argues there should be no barrier between wast universe of facts and public. Instead, future of representation lies in mediating public sentiment, not facts. Journalists of tomorrow will be guided by their own feelings in advocating public views, expecially in commentaries or debates.

Except Assange, a step from resolving issue of representation was Tony Deifell. He started to follow me on Twitter, so I srearched his name to find his lecture at Google, about a book on blind photographers. Visually impaired individuals can see better than those with sight. In other words, We are giving away our subjectivity, emotions, and intuition for the material world. This is a guiding principle of contemporary culture. Although Defal’s The Big Thaw Report on future of journalism goes along the line of commercialism, his insights on blind photographers give us a clue of love substitution in all mediums.

Parallel with this almost-liberating-trends in thinking on future of journalism comes Facebook revolution in Arab world with requests for technocratic government. Idea of sole-less experts in power mounts to a peak of worldwide anti-representation when it comes to human mass mediums.

When one compares TV broadcasts of sport events from twenty years ago and now he may conclude that so called “objective commentaries” in present substitute previous emotional outbursts of journalists covering sport events.

Thus, as there is no space for further pressures by societal minorities, emotional representation may follow as a guiding principle for future of journalism.

Media tempt their user. It is easier to send an SMS message then to call someone by phone, or see her in person. For example, few days ago I was texting a girl because I was lacking bravery to call her. By writing a message I would be tempt to construct sentences instead of being sincere – this is main difference between your relation with talk and text function of your phone, says Alek Kezele during our late night encounter in Red Shoes restaurant, next to Belgrade Ada lake.

Also, if it is easy to send message to so many addresses you would be tempted to send meaningless ones. Receiving a message today does not have the same weight as it had a decade ago, when sender had to perform greater effort to write it by hand without possibility to edit and copy/paste its contents. My father Milorad Bojic told me that it was possible to establish better bonds between scientists when there was no Internet. He presumes that now people establish more superficial relations and many messages get no answer.

These were starting points to my understanding how old and new media differ. Winner of this year’s NIN award for best novel Gordana Cirjanic helped me. She was stating for Blic newspaper interview titled “In Claws of Television,” that books try to seduce their readers while viewing reality TV show is much more dangerous as it provides picture and sound to its users, so they do not need to exercise any effort.

Anyway, how destructive might online social networks be if television is so dangerous? Three years ago, after my lecture at Megatrend University on online advertising, young mom and an assistant professor at Faculty for Culture and Media approached me with a concern about Facebook. She was telling me this social network is so tempting, “that young people cannot resist using it”. Except being tempting, mass media are deceptive in a way their users perceive them as expression mechanisms, thinking it is possible substitute direct communication by sending a Facebook message. However one can never express him or her self like in physical presence of other party in conversation. Thus, the danger of online social networks is because they create an impression their addicts live real life.

This effect was not possible with reality TV shows because, although their viewers would feel living through all ups and downs of their heroes, they would not feel like participating – having an active role in their lives. Few months ago, while I was wrapping up my book on this topic, I heard two elderly persons in a restaurant speaking about participants of most popular Serbian music TV competition like if they were their dearest family members. It took me long time to understand whether Grand Show participants were really their family members or not.

Although reality TV gives sense of “false life” to their viewers, it cannot beat online social networks, because of deceptive interactivity. This is where Facebook empowers its users, because it gives them false feeling of activity. In first instance, this cloud of interactivity does not appear as surrogate of life but as real platform communication between people. This brings us to the question of future or rather is there something more sophisticated both in deceptiveness and level of temptation than online social networks? As my friend, pioneer of informatics and professional photographer Aleksandar Dunkic asks – is there life outside Internet? Or, would something more deceptive than Facebook arise?

This is social virtuality. Put on your electronic goggles and dive into socializing based on sensations, with virtual movements, talking, poking and “loving.” This would be combination of second life, Facebook and supreme gadget of alienation – spectacles from movie Edward Scissorhands. In this honour recommend seeing visionary music video Computer Love and thinking through the question weather social virtuality would be culmination of human history?

It is not true that people get what they want! People even realize they are media addicts, but are unable to resist media over-use. It is like a drunk who knows alcohol is bad, but cannot stop drinking it.

Global Voices is a web site which brings more realistic picture of the world around us than CNN, because it takes into account common people and their topics. Mainstream media are guided by “rating” and “interest,” which takes them away from their primary task.

Julian Assange shows us the difference between reality and journalist-portrayed-world. By freeing secret diplomatic documents, WikiLeaks tells us that humanity fails to connect with reality. There are just too many lies and obstructions to free expression in the world today.

Except unrealistic topics in mainstream media, focus to the Western hemisphere and imbalance in negative/positive news reporting, today’s media bring us lots of entertainment. Most of media users, in fact, try to escape life. In other words, they are not using media as a support to their life, but as fantasy machines.

Last week I felt I sould buy Politikin Zabavnik as I was approaching a news-stand in Belgrade and bingo! In this magazine I found Djordje Pisarev‘s peace about “books which destroyed his life.” Pisarev was indulging into fantasy world of books about Tarzan, in his youth, because it was easier to read them than to go out to the street and live real life.

Entertainment-reach media give us an opportunity to escape ourselves. This idea came up to me as I was talking to Jelena Kavaja of Politika daily, few months ago. She was asking me how people used FaceBook. Indeed, there are various ways to use this social network, but most of the people are “stuck in it.” Instead of finding new friends, scheduling meet-ups, exchanging knowledge or using it to disseminate information, most of the users spend countless hours “having fun” as they play games or socialize online.

I am sure there is a connection between number of media, our indulgence in them, amount of time We spend using them and level of deception they bring us. Before, there were not so many temptations to dive into the fantasy world because there were much less media than now. I think that media create pressure – they no longer exist as human expression-mechanisms. Dominance of media creates media-centred-media!

Motive behind Positive Center is to focus attention of our colleagues on connection between reality and journalism. In a postmodern world of language without meaning, We seek an escape with constant superficial change. On today’s media people become objects because of their inability to express. It is really strange why We do not have statues of striptease dancers in our cities as signs of body worship. This would really show our neglect of reality and “corrupt journalism” all around us. At Positive Center We shall discuss, lecture and research about this lacking connection between today’s journalism and reality.