M.C. Escher

Viewers once thought:

Film talkies would forever change democracy.

Telephones would invade privacy.

Comic books would turn kids into juvenile delinquents.

Television would create zombies.

Researchers shrug off such predictions, arguing citizens can attend to only so much media in one setting.

Researchers say new media displace old media. For example, television took over for radio in the 1950s when families consumed evening entertainment.

Computer-internet media—Facebook, Twitter and email—have displaced other channels when it comes to reaching people.

Civil disobedience, for example, is fueled by protestors announcing events electronically, thus potentially organizing groups more quickly.

But when it comes to measurable effects, social media fail to demonstrate a large impact on publics.

Media researcher Jonah Berger of the University of Pennsylvania says most ideas don’t catch fire.

Most YouTube videos, for example, rarely go viral.

And efforts to reach mass audiences through social media can be woefully ineffective and expensive.

American advertisers last year plunked down $170 billion for direct marketing, according to The Economist.

(That’s how much we spend on care for Americans with Alzheimer’s, according to The Fiscal Times.)

When it comes to electronic media ploys, sales resulting from ads were a fraction—less than one percent—in fact, one-hundredth of one percent, The Economist reports.

That makes unsolicited ads as welcome as ants at a summer picnic.

M.C. Escher rendering of an ant from http://www.insects.org/ced1/escher02.html