Last month I was invited to give the closing remarks at
The New York Film Finance Forum. At first I did not accept
because the mission of the forum is all about how to make
money in the film business. But then I began to ponder our
foundation’s mission and what I might speak about. And then
thought about why it is so important for me to get out into
the world and speak to as many people as I can about healthy
media.

So I accepted Winston and Baker’s kind offer and sat down
to write my speech and this is what wrote.

It never occurred to me growing up in the Midwest that I would someday be working as a film producer in Hollywood.

Thank you.

I shared the speech right after presenting our new foundation
video and the room became very silent. For two days all these
investors and producers had been hearing about how they could
make a profit in the entertainment industry, but nothing about
if it would serve mankind. I think they were all a bit stunned.

One of the people that came up to me at the end of the speech
said, “I get what you are doing…You want to create a modern
version of PBS. What you are doing is so important.” I smiled
and replied, “Yes, exactly!”

Part of our foundation’s mission is to share with the world how MEDIA ROLE MODELS are influencing
our everyday lives.

In my upcoming book, The New Media Diet, I share that while there have been
over 2500 studies and research projects that clearly prove that media influences humanity at some
level, many people still don’t believe it.

One of the key research points to support this is given by Richard M. Perloff of Cleveland State University.
He writes, “What effect does media have on you? Does news change your mind about issues? Do commercials sway you? Not really, you say. You make up your own mind, form your ideas about politics and products, and you’re not much fazed by TV crime shows. Do me this favor: estimate the impact news, commercials, and television violence have on other people. If you are right that other people are influenced by media, then it certainly stands to reason that you too should be affected. On the other hand, if you are correct that you’re not affected and that everyone else presumably claims the same lack of media influence, than you exaggerate the impact of media on others.”

Richard M. Perloff continues, “The third-person effect hypothesis turns conventional media effects theorizing on its head. Instead of looking at media effects on beliefs, it examines beliefs about media effects, Rather than assuming that media affects perceptions, it assumes that perceptions can shape media….The third-person effect was developed in 1983 by sociologist W. Phillips Davison. The third person term derives from the expectation that a message will exert a stronger impact on others than on the self. The message will not have its greatest impact on “me” or “you” but on “them.” Individuals overestimate the impact that mass media exert on others, and underestimate media effects on the self, or both.

Perloff poses the question, if the third-person effect is a phenomenon, coming into its own in the age of mass media and taking new form with the development of interactive media? Or does it date back thousands of years to ancient Greece, when Scorates was accused of corrupting the youth of Athens through his creative use of the spoken word? He feels on a psychological level, the third-person effect links up with the social psychology of risk, particularly the tendency to separate out judgments of risk for oneself and society at large.

If this is true, it may not be something one might feel proud or want to admit to anyone else. “Hey, I am easily influenced by the images and messages I see in media.” Such admission could reflect poorly against someone, and the speaker out to be ordinary, “just like everyone else.”

Well, maybe we’re not so different after all. Once we, as parents, become truly educated about and admit how the media is affecting our families’ well being, only then will the tides finally change. Then we will be inspired to join together to make a difference and help to co-create healthier media role models that help draw life blue prints for our children to live their lives by. Do we not all want our children to grow to be come happy, healthy and fulfilled adults? Then why do we continue to let them be exposed and influenced to unhealthy media role models?

Another good example to support that media does indeed influence humanity is the following article I recently
came across on the internet.

TV SHOW HELPS UTAH BOY SURVIVE NIGHT SOLO IN WOODS
By ELIZABETH WHITE, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 23, 3:00 AM PDT
When he realized he’d been separated from his family on a weekend hike in a northern Utah forest, 9-year-old Grayson Wynne’s thoughts turned to television. Grayson watches “Man vs. Wild” on the Discovery Channel every week with his brothers and his dad. On the show, host and adventurer Bear Grylls strands himself in the wilderness and then shows viewers how to survive the sticky situations.

That’s where Grayson says he learned to leave clues behind to help searchers find him. On Saturday, when he was scared and alone in the Ashley National Forest, Grayson started tearing up his yellow rain slicker, despite the intermittent downpours, and tying pieces to trees. “I just used my hands,” said Grayson, who was found safe Sunday after spending 18 hours lost in the forest. “I don’t know how many times I tore the thing but quite a lot.”
Grayson was among a party of about 15 family members that left Saturday from the Spirit Lake trailhead in Daggett County. The group stopped to tighten a saddle on a horse at some point, said Grayson’s dad, Kynan Wynne. But Grayson didn’t realize it and went ahead of the pack before diverting onto a smaller trail in the thick forest.
Although Kynan Wynne was concerned for his son’s safety, he was also confident in the boy’s resilience.

“Somewhere he got the idea that for multiple reasons, not just for people to find you, but to retrace your steps
if you have to, to leave a trail,” Kynan Wynne said. Grayson created a small shelter overnight under a fallen tree. The next day, he decided to follow a creek in hopes of finding help. “I (thought I) might find the lake, that there might be somebody at the lake,” he said. Grayson, who will start fourth grade in the fall, also left a couple of clues for searchers that he didn’t mean to. He dropped a granola bar wrapper about 300 yards off the main trail. Searchers also found a small footprint and a backpack about 400 yards from the wrapper.

“I was just being pretty stupid that I dropped the backpack,” Grayson said. “I was just panicking too much.”
When Grayson heard a helicopter overhead, he ran into a meadow and waved the last piece of his jacket. But two searchers on horseback saw him first. “It was such a good feeling that I was going to be all right,” said
Grayson, who got back to normal Monday by playing in a Little League double-header.

When he was reunited with his father, Grayson’s first words were “Happy Father’s Day.” The Daggett County sheriff’s office credited the searchers, volunteers and Grayson’s common sense for the positive outcome.
“The thing that he recognized from the show, regardless of the circumstances you’re in, you are capable of surviving,” Kynan Wynne said.
___

After four years of studying all the studies and research on the influences of media, I really believe that
if we as parents could prove that there is profit to be made in teaching family values and showing positive
role models in the media, then these companies would be making more programs that inspire, educate or
provide insight for families to live happier and healthier lives.

Here’s to keeping the faith!
Marta M. Mobley

Who knew so many people in Hollywood were interested in making transformative
media?

I was invited by John Raatz, one of our foundation advisors, to attend the first ever
GATE event. GATE–The Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment was a
platform to bring together ike-minded Hollywood creatives to promote spiritually
positive entertainment.

The invitation-only event was held on June 6th 2009 at Fox Studios at the Zanuck Theater. Jim Carey, Eckhart Tolle and Melissa Etheridge were the highlights at the
event.

Kathryn Moseley, our other foundation founder and I attended the event together.
We were both so inspired and encouraged that there are so many people in Hollywood like us who believe it is possible to make healthier media.

I really felt this was the beginning of something very powerful emerging out of this gathering and was grateful to be a small part of it. John Raatz and I will be meeting in the next couple of weeks to catch up and explore ways on how The New Media Foundation and GATE might callaborate. I keep you posted on how things progress.

Highlights from the event:

* Most of the audience are industry professionals (which includes Adrian Grenier, Jackson Browne, Virginia Madsen, Garry Shandling and Billy Zane) are here to see the event’s headliners, Jim Carrey and Eckhart Tolle – the “Power of Now” author whom Oprah Winfrey helped promote into an international sensation.

*Peter Shiao, CEO of the Orb Media Group, says, “We create images that people all over the world see as reality. With that power comes responsibility. This is about delivering rich transformational experiences that people want to pay money for … transformational media is already upon us every time Barack Obama is on TV … Tonight is about putting a name on this movement — this is our Constitutional Hall.”

*HBO executive Scott Carlin notes that Twitter, of all things, suggests the world is ready for their inspirational message.“People are literally Twittering their lives away at 140 characters or less,” Carlin said. “It’s a massive manifestation of mankind’s need to belong.”

*Melissa Etheridge took the stage. She detailed her spiritual awakening five years ago that occurred while she was enduring chemotherapy for the treatment of breast cancer. She delivers her story with so much wit and wisdom that the audience gives her a deserved standing ovation.

*Jim Carrey shared his life experience and introduced Eckhart Tolle. “We live on a planet where we are all really crammed together and yet we do really well,” Carrey says. “[But] when we watch the news and we watch entertainment it’s all about conflict. And you imagine that the world is an explosive, horrifying place. It’s really non-representative of the way the world is and what the world wants.”

*Tolle gave Jim and hug, sat in chair and shared his views on media. Tolle focuses on ways some entertainment can be spiritually beneficial. Tolle notes war movies such as “All Quiet on the Western Front” that show the insanity of war can be transformational. Movies that show spiritual growth of the main character, such as “The Last Samurai,” can help.

Particularly, Tolle cites the modern classic “Groundhog Day,” which has a very Tolle-esque storyline — Bill Murray’s jaded character is trapped in a torturous small town, reliving the same day over and over, until he finally stops resisting the present moment, makes the most of this one day and accepts everybody around him. In the end, he is set free and his character decides to stay in the town.

Tolle also praised movies that show the impermanence of life, such as scenes in “Titanic” that contrast a young Rose Dawson and her older self, along with the gleaming new ship and its real-life wreck.

–Source: The Live Feed by James Hibberd
____________________________________________________________

Jim and Eckhart Tolle headline GATE conference 06 Jun 2009

Over the past couple of years Jim Carrey has begun to reveal a deeper spiritual side and on Thursday June 4th, he shared the spotlight with Eckhart Tolle (Author of ‘A New Earth’ and ‘The Power of Now’) and other speakers at the first meeting of the Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment (GATE) in LA.

Jim and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle headlined the three-hour session at an auditorium, on the Fox lot in Century City. Along with singer Melissa Etheridge and several other speakers, they urged their colleagues in film, television, music and other media to use their work for the good of mankind, to influence positive and spiritual change on society.

GATE founder John Raatz described the goal as an “up-levelling of consciousness” a sentiment backed by HBO executive Scott Carlin who told the gathering, which included Garry Shandling, Billy Zane and Jackson Browne, “that audiences were yearning for the sense of being nourished deeply.”

The highly influential Tolle then discussed how most of humanity is captive to the mind and obsessive thinking patterns that can be broken, through meditation and other techniques and that modern mediums can reach out to the masses. Praising GATEs intentions, he revealed that he had already found transcendent moments, ones that could help people “get out of the box of their minds,” in films such as “Groundhog Day,” “Titanic,” “The Horse Whisperer” and “American Beauty”.

“Yes”, Tolle said,” film can raise consciousness, if only for a moment.”

When Jim’s opportunity to take the stage came he reverted to type for a moment and ’satirized his nascent guru role.’ Casting a ‘beatific gaze on the audience,’ delivering the message: “I’m Jim Carrey and I’ve come to free the world from sin.” Referring to his childhood experiences, Jim revealed how his epiphany came when he learned not to fixate on thoughts, “heaven” can be found all around, by living in the present moment.

After making that breakthrough, Jim decided, “I want to take as many people with me as I can.”

– Source: LATimes.com. By Nicola West (Editor/Writer (UK))

The other day I was at the hair salon speaking to my hair dresser, Karen.
She is a young, energetic girl in her early twenties. I had mentioned that
my daughter Emma was going to have her 7th Birthday party at The
American Girl Place in Los Angeles.

Karen was so touched and a bit saddened when I mentioned the
American Girl Place. She said when she was young she and her two
sisters LOVED their American Girl Dolls. They spent hours everyday
playing with them, dressing them and acting out different roles with
each doll. Then it all ended one evening as her and her teenaged
girl friends watched the film, Puppet Master.

After watching the film just once, she was so scared she had to pack up
all her beloved American Girl dolls so could sleep at night. The dolls she
once loved and were her like friends, she was now afraid of.

“The film starts in 1939 Bodega Bay, California with an old puppeteer named Andre Toulon putting the finishing touches on a living puppet called Jester. A living Japanese-looking puppet stares out of the window at Blade, another living puppet, as Blade scouts the grounds of the Bodega Bay Inn that Andre is staying at. Two Nazis get out of a car and head for Toulon’s room but Blade beats them there and Andre puts Blade, Jester, and the Japanese puppet into a chest, before hiding the chest in a wall panel. As the Nazis break down the door, Toulon shoots himself in the mouth with a pistol. The Oriental puppet is not seen for the rest of the movie.

The film now cuts to 1989, with a psychic named Alex. Alex has a dream that there are leeches on his stomach. Seconds later, he dreams of a man that he recognizes putting a gun to a woman’s head. The film cuts to Dana, another psychic, who has visions of being slashed across the throat with a knife. Carissa and Frank, two other psychics who are apparently lovers, are reading the mind of another woman when they get a call from Alex. Frank tells Alex that they also got a call from Dana, and the four psychics assess that the visions they’ve been having were sent from a former colleague, Neil Gallagher.

The psychics meet at the Bodega Bay Inn that Neil is staying at and meet Neil’s wife, Megan, as well as the housekeeper, Theresa. The psychics are skeptical that Neil took a wife but it is forgotten when Megan tells them that Neil shot himself. Theresa, Megan, Dana, Carissa, Frank, and Alex leave the body and Pinhead, another living puppet, jumps from the casket.

Later, Carissa has visions of Neil violently attacking a woman in an elevator. Dana warns Theresa to stay away from the fireplace and later, at dinner, Dana makes several remarks about Neil that causes Megan to leave the table. Alex goes after her and explains about the powers of he, Dana, Carissa, and Frank.

When night falls, Theresa goes near the fireplace and is murdered when Pinhead hits her with a poker. The psychics hear a scream and find Megan passed out nearby Neil’s body that has been moved into a chair by someone. Carissa and Frank spend some intimate time together in one of the hotel rooms but two more living puppets, Tunneler and Leech Woman, enter. Tunneler kills Carissa by drilling into her face and Leech Woman vomits leeches onto Frank’s body that suck his blood out. Meanwhile, Dana sits around with her strange, dead and preserved dog until she has her leg broken by Pinhead. Pinhead chases her and repeatedly strangles and punches her until she manages to knock him away, only to have her throat slashed by Blade, using his knife-hand.

Alex has recurring nightmares of Megan having a gun put to her head by Neil and the other psychics being found dead, but is eventually awoken by Megan who takes him into the room that Andre Toulon was in, and tells him that Neil found Andre’s secret to bringing inanimate objects, such as puppets, to life. Alex has a vision and they go downstairs to find the dead bodies of the psychics sitting around a table. They are stopped by the newly brought-back-to-life Neil. He explains that he did killed himself, metaphysically speaking, and used the formula to give himself more life. He fights with Alex and beats him up, until Neil hurts Jester and the puppets revolt against him. They lock him in an elevator and murder him by having Tunneler drill into his neck, Pinhead push into his temples, Blade cut off his fingers, and finally Leech Woman vomits a leech into his mouth.

The film cuts to days later with Alex leaving the hotel and Megan picking up Dana’s dead and preserved dog, and she somehow brings it to life, probably indicating she’s become the next Puppet Master.” (From Wikapedia)

This made me think other people might say about their own media experiences.

What kinds of films or television series have touched other people’s lives so much
that it caused them to change their actions or behaviors? What characters have
inspired, scared or made you feel love or fear.

Please send me your media stories. With your permission, I would like to add your
stories to my upcoming book, The New Media Diet for Families.

Be well,
Marta M. Mobley
Co-Founder

It wasn’t long ago that we were unaware what constituted “healthy” and “unhealthy” foods. As understanding grew, we became much more selective as to what we put in our bodies. We began to grasp a correlation between what we ate and how we felt. Today, a similar correlation has slowly become evident concerning the media around us. Like food, the media we choose to ingest from everyday sources like the internet, television, movies and video games has tremendous – often irreversible - effects on our well-being. It influences our moods, our character and our general regard for one another. It shapes us from an early age. To provide a better understanding of our current media landscape, The New Media Foundation Blog offers parents key research and insight into how media influences our health and well-being.

We would love you to write us to share your personal experiences as parent’s navigating through
today’s media choices.

What would you change about current media and what kind of media you would like to see more of?