Manipulation Through Background Music

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2008 in the subject Musicology - Miscellaneous, grade: 2, University of Graz, language: English, abstract: The article deals with the different kinds of manipulation of background music on the human being. Several studies are discussed about the consequences of background music on decision making, driving, buying, eating at a restaurant, etc. The question about the possibilities of an escape from the influence of music is asked and discussed. At first the functions and mechanisms of background music are elaborated, before the effects on the human being are discussed. Subsequently tests are presented about the various influences of background music in order to achieve control of people. Furthermore the controversies about the famous Mozart- Effect are taken into consideration. It is also interesting to know how background music has an impact on the physical body. To explain this phenomenon the working mechanisms of the brain are illuminated by including the latest findings about brain and music in the last months. This article ends with some concrete suggestions how to overcome being influenced and manipulated by background music.

Since the beginning of human civilization, music has been used as a device to control social behavior, where it has operated as much to promote solidarity within groups as hostility between competing groups. Music is an emotive manipulator that influences attitude, motivation and behavior at many levels and in many contexts. This volume is the first to address the social ramifications of music’s behaviorally manipulative effects, its morally questionable uses and control mechanisms, and its economic and artistic regulation through commercialization, thus highlighting not only music’s diverse uses at the social level but also the ever-fragile relationship between aesthetics and morality.

Ambient Media examines music, video art, film, and literature as tools of atmospheric design in contemporary Japan, and what it means to use media as a resource for personal mood regulation. Paul Roquet traces the emergence of ambient styles from the environmental music and Erik Satie boom of the 1960s and 1970s to the more recent therapeutic emphasis on healing and relaxation. Focusing on how an atmosphere works to reshape those dwelling within it, Roquet shows how ambient aesthetics can provide affordances for reflective drift, rhythmic attunement, embodied security, and urban coexistence. Musicians, video artists, filmmakers, and novelists in Japan have expanded on Brian Eno’s notion of the ambient as a style generating “calm, and a space to think,” exploring what it means to cultivate an ambivalent tranquility set against the uncertain horizons of an ever-shifting social landscape. Offering a new way of understanding the emphasis on “reading the air” in Japanese culture, Ambient Media documents both the adaptive and the alarming sides of the increasing deployment of mediated moods. Arguing against critiques of mood regulation that see it primarily as a form of social pacification, Roquet makes a case for understanding ambient media as a neoliberal response to older modes of collective attunement—one that enables the indirect shaping of social behavior while also allowing individuals to feel like they are the ones ultimately in control.

Founded in 1971, the Academy of Marketing Science is an international organization dedicated to promoting timely explorations of phenomena related to the science of marketing in theory, research, and practice. Among its services to members and the community at large, the Academy offers conferences, congresses and symposia that attract delegates from around the world. Presentations from these events are published in this Proceedings series, which offers a comprehensive archive of volumes reflecting the evolution of the field. Volumes deliver cutting-edge research and insights, complimenting the Academy’s flagship journals, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS) and AMS Review. Volumes are edited by leading scholars and practitioners across a wide range of subject areas in marketing science. This volume includes the full proceedings from the 2013 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference held in Monterey, California, entitled Ideas in Marketing: Finding the New and Polishing the Old.

This Handbook contains a unique collection of chapters written by the world's leading researchers in the dynamic field of consumer psychology. Although these researchers are housed in different academic departments (ie. marketing, psychology, advertising, communications) all have the common goal of attaining a better scientific understanding of cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to products and services, the marketing of these products and services, and societal and ethical concerns associated with marketing processes. Consumer psychology is a discipline at the interface of marketing, advertising and psychology. The research in this area focuses on fundamental psychological processes as well as on issues associated with the use of theoretical principles in applied contexts. The Handbook presents state-of-the-art research as well as providing a place for authors to put forward suggestions for future research and practice. The Handbook is most appropriate for graduate level courses in marketing, psychology, communications, consumer behavior and advertising.

Music holds amazing power over us. While it permeates and gives rhythm to our lives, most of us take it for granted and rarely consider its impact and potential. Training with a Beat is a lively introduction to understanding that force, and applying it to training.This practical "how-to" guide is written with the musical layperson in mind. The author reveals in straightforward language why music is a critical learning resource, explains the necessary concepts and terms, and concludes with vivid examples of practice and a list of suggested resources. He provides all the background and tools to enable trainers and educators confidently to use music to improve learning.A valuable and extensive appendix lists recommended CDs and offers track-by-track examples of potential training applications.Readers of this book will:Discover how music contributes to learning Understand music theory principles relevant to learningKnow how to select music appropriate for different training situationsDiscover effective musical games and activities and how they teachUnderstand the related legal and copyright issues This unique resource will be welcomed by trainers, facilitators, presenters and adult educators looking for additional tools to add impact to their material and improve learning outcomes.

Explores the annotation, indexing, and organization of media content for automated search and retrieval systems. The incompatibility between low-level features that can be computed automatically to describe media content and the high-level meaning associated with the content by users is known as the semantic gap. This collection of eight papers introduces the computational media aesthetics approach to the semantic gap, outlines its foundations in media production principles, and presents a computational framework for deriving high- level semantic constructs from recorded audio and video. Topics include space-time mappings as database browsing tools, modeling color dynamics for the semantics of commercials, and determining affective events through film audio. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR