Happy New Year! To get things going, here’s some positive attitude about media, something you don’t hear so much these days.

TheStar.com – sciencetech – The year in Ideas:

Massaged by the medium

Metta Spencer is a peace activist and emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Toronto who argues that TV and film have already helped make the world a better place, and could make it better still. Not all TV and movies, of course, but shows with humanity, idealism and a sense of social justice. In a May interview with the Star’s Olivia Ward, Spencer – whose latest book, Two Aspirins and a Comedy: How Television Can Enhance Health and Society, had recently been published – recounted how she watched the Alaska-based series Northern Exposure while recovering from hip-replacement surgery, and “my pain would diminish for hours.”

But in her book, and the interview, Spencer went beyond the biochemical impact of laughter and positive emotions to look at how popular entertainments can spur social change. “Birth rates in the developing world are dropping ahead of schedule – TV viewers see small, happy families and emulate them,” she told Ward. “Intelligence levels are increasing by three points per decade, largely because of exposure to complicated plots in TV shows.

“In 1983, the film Gandhi brought non-violent methods to a wide audience, and activists studied that film closely and implemented those techniques in 1989, toppling Communism almost without bloodshed. It’s astounding.”

Ultimately, Spencer believes that TV and film could literally save the planet. “Motivation simply doesn’t come from information,” she said. “It comes from feelings – sentiments, affects. It comes from caring. It comes from emotional human relationships. Even fictional relationships can have emotional power.”