The effect of the "last drop": On the question of the media's ability to have a harmful impact on the audience

Abstract

Today, the media are often blamed for having a harmful influence on the moral, psychological, psychosexual, and social development of people. Indignant mothers, polemicists from politics and social fields, spiritual leaders, psychologists, and even researchers of the media attribute to the mass media truly horrific effects, such as the demoralization, perversion, and spiritual impoverishment of their audiences. The most blamed medium is television. Nowadays, television is considered to be the root of evil. The author tries to understand how justified such reproaches to the media are. © Lomonosov Moscow State University, 2013. © Russian Psychological Society, 2013.