The study by Indiana University researchers is one of those "I hope this wasn't funded with my tax dollars" studies. It found that when the sexual attractiveness of female newscasters was played up, men watched, but retained less information than when a woman in plainer clothing without much makeup delivered the same news. As they put it on the Death +Taxes website: Men pay significantly more attention to attractive women, tuning in when they’re on TV, but they’re not actually retaining what they’re saying. They’re thinking about their boobies.
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| Christina Loren |
I will say that we have been experiencing this in our home for the past couple of weeks. The local NBC station has replaced the weather person with a woman named Christina Loren. Her arrival has livenedd up our mornings. Tom no longer lingers outside with his morning coffee and cigarette, he wants to check out Ms. Loren. She is very vivacious and has what can only be described as a Barbie-like figure. She dresses to emphasise it and the
Tom has joked that he keeps watching the weather over and over but can't seem to remember what the weather is going to be - as supported by the Indiana study. Last week Ms. Loren was wearing a shirt with brass buttons. Two of the brass buttons were, well, off center, maybe there were lapels or something, but the buttons were in mid-breast like big brass nipples. Tom was amazed. I said they were going to get complaints. This week Ms. Loren is no longer wearing the wrap dresses with the ruffles and sweaters with oddly placed buttons. This week Ms. Loren is wearing suits and plain shirts.
I guess they actually want men to remember what the weather is going to be.
7 comments:
My husband just loves the weather...I believe (hope?) he would think that the busty babe was just distraction from what was really important. But I could be wrong.
My S.O. refers to the morning weather reader on the station we watch as the "weather bunny." She's young, cute, and will never drown.
I'm actually encouraged. It means Faux news viewers are retaining less of the right wing propaganda. Because virtually all the women anchors are attractive, peroxide bimbos, er, I mean, blondes. Gretchen VanSusteren excluded.
Nan -- baha!
The article I read on Salon intimated this was due to sexism on the part of the men, but come on ladies--serious journalists (a la Diane Sawyer) look attractive and dress professionally, but they don't dress like hoochies.
OMG! I just wrote a blog post about this very subject. She's the equivalent of a male fantasy comic book character, she's perky, busty, but she's actually smart too (although her physical presentation is so distracting it's hard to tell). Glad to know I'm not the only one hypnotized and horrified. Check out my post, I enjoyed yours! http://www.fiftyisthenew.com/2011/02/16/smart-and-hot/
Even I can't retain the NBC weather forecast, and I'm a woman. Everytime I see Christina Loren, I just can't stop focusing on how big her lips and boobies are. I love the Today Show, and watching the NBC local news is usually by accident because I prefer to watch ABC local news. I still prefer the beautiful and natural looking Sandhya Patel telling me the weather. I also tune in to Diane Sawyer.
We quit watching. I don't like obvious ploys and I DO remember the button nipples and my feeling at the time was that,,ok,,I'm not watching this garbage anymore.
I really enjoyed the station up until now. But I do realize that this kind of thing is happening in news stations all over the country.
If I want that type of news...I'll watch the Playboy channel.
My husband could be trying to score points but he doesn't seem to like it when people use sex to market something. It's a bit obvious.
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