Mass media

[Par4]

Mass media has a huge effect on modern society not just democracies. Take the USSR in the 80's when western newspapers got in and started to teach people about how great democracy is complared to stalinism. Our American system is corrupted by the big 4 being very left and never tell the whole story or things that really damage the left.
The big 4 are CNN ABC CBS and NBC the 4 main news networks in the United States. What people hear there is what they repeat and do. While this is not completely true many do. Now for the game.

1. Mass media will gradually take over religions place as a changer of your citizens ideas. This will happen after you discover some new techs maybe mass media, electronic entertainment, and broadcasting.
2. Mass media will effect how people feel about certain things such as wars and SE. If your a police state and your control over the media(I have no idea how to implent this) is weak then people will riot(if the media is pro democracy SE) have revolutions, ally with opposing civs.
3. Mass media could tie in with the political party ideas, if one party is strong but when you get media the opposing party could gain power and change how your government runs.
4. Media could be a weapon, you can use it against opposing states without directly declaring war, maybe if you give a city with strong media to them and it spreads it could cause a change to a new government pro you. Spies could implement a few dissidents to help 'spread the word' who would spread to other cities telling about democracy(think cold war) and if not stomped out soon could create unrest and opposition.
5. Direct control of actions. If the media was anti war because you lost 4 armor divisions and killed nothing or you never started a war and just did the media could influence the senate(democracy again) to via for peace sometimes shafting you without your consent. While you can oppose you will have to fight(don't make it too hard) for popular support.
6. Charisma rating should give how much support you have. This could be raised by being dynamic during campaigns, speechs, radio adresses, television appearences, finally and election in a democracy. Because you never lose elections, if you don't campaign well then you lose popular support and maybe the support of the senate until next election.
7. Wars won could give you popular support. Whether you win or lose will gain/lose support for your actions. If you have television appearences and people trust you then you can raise taxes without worry(unless it is an insane raise then people get pissed) but if your not popular taxes might not pass but lowered hurting your military and budget.
8. Effects on citizens. Spies should be able to attack civilian targets, I don't know about military attacking civilians because the media would know(doesn't necessarily mean they don't support it). If your people keep getting killed by terrorist and spy attacks you lose support for not protecting them.
9. Effects
Taxes could be set by you if your popular and ratified by the senate but if your not popular the senate would choose their own taxes which are lower and hurt your budget, stayin' in the black will turn into stayin' in the red. Senate could end wars and shaft you and your country. Opposing countries could really harm each others military(supplies, money, morale, recruitment) by changing public opinion with mass media. This could be bad for democracy vs democracy wars.
10. examples
a. Americans and Japanese are at war. Americans just took australia from Japan so Japan needs to hurt the American military. Japan implements media(I have no idea how to do this) into America supporting cutting money from military because of casualities that are fake. Senate makes President cut spending by 25 percent which means some battleships and carriers are disbanded stopping the invasion of Japanese held China and giving Japan time to raise a fleet of subs to attack the weakened American Military.
b. Russia needs to change support to democracy in France held Europe. Russian spies attack French civilians homes and implements media that says French government doesn't protect you so change to democracy and ally with Russia. 3 cities agree and Russia has created severe unrest in France and has a puppet states for France to attack thus starting a war and getting the people mad. Also if France was an hostile religion, it could start a Jihad(briefly mentioned in my hello post) giving extra recruitment and production for military units.
Any other ideas are welcome I don't think this has been really gone over but if it has, I just wasted alot of time typing

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[general_charles]

I do agree that mass media is an important part of life today, without mass media, the war in Vietnam would not have been so unpopular and the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 would probably have turned into an invasion of the country, but this affects every part if the world, and it seems to be a democratic weapon to turn people into going to their vicious circle which consits of spending more and more and wanting more and more, and I'm not only saying this as an opposant to capitalism, but it is a fact (ask any sociologist). But putting this into the game seems real hard, if you have a much simpler system to propose...

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-- Capitalism slaughterer --

[Par4]

I like to integrate my ideas with others so what about it being a tab in the 'espionage screen'(sorry i have no idea who started this but whoever did, good idea) you could have spies attack civilians and blow it outta proportion, scandal of leader, new ideas, unrest(think rioting but the idea lingers so it can happen again)
all this would happen after your spies had infiltrated the media.
Counters could be
police state-expelling opposing media
democracy-retaking the media public speechs, television appearences if rating got real low you could commision a biography pro you to help boost public opinion.
like I said this idea is kinda undeveloped so any help is appreciated.

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Hi there, Par4! I'm very glad you posted this topic, because I had been thinking about getting the mass media in the game (I'm a journalism student, so I'd like to see them in ), but I was too lazy to start a thread on it.

So I'd like to help you develop this nice idea. Let's see how the media can be implemented in a playable game.

TV is the most obvious choice. It should require some tech advance, and then you'd be ready to build local TV networks as city improvements. Their effects would be powerful:

1. Economical (advertising gets much more powerful thanks to TV broadcasting). A 50% increase in gold revenue could be fine.

2. Social (different cultures get overwhelmed by an strongest and hegemonic cultural model). In Civ2 this could mean simply happiness. But in Civ3, which will hopefully have greater complexity, this could deal with differences between religious and ethnic groups. So TV could prove essential for large empires, and to assimilate recently conquered populations.

Later, TV could be used as an expansion weapon either. With new advances, you could be able to broadcast your way of life to other civilizations (that's what the USA do, so you get the idea).

OK, these are my thoughts on TV. But there are other media. What about the printed media? Well, I never understood why the printing press wasn't into the game. It surely was a very important advance on human history.

First of all and just to say some of the effects printing press should have on the game, your libraries should produce double (or maybe more) amount of knowledge once discovered.

Well, I'm beginning to talk too much... Maybe will add something later, but, in the meantime, what do you think of this?

[Par4]

I was thinking in class about a thread a while ago about political parties, you could maybe support a certain party although you would always be your own(Bullmoose!!! ) party. This parties beliefs could be reflected in the senate. Things like if the party was left and wanted public schools then you would have to build a, get this a way to implement having more than 1 library in a 2000000 city without having to build tons, school system which would cost more and more as the city grows. Schools could be pro your policies but if you didn't want schools it wouldn't cost you anything(actualy schools should be important and expensive) but you wouldn't be able to brainwash your citizens children. This seems despicable but it happens here in the United States threw a thing called 'history' class or more like 'history as the government wants you to know it'.

I like the television things serious money could be generated threw TV. The colony assimilation model could tie into the television media ideas. What about different stations(in democracy not police state SE police state only government television) each station could be for a politcal ideology and support that party, thus if you support one party but another grows its television power then you might have a hostile party in the senate. Also television corps(from the great great corporation ideas I'm sooo sorry I don't remember who started it) could be taxed and the amount of television networks you build could generation money in a ratio.

1000000 viewers 15 gold tax a year
10000000 viewers 150 gold tax a year
10 million isn't alot for a modern culture a mean lets say you have all of north and south america with a total population of say about
1000000000 everyone has a television access then that totals to 15000 gold a year ok maybe this is alittle much Firaxis can balance it. This could go down ie more people less per person tax ratio. As for taxing some corps more I'm not sure.

Broadcast is good and would bring new media into any city with television networks(double edged sword you get em too no way to block em) really good for civil wars in modern age revolts.

Depending on if your society is for tolerace or intolerace you could support your national religion and have a greater chance of starting a Jihad(I want a Jihad in Civ3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and getting the extra recruits and war production(war production only, only war production, sewars aren't gonna build anyfaster because your pissed of at the Hindus)

Ok enough TV time for printed media

Types of printed media
Books
Newspapers
Magazines
Can't think of anymore

Books would be the first type of printed media. They would come with the introduction of writing. Books wouldn't affect your society's intelligence, ideas, and libraries much until the printing press(I'm thinking mini tech not one you research comes with something say 3 civs with a library system in any city). Books could raise science ratings, raise happinesss, increase library effects(with printing press or just beginning effects), and promote tolerance or your national religion and beliefs, promote intolerance of other religions(racial intolerance no no too controversial), nations, and maybe foreign food or imports or something even if they cheaper. Books could also help convert entire pop into your religion and possibly get Jihad going(am I over promoting this?). I think the bonuses should be worth spending the money(a significant amount) for a library system which gives these bonuses.

Mags and Newspapers I've typed too much so I'll put in one idea

Mags-happiness
News-Political crap

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[Adm.Naismith]

I find funny someone think that a TV system can get money from my wallet if nothing put some in my wallet first!

My idea is that you are looking from the wrong side of the value chain. Don't mix private and public income: Civ money are TAX that are deduced from citizen income.

Advertising is only a way to force you to put your money where someone ELSE want. You can't spend more than you own (that's the role of banks and credit cards ).

In short: I disagree TV must increase money income for a CIV.

About role of media on culture development, I think they are more tools than "Civ discover" by itself (in a game sense). Scholarization level (CIV library and university) reproduce it well enough, after Writing and Alphabet early discover.

Also the control of political parties over media is only a tool. Counting pro and cons I'm not sure I'll like to have to manage another one after espionage and S.E. and maybe religions, Citizen agenda, etc. etc.

Maybe I'm wrong, please help me to better understand how the model can work (on a Civ strategic level).

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

i agree with AN. I don't really see it's purpose in the game.

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

[Par4]

I see the thing about taxing networks didn't really make sense but common this is important especially in the United States, and today most definately as important as religion as it can sway popular support in your direction. I wanna see the people not always be on your side and revolt when they aren't just hungry(smac). As for mixing espionage ok dumb idea too I guess but don't just poo poo it, this is important. Don't you think if in the Soviet Union allowed American media to talk all about the prosperity and freedom that came with western society and democracy you think they would have supported Mother Russia. They brainwashed their citizens from and early age and kept them in power for a long time.

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[Youngsun]

I think "mass media" idea is great as long as it is implemented in good way into the game.

They can be used for

1.Propaganda for a event like a war
2.as a primary tool of cultural invasion
3.forming public opinions to favour of the governmnet for whatever the occasions
4.as a tool for corporate warfare such as aggressive advertising/marketing
5.as a tool for pure information distribution to make your citizens more intelligent.

Par4 enough of convincing people the importance of having "Mass media" I guess.
Tell me more how it can be worked in the game with fun! so we can have some ideas on this or possibly build the model with you.

[Par4]

I've been thinking about this for a while so here goes.

Media screen
media inlets-
Must have media industries, spies if your going to infiltrate a police state.
You could click on it and it takes you to a known world map(think risk 2 type map) you could click on a country and it would zoom into a topo map of that country and say posible media intels
black market(I go into later)
television
transmission
schools(government has to infiltrated by spies)
dissidents

you select a type of media then it does what it is designed to do.

Television-
TV would be either your TV corps or your government TV in their country spewing pro you stuff. You could tell your TV to hype spy attacks on civilians, start scandal(certain times only), promote your country/ideology.

Black Market-
This is a bad name but I can't think of a better one. Your spies could sell books/magazines/pamphlets about you. They could be anti war or pro communism or just about anything.

Schools-
Infilitrated governments could have the school systems(if they have any) changed to promote you, the enemy leader would have to check in on the school screen(in media) to check if the schools are teach pro him stuff.
After say 10 or 15 years of infilitated schools you would see a change in the populances ideas about government maybe rioting senate majority changing civil war. And then they would have dissidents on there hands for a long long long time because dissidents spread the word of what they believe in so if they die the idea lives on.

Transmission-
You can set your(government) stations to air and transmit your ideas but enemy ideas can come in too. Think of it this way, you send the civ an air channel for it's people to look at and unless the corporations/government block that channel out then your ideas get it there. Works against you too the same way.

Dissidents- Spies can put dissidents in enemy cities and unless the idea is wiped out and the dissidents delt with then the ideas become more popular and wide spread. Same as school dissidents. Dissident ideas are what you tell them to be when you launch them but can't be changed after launch so if you tell them pro communism but become free market then they won't like you either.

I'm brain dead that's about all I can think of. I believe there needs to be a medium amount of graphics to this just to make it interesting especially for new comers to civ.

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[Youngsun]

Hey Par4

Most of your suggestion can be coordinated with intel screen/operation idea I guess.

I think there should "public opinion" factor among your population. This P.O. would be formed by what they see/hear from whatever sources like newspaper/Radio/TV,etc. You remember that each country's leader has its own attitude towards each civ? Just like that, each civ's pop should have its own view and attitude to other civs including its own civ.


War propaganda
Thus when you declare a war against enemy civ under Republic/Democracy if your own people hate this enemy civ the war would be very popular(the senate has no choice)or you can possibly use your propaganda machine(newspaper/radio/TV)to switch people's attitude from "Cordial" to "Hostile" towards to the target civ.

Cultural invasion
Just in case if there is cultural victory as a ending or this as a big scoring factor. Combined with commercialism, culture can be powerful tool for assimilating your enemy just like you so easy annexation can be possible. To simulate cultural uniqueness we need some sort of code or number to track each civ's culture.

As an Information distribution tool
better informed people are generally more intelligent and this means that more productive society can be created within a civ which has active and powerful mass media.
The bonus for having mighty media can be:
1.increased trade arrows
2.increased science output per scientist specialist

Youngsun and Par - I'm glad you thought of this model, I orginally didn't see much purpose for it but now I do. Especially with what Youngsun said about swaying P.O. for other Civs. I like that. Maybe a simpler model though, I don't think it should dominate the game (and if you noticed, a lot of ideas people have been coming up with seem to end up GIGANTIC parts of the game when maybe they shouldn't be.)
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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~

[This message has been edited by OrangeSfwr (edited May 14, 2000).]

[Youngsun]

Thanks OrangeSfwr

quote: a lot of ideas people have been coming up with seem to end up GIGANTIC parts of the game when maybe they shouldn't be

Yea you are right and that's why we need many people's criticisms and suggestions which might help to weed out all the unnecessary descriptions of the ideas which have been suggested by many posters but the hard core important concepts. And that's what the forum is for I guess.

[Par4]

Student Protests- cities with universities can have student protests that make the whole city aware of the problem and possibly riot.
*Bump* here it is Napoleon change your civs ideas in the modern age
This idea is too complex it needs to be toned down, any help?
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[This message has been edited by Par4 (edited May 21, 2000).]

[Napoleon I]

Well first of all I can only compliment Par and Youngsun for coming up with great reasons for incorporating media into the game. Now for some of the suggestions.

1. I think that it would be proper to include the church and other institutions into the media system because they too are very powerful at influencing the ideas that your nation holds. Therefore I would propose a global interest system for any nation that would include all things that try to influence people's ideas. Each nation would have an interest rating in several categories such as democracy, police state, green economy, wealth, knowledge etc. These ratings would influence the kind of government that you could establish, that is to have a democracy you would need democracy interest rating of 320 and to establish a green economy you would need a green interest rating of 175. (All math in this post are simply examples, I haven't really thought about the mathematical side of it yet.)

2. A number of factors would include
a. the number of educational institutions you have (library, university).
b. the number of religious institutions you have (temple, cathedral).
c. the number of military institutions you have (barracks, docks, increase militarism).
d. number of economic institutions you have (banks, stock exchanges, increase wealth).
e. foreign influence (dependendent of the size of border, other civ's strengh), and so on.
Some of these factors would be under your control like educational system, some would be predefined i.e. barracs increase militarism no matter what, and some would depend on other civs (foreign influence).

3. The amount of control you have over your media will vary depending upon the type of government you have, for example fundamentalism has full control over the church, while democracy has none (separation of church and state). Also democracy has little control over the educational system (say 30%) while communism has 80% control over it. This would ensure the fact that switching governments is a difficult and long task and that it is practically impossible to switch out of a democracy.

4. Each of the factors named in # 2 would contribute a certain number of points to your overall interest rating. Each library for example would contribute 1 point while each cathedral 2 points. Therefore players would have to decide early on which interests they want to pursue because to get to a democracy or some other advanced government they will have a lot of influencing to do.

5. Foreing influence would be determined by the civ's proximity and size of borders (easier to smuggle things) and the strengh of the civ's ideological potential, which would be calculated by adding all educational and religious buildings in a civ. Foreign influence could also be increased by sending a spy to the other civ and ordering the spy to "conduct propaganda" for a certain interest. The spy will require certain support from the mother civ and will have a small chance of being discovered each turn. If it is then the civ's interest rating for that category will be decreased (population does not like to be influenced by foreign powers).

Well thats a rough model for what I had in mind. Sorry for boring you to death with a long post. Tell me what you think about this.

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Napoleon I
[This message has been edited by Napoleon I (edited May 21, 2000).]

[Youngsun]

quote: Student Protests- cities with universities can have student protests that make the whole city aware of the problem and possibly riot

Yea! I had the same idea. It is usually a student demonstration that awakens content people's consciouness.

Napoleon many interesting ideas especially this:

quote: . The amount of control you have over your media will vary depending upon the type of government you have, for example fundamentalism has full control over the church, while democracy has none (separation of church and state). Also democracy has little control over the educational system (say 30%) while communism has 80% control over it. This would ensure the fact that switching governments is a difficult and long task and that it is practically impossible to switch out of a democracy

Could you to tell us how these ideas can be implemented into the game incorporation with "Mass Media" idea?

[Napoleon I]

Well, under the system that I proposed the mass media would only be a part of the global system that measures your people's interests.

Particularly for mass media though, here are some thoughts. Printed material would be taken care of by the library, university and later perhaps the internet improvement. Meanwhile after a civilization discovers certain technologies, say for example radio they can build the radio station and tv station improvements. These would act in much the same way that libraries do but the government could have even less control over them (the modern press is notoriously independent).

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Napoleon I

[tniem]

quote: Originally posted by general_charles on 05-08-2000 05:42 AM I do agree that mass media is an important part of life today, without mass media, the war in Vietnam would not have been so unpopular and the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 would probably have turned into an invasion of the country

I recently did a paper on Vietnam, and would just like to say that studies today now generally say that the media was pro war until the people of the U.S. told the media that it was wrong. The news reported it in a pro-American win everywhere way until polls showed that over half the country was against the war. It was then that the media went against the wars and showed major protests and made the administration eventually pull out. So media is effected by the population at large.

[tniem]

Time to bring back the discussion of the media.

Personally I believe it should be in the game with media altering Public Opinion which forces you to act in certain ways. If you don't you could have a Civil War on your hands.