Egad!
I finally got around to looking into the issue of the new Plasma Screen televisions and how they might affect cognition, and guess what I discovered? Problems.
Essentially, every single pixel in a plasma screen television is it's own little fluorescent light bulb. Each of those 'bulbs' flickers at around 100 Hz. As per the information discussed earlier in this thread, 100 Hz is well within the range which can be considered a "Strobe Light" capable of inducing a hypnotic Alpha state in the brain.
[quote author=http://www.tribaluk.com/plasma-tvs]
The Frequency / refresh rate is the number of times a TV picture is updated each second. Most traditional TVs have a rate of 50Hz which some people may notice flickering. The latest Plasma TVs operate at 100Hz, giving a clearer picture. In addition all pixels emit light simultaneously, further reducing flicker.[/quote]
This means that the new Plasma Screen television sets which people are buying to replace their old CRT sets will have the same effect wrt to mind control. --That is, when the brain is lulled into this state, any audio signals one hears will be able to seat themselves deeply in the subconscious.
By Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi published an article through Scientific American in 2002, and they note the following about CRT televisions which I will assume holds similar for Plasma Screen TV's. . .
[quote author=http://www.shenet.org/high/hsacaddept/English/ddayton/Documents/Media/Television%20Addiction%20is%20no%20Mere%20Metaphor.pdf]
To study people's reactions to TV, researchers have undertaken laboratory experiments in which they have monitored the brain waves (using an electroencephalograph, or EEG), skin resistance or heart rate of people watching television. To track behavior and emotion in the normal course of life, as opposed to the artificial conditions of the lab, we have used the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). Participants carried a beeper, and we signaled them six to eight times a day, at random, over the period of a week; whenever they heard the beep, they wrote down what they were doing and how they were feeling using a standardized scorecard.
As one might expect, people who were watching TV when we beeped them reported feeling relaxed and passive. The EEG studies similarly show less mental stimulation, as measured by alpha brain-wave production, during viewing than during reading.
What is more surprising is that the sense of relaxation ends when the set is turned off, but the feelings of passivity and lowered alertness continue. Survey participants commonly reflect that television has somehow absorbed or sucked out their energy, leaving them depleted. They say they have more difficulty concentrating after viewing than before. In contrast, they rarely indicate such difficulty after reading. After playing sports or engaging in hobbies, people report improvements in mood. After watching TV, people's moods are about the same or worse than before.[/quote]
The notes about reading paper-based text as compared to watching television recalled in me something I'd read once. I was able to find it again. . .
[quote author=http://www.familyresource.com/lifestyles/mental-environment/television-opiate-of-the-masses]
Levels of brain activity are measured by an electroencenograph (EEG) machine. While watching television, the brain appears to slow to a halt, registering low alpha wave readings on the EEG. This is caused by the radiant light produced by cathode ray technology within the television set. Even if you're reading text on a television screen the brain registers low levels of activity. Once again, regardless of the content being presented, television essentially turns off your nervous system. [/quote]
--As regards SSSS "Sound of Silence" technology to implant thoughts through subliminal sub-audio signals, I dug up this excerpt from the C's. . .
[quote author=C transcripts 941116]
Q: (L) What kind of technical means do they use to project mental
manipulation by way of TV or movies?
A: Simple bombardment visual and verbal.
Q: (L) Do they use subliminal implantation of ideas?
A: Not needed most often.
Q: (L) The music that kids listen to, is there any effort to program
them in this media?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Do they use subliminals?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Do they use electronic signals?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Do they use electronic signals on television programming?
A: Have but not that often.
Q: (L) Is there any signals being sent over the test of the emergency
broadcast signal?
A: No.
[/quote]
--Which suggests as I had more or less surmised by this point, subliminal audio and "Sound of Silence" are not perhaps as significant as the original posts made them out to be while the old system of "opening and then bombarding" people remains in force. I find it interesting LCD flat screens, with their much higher frequency CCFL light sources which effectively for the optic nerve do not strobe, were bypassed altogether by the whole "living room entertainment center" market.
EDIT*****************
I just got a brain flash. This is really interesting. Please disregard the last sentence above; I just worked out an essential element of LCD flat-screen monitors and how they might in fact strobe sometimes in a very specific way so that they strobe when playing videos but not while reading text. Let me research this a bit. I'll check in when I've thought through it fully. . .
