Breast Feeding on Coronation Street - Negative ?

[Oblomov]

Did anyone see it last night. Shaun talking about his new baby and Violet breast feeding ?
I admit I wasn't paying total attention, so may have missed bits, but it seemed really negative.
Same old, same old. When are we going to have a postive storyline ?

It's not a single thing, SM. You'd be interested to see how many hits my blog gets from people searching such things as "do celebrities breastfeed" though. Lots, is the answer. And not all for pervy reasons

it is not real it is a dramatisation if it gets yer goat or impedes your ability to BF switch off

young girls will buy clothes to look like their idols on tv. women will cut their hair to look like the women on tv. tv has a massive effect on our society. surely you must concede that?

scottish, of course there were dissidents. But during the Lenin, stalin, Khrushchev, the propaganda machines were highly effective. Obviously not everyone believes. but studies show that lots did.
I think tv to the britsh masses, is highly effective. Sadly too effective.

But it has to be a dramatisation that's realistic (albeit in a "no one place has as many deaths, marriages, divorces, births, marriages, deaths, wife beatings, dramatic events) - or people will switch off in droves.

Soaps are used for campaigns - if done realistically, in a way that speaks to people, they can be extremely powerful.

This is why I question soaps' portrayal of bf - they have enormous power to do great good and they just don't. EastEnders touched on it with the Honey/Billy stuff recently - I thought Billy had never been as impressive as defending Honey bfing their son, actually.

exactly hunker.

TV influences if that product/person is desirable to you, therefore you already have a preference/interest that media /marketing tap into

i don't buy everything i see om media, i buy according to my individual preferences.these are determined by gender, class, socio-economics etc

that is why major companies eg Nike, clinique etc undertake surveys to understand and target our preferences to write a specific and successful campaign that appealed to target audience

they recognize some are more positive and predisposed to their brands

SeanJohn Jeans, designer label cost a packet, specifically targeted at urban males

Stella McCartney perfume designer label specifically targeted at females

can you see the differentiationthe manufacture targerts an audience with a predisposition

i am vegetarian so no amount of TV pressure would make me eat meat

and soaps also have a key demographic. which they influence. people get involved in the storylines, they identify with characters and talk about the storylines.

as i said earlier after a DV storyline the amount of women (and men) who come forward about abuse rises.

after an ED storyline the eating distress helplines got an unprecedented amount of calls.

after cancer storylines the amount of people going for checks also rose a considerable amount.

these incidents ARE related. and its naive to think that they arent.

So are you saying that TV can reinforce or strengthen a belief or preference that already exists, scottishmummy?

You've just proved my point, SM.

More than 80% of women want to breastfeed. Some 77(ish)% initiate breastfeeding.

So they do want to do it. But 92% of babies have formula at some point in their babyhood - so something's going wrong somewhere with that desire.

If a soap showed a main character having bfeeding issues, and overcoming them - more women would know where to get help and that worrying about not having enough milk/having sore nipples/cluster feeding, etc, etc - was either a normal part of bf or could be solved.

with perhaps one of those post show helplines in place.

HarHar so if soaps showed everyone eating murray mints would sales increase?sadly i dont think BF sucess rates are linked to soaps. much too reductionist to purport that view

But formula is not promoted on regular tv, banned as you know.so therfore the mums who chose to do so have not seen it on Corrie

Tobacco advertising is not on mainstream tv, but people still smoke, because they want to/chose it

too simple to say see tv = do tv

but new mums in soaps offer bottles instead of the breast.

hunker i love all our concordant view as you continue to support^ me - Thanks

It's part of it. It's part of making breastfeeding the first choice for women, the unthinking choice, the easiest way to feed your baby - not some complicated thing only middle class women do, not some painful thing you do for a brief period of time then give a bottle when it hurts too much because nobody has told you it doesn't hurt like that for the whole six months you're "meant" to exclusively breastfeed for, nor the other at least 18 months the WHO say is ideal.

And no, infant formula's not allowed to be advertised - but it didn't stop EastEnders having a tin of SMA Gold on the worktop the other day - or any soap you care to mention having babies bottlefed - because it's the unthinking first choice to see babies fed like that in the UK - and that's a crying shame, for the babies and for the women who do want to breastfeed, but just aren't sure enough of how to do it or what support there is to help them do it.

And soaps could help with this - they really could - whether Scottishmummy thinks they could or not.

"hunker i love all our concordant view as you ^continue to support me - Thanks"

[baffled]

if in the (highly unlikely) event of a soap character on the top 2 successfully bf-ing in that soap bf-ing figures in the uk did not rise significantly i will eat my hat. people are put off bf-ing by hear say (my sil thought about bf-ing her ds, but decided not to after being told it was painful and stressful) and soaps maintaining the widely held belief that bf is not normal, prevents the dad from helping, is embarassing can only do harm

yes hunker you are as baffled by my support as i am by yours - thanks

lissielou - your actions/behaviours are derived from the tv?Blimey

so do you fluff and fold like Anthea
do you cook like Jamie
do you use Jane Fonda's preferred moisturiser

i ask because they are all on tv, and according to you hugely influential

You're missing the point spectacularly, I'm afraid.

not really.you seek to digress but actually this is divergent views. you have no definitive correlation, that TV definitively influences behaviour .

honesty this is not so reductionist as
See TV = Do Tv

it is complex

Individual volition
class
gender
socio-economic
education
age

we both know there is a socio-economic and class differential in BF rates, not wholly linked to tv ownership

I know hunkers stastics are right, but they still shock me. 80% want to ?
I think round here its 80% assume they will formula feed , by the time they get to pre-natal classes.

sacottish, soaps could make people think about bf, no ?

if they had the predisposition, cannot create that disposition, or usurp a belief