ILL EFFECTS

Can subliminal advertising make you buy things?

[Eat popcorn!] In 1957, market researcher James Vicary promised he could flash split-second commands on movie screens and subconsciously influence audiences to buy things. He called it subliminal advertising. [Drink Coca-Cola!] Ben drags Rich through the riotous history of hidden persuasion, packed with hucksters, gimmicks, and shrinks. But as silly as these experiments were, what do they reveal about our relationships to advertising today? [Consume!] 

Show Notes: 

Acland, C. R. (2011). Swift viewing The popular life of subliminal influence. Duke University Press. 

Crandall, K. B. (2006). Invisible commercials and hidden persuaders: James M. Vicary and the subliminal advertising controversy of 1957. Undergraduate Honors Thesis. University of Florida. Available at http://plaza. ufl. edu/cyllek/docs/KCrandall_Thesis2006. pdf. 

Fullerton, Ronald A. "The Devil's Lure?: Motivation Research, 1934-1954." In Proceedings of the Conference on Historical Analysis and Research in Marketing, vol. 12, pp. 134-143. 2005. 

Heffernan, K. (2002). The hypnosis horror films of the 1950s: Genre texts and industrial context. Journal of Film and Video, 54(2/3), 56-70. 

Horowitz, D. (1994). Vance Packard & American Social Criticism. Univ of North Carolina Press. 

Key, W. B. (1973). Subliminal seduction: Ad media’s manipulation of a not so innocent America. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. 

Mackay, J., & Anonymous. (2023). Hypnosis and pornography: a cultural history. Porn Studies, 10(1), 82-98. 

Parkin, K. (2004). The sex of food and Ernest Dichter: the illusion of inevitability. Advertising & Society Review, 5(2). 

Samuel, L. R. (2010). Freud on Madison Avenue: motivation research and subliminal advertising in America. University of Pennsylvania Press. 

[Video] Aldous Huxley interviewed by Mike Wallace 

[Video] Daniels, Harold (1958) My World Dies Screaming 

Note: Journal articles are often behind paywalls. If you don't have institutional access but would like a copy of these papers please email Illeffectspod@gmail.com and we will happily send you a copy  

Credits:  

Hosts – Rich McCulloch and Ben Litherland   

Music by -  Brutalust (Colin Frank and Maria Sappho), recorded and mixed by Joe Christman  

Producer – Caroline Pringle  

“Screen Time” Must Die!

Depression. Anxiety. Sleep deprivation. Addiction. The headlines about "screen time" and today’s kids sound like the end of the world. But in the Season 2 opener of ILL EFFECTS, Rich walks Ben through the panic—and the patchy science propping it up. He argues it’s time to ditch the outdated idea of screen time altogether, and to replace it with a smarter, more nuanced conversation about how, when, and why we use modern media. 

NOTE: The initial version of this episode (published 10th April 2025) had some sound issues, a new version was published 17th April 2025.

Credits:  

Hosts – Rich McCulloch and Ben Litherland   

Music by -  Brutalust (Colin Frank and Maria Sappho), recorded and mixed by Joe Christman  

Producer – Caroline Pringle  

 

Sound Effect by Devrinta Rose Nataya from Pixabay 

Sound Effect by Rasool Asaad from Pixabay 

Cover art photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash 

Can the media sway an election?

In this bumper Very Special Episode ahead of this week’s UK General Election, we take it in turns to examine whether “the media” can “sway” election results. First, Ben examines the always-silly and sometimes-sinister British tabloid press and their (in)famous claim that it was “The Sun Wot Won It” for John Major in 1992. Rich then looks at Cambridge Analytica, and the claims that its Facebook quizzes helped make Brexit happen. Politics podcasts deserve better: vote for ILL EFFECTS! 

WE NEED YOU: Click HERE to complete our listener survey and help shape future episodes! 

Show Notes: 

SOURCES AND LINKS: 

Afriat, H., et al. (2021) “This is capitalism. It is not illegal”: Users’ attitudes toward institutional privacy following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The Information Society, 37(2). 

BBC (2018) “Cambridge Analytica: The data firm's global influence,” BBC News, 22nd March. 

BBC (2020) “Cambridge Analytica 'not involved' in Brexit referendum, says watchdog,” BBC News, 7th October. 

Berghel, H. (2018) “Malice Domestic: The Cambridge Analytica Dystopia,” Computer, 51(5), May. 

Bruns, A. (2019) Are Filter Bubbles Real? Polity Press. 

Cadwalladr, C., and Graham-Harrison, E. (2018) “Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach,” The Guardian, 17th March. 

Curtice, J. "Was it The Sun wot won it again? The influence of newspapers in the 1997 election campaign." Centre for research into elections and social trends working papers 75 (1999). 

De Vany, A. (2004) Hollywood Economics: How extreme uncertainty shapes the film industry. Routledge. 

Druckman, J. N. (2005). Media matter: How newspapers and television news cover campaigns and influence voters. Political communication, 22(4), 463-481. 

Fuchs, C. (2013) Social Media: A Critical Introduction. Sage.  

Gunther, A. C., Perloff, R. M., & Tsfati, Y. (2008). Public opinion and the third-person effect. The SAGE handbook of public opinion research, 184-191. 

Heawood, J. (2018) “Pseudo-public political speech: Democratic implications of the Cambridge Analytica scandal,” Information Polity, 23. 

Hern, A. (2018) "Cambridge Analytica: how did it turn clicks into votes?” The Guardian, 6th May. 

Linton, M. (1996). Maybe The Sun won it after all. British Journalism Review, 7(2), 20-26. 

Parliament.UK (2018) “The issue of data targeting, based around the Facebook, GSR and Cambridge Analytica allegations.” Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Interim Report. 29th July. 

Price, V., & Feldman, L. (2009). News and politics. The Sage Handbook of Media Processes and Effects. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 113-129. 

Rathi, R. (2019) “Effect of Cambridge Analytica’s Facebook ads on the 2016 US Presidential Election,” Towards Data Science, 13th January. 

Reeves, A., McKee, M., & Stuckler, D. (2016). ‘It's The Sun Wot Won It’: Evidence of media influence on political attitudes and voting from a UK quasi-natural experiment. Social science research, 56, 44-57. 

Risso, L. (2018) ‘Harvesting Your Soul? Cambridge Analytica and Brexit’ in Jansohn, C. (ed.) Brexit Means Brexit? The Selected Proceedings of the Symposium, Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur -- Mainz 6–8 December 2017. Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz. 

Strömbäck, J. (2011). Mediatization and perceptions of the media's political influence. Journalism studies, 12(4), 423-439. 

Thomas, J. (2007). Popular newspapers, the Labour Party and British politics. Routledge. 

Wong, J. C., et al. (2018) “How academic at centre of Facebook scandal tried – and failed – to spin personal data into gold,” The Guardian, 24th April. 

Note: Journal articles are often behind paywalls. If you don't have institutional access but would like a copy of these papers please email Illeffectspod@gmail.com and we will happily send you a copy  

Episode artwork photo by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street. Used under Creative Commons license (ATTRIBUTION-NONCOMMERCIAL-NODERIVS 2.0 GENERIC). 

Credits:  

Hosts – Rich McCulloch and Ben Litherland   

Music by -  Brutalust (Colin Frank and Maria Sappho), recorded and mixed by Joe Christman  

Creative producer – Rachel Wood  

Technical producer – Caroline Pringle  

Technical production – Colin Frank  

Did The Beatles make fans hysterical?

In the 1960s, parents, the press, psychologists, and many others were confronted with a large, terrifying, global problem: Beatlemania. In this episode, Ben talks Rich through how the world tried to make sense of the screaming, potentially hysterical, pop fan.  We encounter theories of red goddesses (what were shrinks taking in the 60s?), anti-communist creeds, and Adrienne from Brooklyn that really, really loves Paul. 

Show Notes

Sources and Links

[Video] A taste of Beatlemania in the 1960s 

[Video] CBS News reports on the Beatles in 1964 

“What the Beatles Prove About Teen-agers” (1962) U.S. News & World. 24 February. 

Berman, G. (2007). "We're Going to See the Beatles!": An Oral History of Beatlemania as Told by the Fans who Were There. Santa Monica Press. 

Davies, E. (1969). Psychological characteristics of Beatle mania. Journal of the History of Ideas, 30(2), 273-280. 

Dempsey, D. (1964). Why the Girls Scream, Weep, Flip. The path to understanding is psychological, anthropological and a whole lot besides. New York Times Magazine, 23. 

Ehrenreich, B., Hess, E., & Jacobs, G. (1992). “Beatlemania: Girls just want to have fun” In Lisa A. Lewis (ed) The Adoring Audience Routledge. 

Leonard, C. (2016). Beatleness: How the Beatles and their fans remade the world. Skyhorse. 

Millard, A. (2012). Beatlemania: Technology, Business, and Teen Culture in Cold War America. JHU Press. 

Mills, R. (2019). The Beatles and Fandom: Sex, Death and Progressive Nostalgia. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. 

Taylor, A. J. W. (1966). “Beatlemania—A study in adolescent enthusiasm”. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 5(2), 81-88. 

Taylor, A. J. W. (2014). “The 1964 Wellington Study of Beatlemania Revisited”, Psychology, 5(15), 1844. 

Van Luling, T. (2017) “11 Things You Probably Didn't Know About The Beatles, Even If You're A Superfan”,  Huffington Post. 7 December. 

Womack, K., & O'Toole, K. (Eds.). (2021). Fandom and the Beatles: The Act You've Known for All These Years. Oxford University Press, USA. 

Note: Journal articles are often behind paywalls. If you don't have institutional access but would like a copy of these papers please email Illeffectspod@gmail.com and we will happily send you a copy 

Credits: 

Hosts – Rich McCulloch and Ben Litherland  

Music by -  Brutalust (Colin Frank and Maria Sappho), recorded and mixed by Joe Christman 

Creative producer – Rachel Wood 

Technical producer – Caroline Pringle 

Technical production – Colin Frank 

Did 13 Reasons Why increase teen suicides?

Can media representations of suicide really be “contagious”, driving vulnerable audiences to end their own lives? Rich introduces Ben to a frustratingly large field of psychologists, counsellors and youth charities who made this argument about the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why. We dive head-first into both the controversy and the research behind it, to figure out why so many smart, well-intentioned people keep getting this issue so wrong. 

 

CONTENT WARNING: this episode includes discussion of suicide and its causes, clips where people discuss their suicidal feelings. It also contains passing references to sexual assault.  

If you or someone you know is having suicidal feelings, please seek help immediately. If you are in the UK, the following hotlines all provide support free of charge: 

• Samaritans: 116 123 (24 hours) 
• NHS: 111 (24 hours) 
• SANEline: 0300  304 7000 (4.30pm-10pm) 
• National Suicide Prevention Helpline UK: 0800 689 5652 (6pm-midnight) 
• Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM): 0800 58 58 58 (5pm-midnight) 
• Papyrus (for those under 35 and struggling with suicidal feelings, or concerned about a young person who is struggling): 0800 068 4141 (24 hours) 
• Switchboard (support line for any matters relating to LGBTQIA+ identity): 0800 119 100 (10am-10pm) 

If you would prefer not to talk over the phone, the following services are available: 

• Samaritans: email jo@samaritans.org  
• Shout (mental health support): Text SHOUT to 85258 
• Papyrus (for those under 35 and struggling with suicidal feelings, or concerned about a young person who is struggling): email pat@papyrus-uk.org or text 07786 209 697 
• Switchboard (LGBTQIA+ support service): Chat service via their website at switchboard.lgbt (after 5pm), or email chris@switchboard.lgbt 

For listeners in countries outside of the UK, a useful list of hotlines and other support resources can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines#Crisis_lines_by_country  

Credits: 

Hosts – Rich McCulloch and Ben Litherland  

Music by -  Brutalust (Colin Frank and Maria Sappho), recorded and mixed by Joe Christman 

Creative producer – Rachel Wood 

Technical producer – Caroline Pringle 

Technical production – Colin Frank 

Did pro wrestling make kids try this at home?

After a defence lawyer blamed the killing of a six-year-old on pro wrestling, the Parents Television Council went to war with the World Wrestling Federation.  Lifelong pro wrestling fan, Ben, talks Rich through this bad blood feud: in one corner “family values” and in the other corner the sex and violence of “attitude era” pro wrestling. We explore the increasingly fraught tactics used by both organizations, and, surprisingly, what the battle tells us about modern culture wars, the American right, and Donald Trump. Let’s get ready to rumblllleeee. 

Show Notes: 

Bozell, B (2023) Free Speech Week calls for a return to First Amendment liberties. Washington Examiner. Oct. 20.  

Calvert, C., & Richards, R. D. (2010). The Parents Television Council Uncensored: An Inside Look at the Watchdog of the Public Airwaves and the War on Indecency with Its President, Tim Winter. Hastings Comm. & Ent. LJ, 33, 293 

Dale, M. J. (2003). Making Sense of the Lionel Tate Case. Nova L. Rev., 28, 467. 

Farhi, P (2002) TV Watchdog Apologizes for False Claims on Wrestling. The Washington Post. 9th July. 

Foley, M (2001) Foley Is Good: And the Real World Is Faker Than Wrestling. Regan Books. 

Lowney, K. S. (2003). Wrestling with Criticism: The World Wrestling Federation's Ironic Campaign against the Parents Television Council. Symbolic Interaction, 26(3), 427-446. 

Sagba, C (2000) Vince McMahon Talks About Suing PTC and Negotiations with WCW!, IGN, June 18th,  

Sammond, N. (2005). Squaring the family circle: WWF Smackdown assaults the social body. In Sammond, N. (Ed.) Steel chair to the head: the pleasure and pain of professional wrestling. Duke University Press, pp.132-166. 

Specer, T (2000) Is Pro Wrestling to Blame for girls death? South Coast Today. 16th April. 

[Video] The Rock Confronts Right to Censor At Smackdown 

Note: Journal articles are often behind paywalls. If you don't have institutional access but would like a copy of these papers please email Illeffectspod@gmail.com and we will happily send you a copy 

Credits: 

Hosts – Rich McCulloch and Ben Litherland  

Music by -  Brutalust (Colin Frank and Maria Sappho), recorded and mixed by Joe Christman 

Creative producer – Rachel Wood 

Technical producer – Caroline Pringle 

Technical production – Colin Frank 

Does Cuties sexualise young girls?

In 2020, a French indie movie called Cuties somehow found itself at the epicentre of the US culture wars. Outraged conservatives accused the filmmakers and Netflix of encouraging paedophilia and stoking the fires of global child sex trafficking trade. But were they right? Rich’s deep dive into the controversy takes Ben on a journey through “sexualisation,” twerking, Tucker Carlson’s gormless face, School of Rock, QAnon, and yes... even paedophilic robots. 

Show Notes: 

Sources and links 

Barker, Martin, Jane Arthurs, Jane and Ramaswami Harindranath (2001) The Crash Controversy: Censorship Campaigns and Film Reception. Wallflower Press. 

Barker, Martin (2009) “The Challenge of Censorship: ‘Figuring’ Out the Audience,” Velvet Light Trap, 63. 

Barker, Martin, with Thomas Austin (2000) From Antz to Titanic: Reinventing Film Analysis. Pluto Press. 

Buchanan, Vern (2020) “Buchanan Slams Netflix Film ‘Cuties’ for Exploiting Young Girls,” September 13. [Press Release] 

Carlson, Tucker (2020) “From ‘WAP’ to an 11-year-old twerking girl,” Tucker Carlson Tonight, August 21. [Twitter/X video clip, posted by @ColumbiaBugle] 

Carlson, Tucker (2020) “Netflix Slammed for Sexualizing Young Girls,” Tucker Carlson Tonight, September 11. [Facebook video] 

Cassam, Quassim (2019) Conspiracy Theories. Polity. 

Cruz, Ted (2020) “SEN. CRUZ CALLS FOR CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION INTO NETFLIX’S ‘CUTIES’,” September 11. [Press Release]  

Dickson, E.J. (2020) “How ‘Cuties’ Is Fueling the Far Right’s Obsession With Pedophilia,” Rolling Stone, September 14. 

Dickson, E.J. (2020) “Netflix’s Cuties Was Just Charged With Lewdness. But That’s Not the Full Story,” Rolling Stone, October 8. 

Egan, R. Danielle (2013) Becoming Sexual: A Critical Appraisal of the Sexualization of Girls. Polity Press. 

Egan, R. Danielle and Gail L. Hawkes (2007) “Producing the Prurient through the Pedagogy of Purity: Childhood Sexuality and the Social Purity Movement,” Journal of Historical Sociology, 20(4). 

Egan, R. Danielle and Gail L. Hawkes (2008) “Endangered Girls and Incendiary Objects: Unpacking the Discourse on Sexualization," Sexuality and Culture, 12. 

Egan, R. Danielle and Gail L. Hawkes (2008) “Girls, Sexuality and the Strange Carnalities of Advertisements: Deconstructing the Discourse of Corporate Paedophilia,” Australian Feminist Studies, 23(57). 

Egan, R. Danielle and Gail L. Hawkes (2009) “The problem with protection: Or, why we need to move towards recognition and the sexual agency of children,” Continuum, 23(3). 

Egan, R. Danielle and Gail L. Hawkes (2013) “Disavowal and foundational fantasies: A psychosocial exploration of the class, race and the social construction of the sexual child in the Anglophone West,” Sexualities, 16(5/6). 

Gallagher, Danny (2022) “District Attorney Lucas Babin? Where Have We Heard That Name? Oh, Right! School of Rock!” Dallas Observer, April 4.  

Givas, Nick (2020) “Rep. Ken Buck calls for investigation into 'exploitation of children' in letter to DOJ regarding Netflix film 'Cuties',” Fox News, September 14. 

Grater, Tom (2020) “‘Cuties’ Director Says She Received Death Threats After Netflix Poster Backlash; Ted Sarandos Called Her To Apologize,” Deadline, September 3. [Contains images of the contrasting French and American posters]  

Gray, Jonathan (2010) Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts. New York University Press. 

McCulloch, Richard, and William Proctor (2023) “The Cuties Controversy: Prefiguration, ‘Sexualisation’ and the New Conspiracism,” Participations, 19(3). 

Netflix (2020) “Cuties | Official Trailer | Netflix,” [YouTube] 

Paasonen, Susanna, et al. (2020) Objectification: On the Difference between Sex and Sexism. Routledge.  

Rosen, Christopher (2020) “Netflix Apologizes for “Inappropriate” Cuties Poster That Sexualized Child Stars,” Vanity Fair, August 20. 

Rosenblum, Nancy L., and Russell Muirhead (2019) A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy. Princeton University Press. 

Schiffer, Zoë (2021) “Netflix scrambled internally to suppress a controversial movie from search results,” The Verge, October 27. 

 

Note: Journal articles are often behind paywalls. If you don't have institutional access but would like a copy of these papers please email Illeffectspod@gmail.com and we will happily send you a copy 

Credits: 

Hosts – Rich McCulloch and Ben Litherland  

Music by -  Brutalust (Colin Frank and Maria Sappho), recorded and mixed by Joe Christman 

Creative producer – Rachel Wood 

Technical producer – Caroline Pringle 

Technical production – Colin Frank 

Do racing games cause reckless driving?

From Death Race to Grand Theft Auto, driving games have long fuelled claims that players might be inspired to start mowing down pedestrians outside of the game. Starting with a story about a Toronto police officer linking a hit and run to a copy of Need for Speed found on the offender’s passenger seat, Ben talks Rich through the surprisingly longstanding history of links between video games and reckless driving. We encounter early arcade video games, clowns being run over at anti-car carnivals, and Adam West’s Batman doing British road safety videos. Crash! Bang! Wallop! What a podcast! 

Show Notes: 

[Video] 1967 Adam West Batman UK Public Service Announcement 

Beullens, K., Roe, K., & Van den Bulck, J. (2008). Video games and adolescents' intentions to take risks in traffic. Journal of Adolescent Health, 43(1), 87-90. 

Carsten, O., & Jamson, A. H. (2011). Driving simulators as research tools in traffic psychology. In Handbook of traffic psychology (pp. 87-96). Academic Press. 

[Video] Death Race News Report 

Fischer, P., Greitemeyer, T., Morton, T., Kastenmüller, A., Postmes, T., Frey, D., ... & Odenwälder, J. (2009). The racing-game effect why do video racing games increase risk-taking inclinations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(10), 1395-1409. 

Howard, J., Bowden, V. K., & Visser, T. (2023). Do action video games make safer drivers? The effects of video game experience on simulated driving performance. Transportation research part F: traffic psychology and behaviour, 97, 170-180. 

Hull, J. G., Draghici, A. M., & Sargent, J. D. (2012). A longitudinal study of risk-glorifying video games and reckless driving. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 1(4), 244. 

Kocurek, C. A. (2012). The agony and the Exidy: a history of video game violence and the legacy of Death Race. Game Studies, 12(1). 

Lumsden, K. (2013). Boy racer culture: Youth, masculinity and deviance. Routledge. 

(2006) “NFS found in fatal drag-racing car crash”, Game Spot, Jan 26th. 

Norton, P. D. (2007). Street rivals: Jaywalking and the invention of the motor age street. Technology and culture, 48(2), 331-359. 

Redshaw, S. (2017). In the company of cars: Driving as a social and cultural practice. CRC Press. 

Sala, G., Tatlidil, K. S., & Gobet, F. (2018). Video game training does not enhance cognitive ability: A comprehensive meta-analytic investigation. Psychological bulletin, 144(2), 111.. 

Stinchcombe, A., Kadulina, Y., Lemieux, C., Aljied, R., & Gagnon, S. (2017). Driving is not a game: Video game experience is associated with risk-taking behaviours in the driving simulator. Computers in Human Behavior, 69, 415-420. 

Vingilis, E., Seeley, J., Wiesenthal, D. L., Wickens, C. M., Fischer, P., & Mann, R. E. (2013). Street racing video games and risk-taking driving: An Internet survey of automobile enthusiasts. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 50, 1-7. 

Note: Journal articles are often behind paywalls. If you don't have institutional access but would like a copy of these papers please email Illeffectspod@gmail.com and we will happily send you a copy 

Credits: 

Hosts – Ben Litherland & Rich McCulloch 

Music by -  Brutalust (Colin Frank and Maria Sappho), recorded and mixed by Joe Christman 

Creative producer – Rachel Wood 

Technical producer – Caroline Pringle 

Technical production – Colin Frank