Non-oppressive societies: story telling, bardic tradition
Entertaining friends in homes, hospitality to travellers. Board Games
Theatre, sport - including spectator, supporting the City team
Baths as social & entertainment centres - board & ball games. Chariot racing & fighting - bets on the outcome. Home entertainment - lavish meals, intellectual pursuits: debates, book readings. Sexual excesses
Oppressive societies, little leisure or entertainment. Religion. For ruling warrior groups, mainly extension of martial arts - jousts, hunting, court jesters. Countryside unsafe, women & children mainly confined to the home - weaving & clothes making.
Late in period: local inns & drinking, some dance. A few games - bowls. Development of Theatre.
Towards non-oppressive society. Patrician society as in (4) & (5) (except baths). Dancing. early books, music
Rise of general wealth levels. Reading books & periodicals. Growth & variety of sport with spectators & betting on outcome. Public houses local social centres for men (problems of alcohol - taxed heavily). Dances for youngsters
Rise of mass media, moving towards electronic media in the home, variety of entertainment on tap - captures bulk of leisure time. Variety of sports grow with mass spectator following, though plateauxing before end of period. Betting on outcomes grows into gambling - where games set up with the chance outcome specifically to take bets: Casinos, bingo, amusement machines. Rise of hobbies of increasing knowledge centres - increasingly enabling people to associate with others in clubs. Some of these coalesce, combining features: gambling clubs enabling people to associate (casinos, bingo clubs, betting syndicates). For young & divorced, whole range of these used intensively to meet opposite sex, including modern dance.
Start of activities with mass spectator following being used for marketing: associating a brand with such an activity increases the awareness and standing of the brand - start of sponsorship.
As time and surplus wealth increase humans explore an increasing range of pursuits of physical and intellectual activities. Association with others is usually involved. Enables people to demonstrate their expertise to others, and is largely controlled by Maslov's needs. Thus higher up the Economic Level, the higher the Need. Esteem Need is the main influence in Levels (7) - (9). Rise of Self-Actualisation is likely to move activities towards greater personal involvement and development of peoples' own skills - at the expense of passive involvement. These are likely to be the Constant Trends.
Passive activities, which typifies classic entertainment, are likely to decline, while participative activities are likely to grow. The increasing emphasis on Self Actualisation is likely to reduce the passive spectator sports (already apparent), as well as the technical motor skills of sports, towards hobbies with greater intellectual content. The change of emphasis may be slow, and appears as the growth of specialist hobbies, hobby education, with increased emphasis on association with others, and travel such as study tours and conferences.
While passive spectator are expected to weaken, there are two counter trends occurring. The electronic media has vastly increased the scope to watch mass spectator activities, without having to brave the elements and turn up to watch a sports match. This has increased the spectator following and the standing of such activities. This in turn has encouraged businesses to use such activities by associating them with their products. The steady growth of products available requires intense use of the media to find ways of getting their products known and keep them in the public's mind. Thus while passive spectator sports attendance is falling, sponsorship of popular activities by businesses in the names of their products has mushroomed. So has charges to screen TV of such activities. So there is a vast growing revenue for such sporting clubs and like activities, and their performers - who at an early age have become wealthy beyond previous imagination.
While there is likely to be a gradual decline in passive spectators of all forms, the need to promote products can be expected to grow. The alternative activities that people are likely to undertake instead of being spectators are not seen as creating alternative well known people - so the popular spectator activities are likely to be in receipt of growing promotional marketing funds for some time. It is however probable that participative activities that are newsworthy will receive sponsorship promotional funds from local businesses.
The high point of entertainment - the TV - is likely to decline in the hours viewed, despite the increasing numbers of channels becoming available (this is beginning to show in viewing data).
The Media shows the range of entertainment becoming available, eventually on line. This provides the scope for home entertainment of friends (already started with videos). This is another factor reducing broadcast TV.
To return to your Contents page click your URL password
(drop down menu below the current URL)