Television producer and exurbanite Marta Mobley hopes to draw a comparison between what we watch and how we feel. She calls much of what’s offered currently on television junk food and says we all need a more whole foods television diet. Mobley is at work on a book, The New Media Diet, which details why what you watch is important and how you can help your family make better viewing choices. Her big idea, though, is The New Media Foundation. Through her foundation, this Oak Park, CA, mom hopes to change the world we see…

1. Developing a foundation sounds like tough work for a busy producer and mom. How did you come to view this as something you wanted to do? Why is it so important to you?

I’ve been a film and television producer for the last fifteen years and didn’t really consider what kind of content I was producing. Then after I had children, my perception of media changed. Along my journey I came to realize–as I watched and experienced media from my little children’s perspective—how scary and unhealthy the bulk of our current media choices really are. I found myself navigating through hundreds of television channels, then monitoring thousands of programs for what I thought would be appropriate for my children to watch. I wanted a whole foods media diet for my children to watch, rather than the fast food media diet, like the current McDonald’s or Burger King media diet, being offered today. I want television shows and movies that inspire, educate, entertain and provide insight that inspire and model for my children how to be happier, healthier and more optimistic human beings.

Not only do I want more whole foods media for my children, I need more for myself. I need and want to surround myself with more positive and inspirational references. We all need more role models that are happy, loving, kind and evolved human beings.

2. What are your hopes for The New Media Foundation? What do you see the foundation specifically doing and what impact do you hope it has?

We believe every individual has the power to make a difference in the world. Renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead once wrote, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.” The New Media Foundation is dedicated to uniting thoughtful citizens to create positive, transformative, world-changing media. We believe that if enough people join together and shift their way of being and thinking, we will make a great leap for humankind; living from a perspective beyond the individual, recognizing that there is more to this world than what we know and that we are infinitely connected.

Entertainment can be a transformative tool to help people live happier, healthier and more effective lives. By the time a person is 60 years old, he or she has spent 15 of those years watching media. We believe that by creating positive role models, individuals will model the characters they relate to and be inspired to change their own lives. Our world needs life-changing, transformative media. Our world needs to see media role models of all races, abilities, disabilities, ethnicities and religious backgrounds. For a change it would be great to see others like us facing daily life challenges, what they learn from those challenges, and most importantly, how they can grow and overcome those challenges.

The New Media Foundation is dedicated to creating media that inspires viewers and reminds them of their better selves. Every choice an individual makes can affect everyone around them in addition to our whole world. We believe that by creating more positive media, which at its core shows a healthier way of being and thinking, we can change our world.

3. You talk about developing a “new media diet,” can you explain how this might look?

In the book I share with parents and families a new perspective and healthier guidelines to create their own family’s media guidelines. The New Media Diet will appeal to anyone who is interested in self-help, parenting, family guidance and media. My intention by sharing my story and mission is to inspire, inform and role model for readers a practical and fun way to access and possibly change their current media choices for the health and emotional wellbeing of their family.

The New Media Diet is NOT another angry activist book wherein I guilt parents into feeling bad about their current media choices. My goal for writing this book is to provide the key highlights for parents who are interested in how media may be influencing their families health and well-being, but who may not or don’t have the time or energy to read all the voluminous, self-help and scholarly books on the effects of media currently offered in book stores or libraries. I share this vast media and human behavior research from my own perspective, as simply a mother who found myself having a hard time navigating through today’s media offerings and discovering there were very few healthy media choices I would allow my children to watch.

The New Media Diet is based on a simple guideline I developed to help families view their media consumption in a new way. As my criteria, I used actual food items to represent what certain unhealthy and healthy qualities or human behaviors are portrayed in media. Then I took that criteria and matched unhealthy types of foods to unhealthy types of human characteristics and behaviors: For example, processed food is equal to disrespectful behavior or deep fried food is equal to violence. Then I matched healthy types of foods to healthy types of human characteristics: For example, vegetables equal educational or fiber equals encouraging behavior. I took those food and human behavior metaphors and went on to create an example of what an average person’s Old Media Diet would look like compared to The New Media Diet I am championing. In one chapter, I provide specific examples and guidelines as to how other parents might approach their own media choices. As an exercise, I put in a chart to list what media is viewed, for how long, and what the food equivalent might be. I also give positive role-model examples that are currently being portrayed on television.

Over the last twenty years, the self-help movement inspired humanity to become a more healthy, loving, compassionate and united human race. Indeed people want to change their own lives for the better. For a long time, we have been inundated with people talking about ways to save our planet and ways to save ourselves from terrorism, ways to eat healthier and to exercise, recommending that we practice yoga and meditation, and suggesting we should become good global citizens. One sees and hears it everyday in media on shows like Oprah and Dr. Phil, in films like An Inconvenient Truth and Supersize Me and in books like The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne and Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Now wouldn’t it be great to see healthy human references as to how we can integrate these healthy behaviors into our day-to-day ways of being?

While all these inspiring words and messages are great to inspire change, we are missing one important step to creating concrete change in our every day lives—role models. In addition to all these inspiring ideas and sage advice, we need more practical ways role modeled to us by other people we admire and connect with to actually create this change. Not only do we need to know HOW TO DO IT, we need to see how people actually integrate these more affective behaviors into their own lives.

Part way through my journey, I began to believe it might be possible to inspire media writers and producers to begin to slowly integrate all these more effective and healthier human behaviors offered in all the bestselling self-help books and the teachings from leading inspirational leaders into the current media role models we see daily on television and at movies. I felt if we could at least start out by changing 10 percent of how media role models interact with each other in media, then viewers might not only be INSPIRED to change, but also learn HOW to change.

4. Some people are concerned about censorship or taking the art out of filmmaking when you clean it up. How do you address this concern?

As parents, why can’t we legislate and regulate media? We have regulated many issues to protect our children from harm, setting age limits on smoking, driving and drinking. As a parent, wouldn’t you rather err on the safe side when it comes to the role models that you allow to influence your children?

I support the first amendment and that everyone has the right to express themselves in their own way. But as a human race, we cannot continue to go through life concerned with only self-expression. For the last 30 years we’ve been creating our world primarily from a self-focused perspective, and that is a big part of why our planet and people are in sad state of depression and despair. I wouldn’t want to abolish anyone’s first amendment rights, but I do believe that those rights must be balanced along with our moral, social and global rights. We need to consider how media influences our society especially when such influential decisions and expressions are haphazardly exposed through marketing tactics to many different people of all ages, and especially when it comes to manipulating innocent children purely for profit.

I truly believe it is possible for all people to live more happy, healthy and respectful lives, and that we must create more media that considers and includes all three human perspectives: morals, the objective truth and self-expression, all at the same time. Or what is sometimes known as The Good, The True and The Beautiful. When the media industry only comes from one of these perspectives—self expression—it is like scientists who only consider the facts and not individual expression; religious groups who only consider their own beliefs and no one else’s, and individuals who express what they personally like or dislike, whether it hurts someone else or not.

Ken Wilber, a great philosophical thinker of our time, gives a good example of this principal. It is similar to how an engineer considers width, height and length when constructing a building. You must consider all three factors in your plans to insure a perfect measurement; it is impossible to leave out one of these three factors to insure your building is a strong and solid structure. The media business seems to care and support only the artist’s self-expression, THE BEAUTIFUL. The media business does not concern itself with whether it is healthy for viewers or their well being. They rarely concern themselves with THE GOOD, or the fact it has been proven time and time again that media influences viewers’ emotions and life choices. And THE TRUE, media producers are really not considering the scientific research regarding what truly happens to the viewers when they see, physically respond and are influenced by the artists’ creations. Such narrow perspectives as these are harmful and are not in any way creating a safer, healthier, compassionate and more united world.

5. Personal question: You moved from Culver City to Oak Park not so long ago. Can you tell us about this transition? Was it hard to get used to this area? Have you had reservations about the move or has it worked out well? What do you see as the benefits/drawbacks to city vs. exurban living?

I am so happy I finally moved out of a big city to the suburbs. The chaotic and fast-paced city is no different than the unhealthy and hard-to-digest media people are consuming everyday. The constant over stimulation of people and cars can take it’s negative toll on a person’s health, spirit and well-being. I love going to the grocery store and there are 20 cars in parking lot instead of 200. I love driving down roads filled with lushish green trees, bright blue skies and mountains as my backdrop…..it is so much more peaceful and relaxed. Much more inspiring than the city. I would never move back to Los Angeles….I prefer the suburbs. Oh…and did I mention the people are really nice too?

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