The influence of the media is really quite powerful. Yet how willing are we to absorb what is being written? It is interesting how sometimes we read one article regarding a topic and read yet another and it has an entirely different slant.
How far can we go in regards to trusting media reports and at what point do we differentiate information as being objective as opposed to having an agenda laden message?
Perhaps this isn’t just applicable to the media, but all forms of literature.
The Media has changed its purpose in our society form reporting the news to entertainment. There is no non-bias news source both sides have there way of puting a slant on the news. I dont trust any of them to a certain extent. Does anyone really trust 100% of what any of the news stations say?
I have come to only trust Public Television.
I would hope noone would trust anyone 100%.
Of course, we can’t expect to trust any media source 100%. If a doctor tells you that you only have six weeks to live, you don’t just shrug it off. You get a second opinion. The same goes for the news. If you rely solely on any one source and/or medium, you’ll never get the whole picture.
Opinions are like assholes - everyone’s got one. Why should the media be any different?
The only way to remove the problem of media, that of slant and biased agenda, is to go straight to the source. This obviosly has it’s own problems, one of which is that it may not be possible, considering the enormity of information that is passed daily onto the public. Additionally it is sometimes impossible to corraborate the truth of a story with the source, because of anonymous informants ect.
I’m sure there are a great deal of other problems I am currently failing to conceive of.
The extent to which people are influenced is a deadly serious issue to my mind. How many millions of people take Bill O’rielly on his word or Rush Limbaugh, or in the more extreme form of radical right wing commentary, Micheal Savage. Hmm. I think his name is Micheal. Millions of people everyday are swayed by false claims or inaccurate statements, or just powerful rhetoric laced with bigotry and hate, or ignoorance or phrases full of ideals of injustice. But you know whrer there is a plug there is sure to be a socket, so how could it be any other way.
This is somewhat off topic, but a week ago I went to my local Borders, and was looking for any book by Leo Strauss. I was appalled to be confronted by picture after picture of television news station pundits, and suffice to say I found not a single book by Strauss. Kind of unfortunate the depth of the coercion that this countries populace suffers, when the political science section of a book store is almost exclusively stocked with the most virile agenda driven books.
a synopsis of The Propaganda Model, not written by me, but taken from Manufacturing Consent (Chomsky).
Excellent book. I highly recommend it and the documentary it spawned.
The media and television completely ruins our lives and the way we see things. Television and the movies gives definitions of the images of things. I’ll use love/romance as an example. We are in love with the image of love. The love in the movies when a guy meets a girl but one of them is too different for the other but in the end they end up in love nd together and happy. Is that what love really is? Could be, but most likely not the case. So how will we ever eperience love if all we know and reference to is the image of it?
Another aspect. Who here has heard so much talk of carbohydrates say 2-3 years ago? No one. People ate carbohydrates like nothing. And now because every commercial advertises low carbs and states that carbs are bad… People have freaked out and stopped eating them. This is completel bullshit. If you don’t want to be a fatass then get off your lazy ass and excerise. Its that simple. Carbohydrates are not at fault. We americans need scapegoats and justifications for our laziness.
I hate the media, the only reason I watch tv is to be amazed and horrified by its stupidity.
I am a black man who lives in NYC, one day a white girl and i started to have a conversation. After the conversation she told me she was first afraid of me she thought I was a gangster. I did not put blame on her ignorance, but put blame on B.E.T who thinks gangsters, thugs, pimps, bitches and hoe’s are all what black people are about.
As for the news i watch a variety of channels at the same time with internet sources to back it up and hope to get 100% of the truth
I hate the media, the only reason I watch tv is to be amazed and horrified by its stupidity.
I am a black man who lives in NYC, one day a white girl and i started to have a conversation. After the conversation she told me she was first afraid of me she thought I was a gangster. I did not put blame on her ignorance, but put blame on B.E.T who thinks gangsters, thugs, pimps, bitches and hoe’s are all what black people are about.
As for the news i watch a variety of channels at the same time with internet sources to back it up and hope to get 100% of the truth
those last two posts were great …i think you both provided some deep insight into the effects of television on the thinking of individuals steeped in TV-CULTURE!
you’re right, television does install narrow categories into the minds of folks. if you want to know what “love” is, you reference all of the romance/love movies you’ve seen… all of the episodes of “Friends”… to come up with what you think love is or should be. this is obviously dangerous! television KILLS people’s ability to think for themselves and to think creatively.
and that post concerning television’s stereotyping of african-american folks… i agree with everything you’ve said. its really terrible how the media portrays black people as “scary” or “shady” or “gangster”. again, the media installs categories into people’s minds that define the limits to what thoughts you can think about black people. and what “types” of black people exist in our society. for example, the idea of an “intellectual black man” is just completely foreign to your average MTV viewer who only sees rappers and gangsters and the like. therefore, people think its crazy or weird when they see a brilliant black man talking about philosophy or astrophysics or something “intellectual”. obviously you’ve transcended these boundaries, JL11210! in my own experience, some of THE MOST intellegent and advanced human beings i’ve ever met have been black. my drum teacher (who teaches at Berklee College of Music) is the most brilliant man on earth! and a family friend is a Ph.D and a professor of philosophy and english at Harvard university.
JL, i’m seriously obsessed with the media. check out http://www.zmag.org for a totally different take on world events. there’s also a lot of information about mainstream media that’s definitely worth checking out. i’d also recommend reading papers from the UK, Canada and Austrailia for a broader perspective.