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Unread 30 May 2008, 21:12   #1
Hebdomad
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Mass media [long]

I no longer purchase physical newspapers. I usually glance at the headlines of the ones that fit my bias in the morning before work and scan their websites later on to look for anything interesting, which I rarely find.

I often leaf through newspapers in coffee shops, though. Even then I only take a vague interest in the major stories. They generally seem vacuous despite their apparent importance.

When I do read newspapers I sometimes find the reports deep within the papers more interesting. With those there seems to be at least an attempt to take a dialectic position, perhaps because these stories are less politically sensitive.

Other than that, I enjoy bbc radio's political commentary. This has made my digital radio worthwhile. This is mainly because these shows generally invite experts to articulate both sides of a particular story.

Other than the traditional forms of media, I enjoy reading boingboing.net. I'm not claiming that the site takes up my preferred dialectic position; it's certainly biased. I agree with it though, so that doesn't bother me too much.

In brief, the newspapers, the internet (and to a lesser extent) radio, to me, seem to fall in the category of a carefully selected bag politically slanted proffered claims, positioned to try to convert me into supporting, and thus giving legitimacy to, a particular strategy.

I could, of course, persist; read books, newspapers, websites which take up opposing positions and then, with that evidence, challenge an existing precept/decide for myself. The idea, here, is improve my ability to reason and overcome bias and selectivity to reach something I'm sure I believe in, relatively speaking.

The problem is, this takes time and help, and equals academia. I'm not against academia as such, and if someone wanted to pay me to research part-time and do something with more immediate results the rest of the time, then I'd take it.

Of course, this isn't going to happen soon, or maybe ever, because of my personal economics. I could work towards this, but at the moment I'm more concerned with my ability to do the aforementioned without academia.

Ages ago Nodrog suggested that someone subscribe to journals. I claimed that someone probably wouldn't want to do that because they're relatively quite hard work. Now though, thinking about it, I'm tempted to take nodrog's advice myself.

Journal are obviously peer reviewed which abates political slant, and thus their appeal. I see journals as the only way out of my predicament, do something about the aphorism "don't believe everything you read."

Am I the only one with this predicament? I assume most people are not even mostly happy with the state of mass media. Do you actually do anything about it?
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Unread 30 May 2008, 22:48   #2
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Re: Mass media [long]

This really wasn't that long, your overzealous paragraphing just made it look like it was.
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Unread 31 May 2008, 01:22   #3
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Re: Mass media [long]

The media tends to be pretty colored in general. It used to bother me, but after a while i came to realise that if one want to write an interesting article, then it's almost inevitably that the political color of the author will shine through. Articles are usually not untruthfull, but you'll have to be able to seperate fact from opinion, the authors personal bias. As i'm fond of political discussions myself and actually discuss politics on a daily basis, I tend to enjoy reading (insightful) colored articles, depending on the quality of the content.

My brother also often complains about the media not being purely objective. But knowing that he enjoys a lot of right-wing newssites, it seems to me that he's more bothered about hearing opposite opinions from reporters and columnists that don't share his color. I wouldn't want to limit myself to reading my own opinion, only written by others, again and again though.

If you want to 'improve your ability to reason and overcome bias and selectivity to reach something you're sure you believe in', then I would suggest to discuss your opinion with others. You could, for example, start posting on a news discussion forum to hear some all-round opinions and become more critical about what you read. A forum where it's a sport to debate and where people actually back their statements up with facts and/or research. As of yet, GD isn't really suitable for this purpose as this doesn't appear to be a place of (intelligent) debate.
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Last edited by Alessio; 31 May 2008 at 03:04.
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Unread 31 May 2008, 10:34   #4
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Re: Mass media [long]

I don't see any dilema.
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Unread 31 May 2008, 11:06   #5
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Re: Mass media [long]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hebdomad
I no longer purchase physical newspapers. I usually glance at the headlines of the ones that fit my bias in the morning before work and scan their websites later on to look for anything interesting, which I rarely find.
Same here. I was never a big buyer of newspapers but now I've tried to cut them out completely, although I do still look at headlines in the shops.

I'm trying to keep completely out of news in every way but I inevitably find myself creeping back in (looking at headlines, reading the BBC news webstie,watching Sky News on the giant screen in the train station etc) before I realsie what I'm doing and control myself again.

I have a problem. :crymeariver:

Quote:
Other than that, I enjoy bbc radio's political commentary. This has made my digital radio worthwhile. This is mainly because these shows generally invite experts to articulate both sides of a particular story.
Never listened to the radio, until I started working. I find myself enoying BBC Radio 4. Rumople, The Archers are classic. I genuinely never considered listening to radio plays because it seems to require a lot of attention to keep up with where everyone is. This not actually true!

Quote:
Other than the traditional forms of media, I enjoy reading boingboing.net. I'm not claiming that the site takes up my preferred dialectic position; it's certainly biased. I agree with it though, so that doesn't bother me too much.
I only read Charlie Brooker in the Guardian.

I saw a poster tosday about Jeremy Clarkson's new book and underneath it said:

'He's right.

About everything.'

But he isn't. About anything. And now I'm thinking that Brooker is the left-wing version of Clarkson, but I have dismissed this idea. Although it seems very clear to me that all spokesmen with a right-wing slant tend to be a bunch of ****s. Not because I disagree with everything they say (because I pretty much do), but because as human beings and as personalities, they are simply a bunch of ****s.

Anyway, back to the news.

Quote:
In brief, the newspapers, the internet (and to a lesser extent) radio, to me, seem to fall in the category of a carefully selected bag politically slanted proffered claims, positioned to try to convert me into supporting, and thus giving legitimacy to, a particular strategy.
Yes. It's pretty easy to find the bias with a bit of attention. This is easiest to do with television news. Watch an epsode and you can place them on a political map pretty easily. The BBC was accused of being too liberal with regards to global warming, but the idea that any news is impartial is a myth, although I still say the BBC is the best of a very bad bunch.

Quote:
I could, of course, persist; read books, newspapers, websites which take up opposing positions and then, with that evidence, challenge an existing precept/decide for myself. The idea, here, is improve my ability to reason and overcome bias and selectivity to reach something I'm sure I believe in, relatively speaking.
I've largely given up thinking about the stories of the day, partly because as you said, they are largely not worth considering. Secondly, I'm not actually going to do anything about it. I spent a lot of time reading papers, getting angry at the world and not donig anything about it. Now, I stay calmer and focus my energies on the development of my mind through reading books. At the moment I'm reading this, which I think is very good. I picked it up in the library at random and I'm very glad I did. I recommend it to everyone.

Quote:
Ages ago Nodrog suggested that someone subscribe to journals. I claimed that someone probably wouldn't want to do that because they're relatively quite hard work. Now though, thinking about it, I'm tempted to take nodrog's advice myself.

Journal are obviously peer reviewed which abates political slant, and thus their appeal. I see journals as the only way out of my predicament, do something about the aphorism "don't believe everything you read."
In my experiance journals are incredibly horrible things to read, especially when they are empirically based. I found myself reading a few journals which I only had a rough idea of precisely what was going on, even though I've been studying the techniques they have been using. Without the past few months of teaching, it would have been completely intelligable to me.

So, it really dpends on what you want to get out of journals and what topics you want to read up upon. To be honest, I'm not sure it's really worth reading the whole article unless it's for a specific reason. The Abstract at the beginning would probably be good enough for most things.

As for journals abating political slant, well that clearly is impossible. Yes, it can cut down overt political overtones, but they still exist within the work, in certain assumptions, interpretation and selection of data etc... So journals are fine if you use them well, but they are the magic answer to enlightenment.

Quote:
Am I the only one with this predicament? I assume most people are not even mostly happy with the state of mass media. Do you actually do anything about it?
Completely ignore it. It makes no difference to my life if there is an volcanic eruption in Russia killing 1 million people. If I read about it, I mghit be sad but I probably won't do anything about it so why bother learning about it?

One argument could be that it's important to know that political people are donig shit things. I would agree, but I already know this so the specifics don't really concern me too much.

To be honest, what really annoys me most is people getting upset when the government (any government) do something shit or pass some shitty legislation and people complain about it and get really angry. It's as if this is the first time something like this has happened.

The media are especially bad at continuing this false sense of shock when this happens, because it's happened every day for thousands of years. The need to sensationalise completely blocks the clear image which says 'this is always happenign, why are you shocked?'

It's not that I think people shouldn't be angry at such things or that these things should go unmentioned, the problem is that people get so worked up about something and do... nothing. If complaining was the beginning of some kind of action to stop the baqd things from happening then I would support it wholeheartedly, but at the moment all it seems to do is to keep everybody angry, missing the bigger picture of objective shitness.
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Unread 31 May 2008, 16:37   #6
Hebdomad
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Re: Mass media [long]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk
This really wasn't that long, your overzealous paragraphing just made it look like it was.
The word you were looking for was, "beautiful."

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alessio
Articles are usually not untruthfull, but you'll have to be able to seperate fact from opinion, the authors personal bias.

If you want to 'improve your ability to reason and overcome bias and selectivity to reach something you're sure you believe in', then I would suggest to discuss your opinion with others. You could, for example, start posting on a news discussion forum to hear some all-round opinions and become more critical about what you read.
I've found most journalists I know go out of their way to omit conflicting evidence from their articles if they can possibly help it. These articles then form part of the discussions you have with others. These discussions only arrive somewhere positive when 1) those partaking purposely take up opposing positions; and 2) they can back their claims up with evidence which they contrast to opposing evidence. Needless to say this rarely happens and the mass media does not help it happen.

Quote:
Originally Posted by All Systems Go
I've largely given up thinking about the stories of the day, partly because as you said, they are largely not worth considering. Secondly, I'm not actually going to do anything about it. I spent a lot of time reading papers, getting angry at the world and not donig anything about it. Now, I stay calmer and focus my energies on the development of my mind through reading books.

The media are especially bad at continuing this false sense of shock when this happens, because it's happened every day for thousands of years. The need to sensationalise completely blocks the clear image which says 'this is always happenign, why are you shocked?'

It's not that I think people shouldn't be angry at such things or that these things should go unmentioned, the problem is that people get so worked up about something and do... nothing. If complaining was the beginning of some kind of action to stop the baqd things from happening then I would support it wholeheartedly, but at the moment all it seems to do is to keep everybody angry, missing the bigger picture of objective shitness.
It's worth point out that sometimes merely awareness raising, in the case of Burma for example, helps. Nevertheless, I somewhat agree. I wouldn't, however, abandon current affairs because they are publicised in such a largely unhelpful way. I'd criticise the way newspapers operate rather than what they report.

Newspapers entice their readers and gain their profits through sensationalism, as you said. So, If they were to actually help solve a problem by marshalling conflicting evidence and undertaking far more research than they do currently, they'd have to spend less time on the more profitable activity of spewing out a constant stream of sensationalist headlines which back up existing biases.

Quote:
As for journals abating political slant, well that clearly is impossible. Yes, it can cut down overt political overtones, but they still exist within the work, in certain assumptions, interpretation and selection of data etc... So journals are fine if you use them well, but they are the magic answer to enlightenment.
I don't favour journals because I believe some kind of apolitical human beings write the articles within, but because of the peer review process. Basically, I have more trust in academics than I have in journalists.
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Unread 1 Jun 2008, 18:57   #7
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Re: Mass media [long]

I'd hope most people see bias when they read, but if most of what you read doesn't include robust evidence, and omits counter evidence if possible, even a variety of these media outlets fail to advance understanding.

It's this failure to include robust evidence and explore counter evidence, because of an overt political agenda, that gets on my tits.

Despite its problems, I'd value someone's opinion higher if they read a fairly well-balanced wikipedia article on a subject, than someone who'd read her or his favourite selection of newspapers.

Worringly, I actually prefer wikipedia's ethos to most newspaper's.
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Unread 1 Jun 2008, 19:02   #8
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Re: Mass media [long]

By the way, I saw a small advert advertising "manufacturing dissent" yesterday. It's a film that criticises michael moore. I obviously know little about it, but it sounds great if it's trying to argue chomsky's point, but in the inverse.
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Unread 1 Jun 2008, 22:28   #9
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Re: Mass media [long]

Basically it criticiss Moore and his editing methods as well as using the same techniques as those on the right.

They were interviewed on Fox news i believe and they were just brought on to criticise moose however they also criticised the right wing media so its not about an both left scot s anything like that.
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