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Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

TEAM NVIDIA:
FORUM POLICE
I've been saying it for a long time, but Fox News is an extremely impressive organization. It's a flat-out propaganda wing for the Republican party, which isn't that unusual. What is unusual is that people treat it like a serious source of news instead of an organization whose sole purpose is to boost Republicans and trash Democrats. They went to court for the right to lie (it's banned in Canada because they don't let that happen) and people still eat that poo poo up. And what's more they eat it up 24/7 - your average Fox viewer has a TV on in the background constantly, listening. If they can't do that they'll be listening to talk radio or surfing Drudge, Freep, or WorldNetDaily instead.

It really is a frightening, Orwellian echo chamber, and I'm curious about how it parallels other partisan-political/news fusion organizations. The only real parallels I can think up are not exactly pleasant, like North Korea or the Soviet Union.

E: From what I've heard, private media in Venezuela is similarly controlled by a small elite and is virulently anti-left

Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Oct 18, 2012

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BUSH 2112
Sep 17, 2012

I lie awake, staring out at the bleakness of Megadon.

BiggerBoat posted:

Just gonna leave this right here.



I didn't get to see the debate, what is Romney supposed to have been right about?

Paul MaudDib
May 3, 2006

TEAM NVIDIA:
FORUM POLICE

BUSH 2112 posted:

I didn't get to see the debate, what is Romney supposed to have been right about?

You're just going to have to watch it for yourself. Please proceed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzdWnigWY0o&t=58s

e: Found a little longer video.

Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Oct 17, 2012

ZobarStyl
Oct 24, 2005

This isn't a war, it's a moider.

JediTalentAgent, regarding Mark Levi posted:

To me he sounds like some radio signal from the 1930s to the point that it's almost haunting and unreal, like I'm half imagining that at some point Rod Serling's going to narrate something about it originating from The Twilight Zone.
Similarly, I've always likened Levin's voice to the aliens from Mars Attacks. When I was commuting more, I was a glutton for the punishment of this man's horrid voice. For contrast, I couldn't stand a minute of Hannity because it's just a massive 'Thanks you're a Great American' jerkoff session that makes me want to punch my radio.

Regarding the new Benghazi talking point, it's amazing how fast all the right wing realigns to whatever the day's propaganda is. Taking the worst moment of the debate and trying to turn it on Obama would be hilarious, if it weren't for the fact that there are millions of Americans that have already incorporated that into their worldview and can never be convinced otherwise.

BUSH 2112
Sep 17, 2012

I lie awake, staring out at the bleakness of Megadon.

Paul MaudDib posted:

You're just going to have to watch it for yourself. Please proceed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzdWnigWY0o&t=58s

e: Found a little longer video.

Oh, for gently caress's sake. I think that conservatives have gotten so used to taking things out of context that they cannot even understand the context in which things are said, anymore.

Also, gotta love that PolitiFact lists the claim that Obama "waited two weeks" before he called the Benghazi attacks an act of terror as being "half-true." Answer's somewhere in the middle, I guess.

flatbus
Sep 19, 2012
Posting my question from last page here for reference.


flatbus posted:

The framework of hegemony, and presenting the interests of the elite as coincident with that of the subalterns, describes modern-day right wing media very well. But now that we know right wing media is doing this and we can catch them red-handed, no one seems to care. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the right wing media machine and how can the weak points be exploited?

I Am The Scum posted:

One of the wisest moves the right wing ever did was create and foster the notion of left-leaning bias in the media. This is the perfect outlet for inevitable cognitive dissonance. I will explain briefly.

Every conservative will inevitably realize the following two ideas:

1. As a conservative, I like conservative ideas/policies/politicians.

2. The latest headline shows that a particular conservative idea/policy/politician is flawed.

These two ideas are clearly in conflict, at least slightly. Now, as rational creatures, we'd like to believe that item #2, the very clear evidence that the conservative idea is bad, will indicate that the person's feelings about the idea (item #1) were flawed. It would be easy for the individual to conclude that maybe the ideas just weren't as good as they initially thought. Maybe we can make them work by changing other things, or perhaps the circumstances were wrong. It's not a big concession. No big deal, right?

But this rarely happens. Instead, they find a flaw in item #2. But how could that be? Well, clearly there is a massive liberal conspiracy throughout all of American media. Never mind the fact that you can't actually find any real evidence of bias. Never mind the fact that there are plenty of examples where the media was distinctly not biased for the left, such as when Romney was unanimously declared the winner of the first debate. It just has to be true!

Part of the problem is that politics in this country is treated as a sport. Admitting that there is actual, factual evidence out there that would make your side appear as though it is not 100% in the right is like sacrificing yards. The attitude displayed in political discourse, from the water cooler to the White House, is nothing like what you would see from someone who was honestly trying to reach an accurate conclusion.

It's not an intellectual exercise. It's a show. And this country loving loves it.

I don't have any ideas on how to fix it, though. Sorry.

I was thinking about the question a bit more and this is what I think is important about Fox News. Truth and fact-finding can be intuitively reduced to the Münchhausen Trilemma that an empirical fact which someone else tells you, that you haven't experienced, really boils down to an appeal to authority, and by dressing up as that authority you can invent the axioms which frame discourse and truth. It also helps the right that, contrary to economic assumptions, people are irrational and would rather side with their tribe than what's true.

I'm going to posit a theory that tribalism and adoration of their ideals is what keeps people going as conservatives even when the politicians they vote for harm their constituents. From my personal experience, people don't care whether what they say is right or wrong until it comes around and they see it affects themselves. Up till that point, it's all fun and sports. Because the turnaround for the effects of voting is long and indirect in a representative democracy (one day's action propagates to what appears to be irrelevant or unintended effects later on), there's no visceral connection from political decision to state action, which creates an area for politics to turn into spectacle. By that reasoning, it's an inefficient bureaucracy that's causing this problem.

As you can see I'm floundering here because I just ended up blaming representative democracy, which seems a bit absurd. I'm thinking off the cuff so the proportion of hogwash is going to be high. Looking forward to better analysis from more even-keeled goons.

Beowulfs_Ghost
Nov 6, 2009
Definitely a thread topic that needed to be brought up.


I've been listening to AM talk radio stuff since the early 90's. Rush, Hannity, Levin, Boortz, Savage, Beck, and our local right-wing talker Lars Larson. There are so many others that are just the local version of Rush and they come and go with their attempts at national syndication. The market is insanely saturated with these guys. I also listen to a lot of NPR and other non-politcs talk shows, and it is interesting to see comparisons in how right-wing talk shows operate like other formats.


Somethings I've noticed that really puts the whole conservative talk business into perspective is that many of these personalities did not start their careers as right-wing pundits.

Boortz did sports. Rush really badly wanted to do sports, football in particular (and when he got his chance he was fired for saying stupid poo poo). Beck did a morning zoo show. Bill O'Reilly did a Hollywood tabloid show for years, and if you look up his "Inside Edition Meltdown" you can see he was just as passionate about peddling tabloid smut as he is about being a conservative champion. Hannity and Savage are actually unique in that they got into radio to be edgy conservative pundits. Levin was a former Reagan administration staffer, which explains why he drops Reagan's way too much in a format that already drops Reagan's name way too much.

So many of these guys just moved from one format to another and it is arguable that they only did it for the money. Beck is an excellent example, as he went from nothing to rich and famous to being put out to pasture so publically in such a short ammount of time. And he played the part of an overly emotional conspiracy theorist for all it was worth. And that leads me to another really good point.


Something thing that dawned on me after we got the Howard Stern show in my area (only a few years before he went off to satellite) and already listening to Tom Leykis for years, was that conservative pundits are basically politics flavored shock jocks. They are very formulaic and it's pretty much the same formula used by Imus, Stern and Leykis.

They say incredibly off the wall stuff, especially right before a break to keep you tuned in. They leverage the call screening system to ensure that the callers are either complete sycophants, and any sort of opposition are people that sound terrible or otherwise can't string together a sentence. And there is heavy doses of just plain smack talk that you only otherwise find in the shock jock genre. You can find a bit of this in sports or car shows, but shock jocks and right-wing pundits are the only places you find such incredibly high level of low-blows and pure vitriol.

Not only do these guys know that they have devoted fans, but that they also get a lot of people who will tune in just to hear what crazy thing they'll say next. I'm guilty of this myself. Being rather left-wing in my opinions, if I turn on right-wing radio it will be out of a morbid curiosity of what the latest right-wing talking points are.

And radio is a great format for them to pull off these stunts. They will never be called out for the lies and the name calling because they control the discussion. The screener can just line up a dozen caller who whole heatedly agree with anything said. And if that doesn't work, groups like Premiere Radio Networks have things like "Premiere On Call", which is a stable of voice actors to provide "callers" for call in shows. Since no one will admit to using shills though, who knows how many they use.

President Kucinich
Feb 21, 2003

Bitterly Clinging to my AK47 and Das Kapital

This thread is primarily focused on Fox News brand right wing media. It should be expanded to include the likes of the Trinity Broadcasting Network or Jack Van Impe Ministries.

Sure, they're primarily religiously focused scam artists dealing in New World Order and Doomsday/Rapture-ready conspiracy theories, but they're definite right wingers while they're at it. Right down to the relentless sexual hypocrisy with regards to the Trinity Broadcasting Network's creators.

Jack Van Impe on Obama

Van Impe on "Obama is the Antichrist"

You may already be familiar with some of Van Impe's work. Remember back in the 1990's hearing about VISA cards being the mark of the beast Or that Y2K would usher in the apocalypse? Van Impe was probably the person most responsible for spreading those ideas.

President Kucinich fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Oct 17, 2012

Kneel Before Zog
Jan 16, 2009

by Y Kant Ozma Post

zero alpha posted:

rightwing blowhards in between commercials for scam products.

I read an article, maybe it was on here, on how most of these products were driven by peoples fears, like having your identity theft stolen or life-alert, which ties into how most right wingers are people who are scared of the world around them, and they love to hate because they are afraid.

You hear lots nutritional supplement ads, which are very easy into scaring people into buying. As well as gold and seed advertisements which cater to the end of the world is coming crowd.

the2ndgenesis
Mar 18, 2009

You, McNulty, are a gaping asshole. We both know this.

President Kucinich posted:

This thread is primarily focused on Fox News brand right wing media. It should be expanded to include the likes of the Trinity Broadcasting Network or Jack Van Impe Ministries.

These are also very important and I'm glad you brought them up.

These ministries/channels have a very tangible impact on their viewers' (almost uniformly conservative) opinions of such issues as contraception, secular education/laws and (perhaps most importantly) the Israel/Palestine conflict. Remember that evangelical televangelists such as John Hagee and Perry Stone literally make their money by preaching to people about how important Israeli supremacy in the Middle East is to the eschatological narrative of Revelation, the Second Coming, etc. It's theological hogwash that actively frustrates sensible discussion of the Palestinian conflict in the US but man oh man is it popular in certain evangelical circles.

John Hagee:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYjbSnphr_k

Perry Stone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUVtyJIt390
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GLCATdEfyw

There are many other preachers in this vein but these are the two that come to my mind the quickest. I'm also guilty of occasionally watching TBN out of morbid fascination as an above poster mentioned.

astrollinthepork
Sep 24, 2007

When you come at the king, you best not miss, snitch

HE KNOWS
I listen to 89.7 WOSU, an NPR affiliate here in Ohio. I had to travel up to Toledo for work a few weeks back, and at some point, 89.7 becomes American Family Radio. Going from NPR to AFR was pretty shocking. They had some bullshit southern sounding guy on begging for money because "we don't have big corporate backers", the gently caress you don't. The show consisted of the guy talking about how your cash helps AFR defend you from "big gay." That is seriously what he said. They played back some calls from people saying that they're so happy they found AFR and because of their listening they feel informed. Now that they're informed they can talk to people about it. The only thin I pictured was facebook rants.

Beowulfs_Ghost
Nov 6, 2009

Kneel Before Zog posted:

I read an article, maybe it was on here, on how most of these products were driven by peoples fears, like having your identity theft stolen or life-alert, which ties into how most right wingers are people who are scared of the world around them, and they love to hate because they are afraid.

You hear lots nutritional supplement ads, which are very easy into scaring people into buying. As well as gold and seed advertisements which cater to the end of the world is coming crowd.

Don't forget Carbonite Backup. You might [fear] lose all your files [/fear].

There is definitely a fear component to may of the things they advertise. But radio broadcasters are paid by advertisers, and with radio on the decline they'll take what they can get.

Lars Larson does his best to be some sort of champion of hunters and farmers because he knows his audience. His employer has him doing ads for hot tubs, face lifts and divorceondemand.com because his employer knows where the money is at.

Plutonis
Mar 25, 2011

I would like to comment that on the last 10 years there has been a huge surge on this kind of media here on Brazil as well, and while they aren't as socially virulent as their American equivalents, their raging boners for libertarianism and the free market is incredibly shameful. Ever since Lula was elected, there's been an enormous escalation of firepower against him and his successor Dilma Roussef. The biggest one is the Veja magazine, who actually tried to publish a story claiming that Lula's campaign received three million dollars from communist Cuba, claimed that Lula's government was "infiltrated by Colombian Farc guerrilla" (with no factual evidence at all), had an editor-in-chief getting dossiers against government-based politicians from an "Honorable" congressman who was later known to serve the interests to a gambling crime lord (and then denounced the both after the poo poo hit the surface even though a year before the congressman was lauded as "The only honest man in Brasilia") and the list goes on and on.

Another contender is the Globo media conglomerate. They are the biggest open air TV channel, and own many of the cable channels as well as some big name newspapers. They are pretty much the Brazilian version of News Corp, and their power is such that they banned this British documentary for years from airing in public.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWSkYCe2mgw

They avoided covering the manifestations for democracy during the final days of the military dictatorship, and during our first elections after forty years, they straight up edited the last debate aired between Lula and his opponent Fernando Collor to make sure Collor had the upper hand. While the former was presented by the media as an angry union baby-eating commie that would drive business out of the country while the latter was presented as an upright moral young capitalist who would bring the country forward (pretty much Paul Ryan). Collor latter was impeached due to the massive corruption on his government and terrible economic plans that made the middle and lower class want to eat his liver such as freezing bank savings and such. He was ousted by the same Media that elected him as well, who saw it as the time to 'jump ship'.

There's also the fact that most columnists and media conglomerate owners straight-up fund a conservative think-tank called "Instituto Millenium", which is attached to the Mises institute libertarians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Citizen_Kane
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veja_Magazine

Plutonis fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Oct 18, 2012

baw
Nov 5, 2008

RESIDENT: LAISSEZ FAIR-SNEZHNEVSKY INSTITUTE FOR FORENSIC PSYCHIATRY

astrollinthepork posted:

I listen to 89.7 WOSU, an NPR affiliate here in Ohio. I had to travel up to Toledo for work a few weeks back, and at some point, 89.7 becomes American Family Radio. Going from NPR to AFR was pretty shocking. They had some bullshit southern sounding guy on begging for money because "we don't have big corporate backers", the gently caress you don't. The show consisted of the guy talking about how your cash helps AFR defend you from "big gay." That is seriously what he said. They played back some calls from people saying that they're so happy they found AFR and because of their listening they feel informed. Now that they're informed they can talk to people about it. The only thin I pictured was facebook rants.

This happens in Texas too. Outside of Austin, the NPR signal is slowly overpowered by AFN. :tinfoil:

GoatSeeGuy
Dec 26, 2003

What if Jerome Walton made me a champion?


BiggerBoat posted:

His bitterness is contrived and driven solely by profit. Don't feel sorry for him. His "folksy stories" just turned out to be less lucrative than being a screaming, antagonistic, bile spewing jerk. That's really all there is to it. If singing peace and love folk songs and telling stories about his childhood made him any money, he'd be well tot he left of Michale Moore.

This isn't 100% right. He certainly has a high percentage of huckster in him (not just in radio, but also his past life as an herbal medicine doctor/author) but he really is that nuts and unpleasant according to the people that worked with him. For one, guys like Beck and Hannity are more than happy, for the right price, to do endorsements of local advertisers for affiliates. Savage not only won't take your 3-10 grand depending on market size to do a 30 second commercial read, from what I was told its a bad idea to even ask. He's been fighting with his now ex-syndicator for years for reasons that I don't think anyone aside from Dr. Weiner really understand and I bet there are a lot of people at TRN that weren't sorry to see him go. From a ratings/affiliates standpoint he was at his biggest when he was doing more storytelling and the like. As time has gone on he's spent more and more time doing those MSNBC style rants, and it's cost him. It'll be interesting if any of the bigger syndicators will even want him.

As for liberal talk radio not working, I'll badly paraphrase Marc Maron. When a conservative says something on the air his fans will call, email etc. about how smart he is, how right he is and so on. When a liberal does the same thing the typical response is along the lines of "How could you have left the plight of he transgendered/spotted owls/lesbian seagulls out of your discussion of traffic patterns!". Both formats may be talk, but it's an entirely different audience that uses the media very differently and outside of a few markets the only place you'll hear a David Sirota is paired up with a conservative like "Heck of a job" Brownie or on a throwaway AM signal.


Edit: Turns out Savage just signed with Cumulus Media, the new owners of Citadel/ABC radio. Cumulus is looking to build 24 hours worth of talk programming a day (along with Imus, Huckabee, Geraldo and others) on their satellite network to roll out company-wide to save $ and replace local hosts.

GoatSeeGuy fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Oct 18, 2012

BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.

flatbus posted:

Posting my question from last page here for reference.

But now that we know right wing media is doing this and we can catch them red-handed, no one seems to care. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the right wing media machine and how can the weak points be exploited?

I assume this is the question you want answered? Your writing style is a bit thick and somewhat difficult for me to entirely parse so I'm not sure precisely what you're driving at. But...

I've pointed out the strengths of the right wing media machine throughout the thread. Their main strength is their complete and total ability to stay absolutely on message, every day, all day. Through sheer repetition they manage to not only spread general falsehoods and outright lies, but even when those fail and are debunked, they've usually at least managed to frame the debate on their partisan terms (See "swiftboating", "Dan Rather", "ACORN", etc.). They also attract a lot more advertisers because they shill for the corporate line and act almost as infomercial vessels disguised as alternative media.

What can be done? Re-institute the Fairness Doctrine maybe but I think that ship has sailed. I've always thought there should be an official and labeled differential symbol or logo or something - like they do with magazine and newspaper ads designed to look like articles, where there's a fine print disclaimer or something that labels the information as opinion rather than fact, but I'm not sure who gets to decide that. What FOX does is almost EXACTLY like that: the ads you see in a magazine that look like real articles until you notice the little "advertisement" disclaimer in 4 point type at the top of the page.

This is basically what these people do to frame narratives. They blur the lines of distinction between opinion and fact by pretending to offer 2 sides to every argument, even if one side says water is wet and the other says it's dry, and draw their credibility from the appearance of fairness and claiming a liberal agenda bias against everyone who's not them.

It's horseshit.

The main thing you can do is call bullshit what it is every time you hear someone spouting the daily talking points, but that can tiring and old pretty fast. The people that buy this nonsense have been worked on so hard and so gradually over the years that they ONLY trust Drudge, FOX and Rush to tell the truth and ignore everything else.

nachos
Jun 27, 2004

Wario Chalmers! WAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Dilkington posted:

This is interesting.

What percentage of our +300million citizens actively consume right-wing media? Is the percentage disproportionately larger than what's found in other countries? I'm just speculating, but I bet among any group of people, particularly in declining powers like the US, there will be a segment of the population that finds Stabbed-in-the-back myths to be agreeable. The disproportionate number of older, less-educated americans we have also might be an issue.


This speaks to how vocal this segment of the population is, but not necessarily their representation in numbers. Anecdotally, you can find a lot of fascist and ultra-nationalist comments under soccer videos on youtube, but I know fans with those views can't amount any more than 1% of all fans.

The effect of right-wing media on its consumers is certainly terrible, but the real insidious poo poo about right-wing media is how it affects "neutral" media outlets like CNN. Birthers and their type should absolutely never have been a thing, but Fox News and the right have saturated the market to the point where CNN, in an attempt to construct a false equivalency, has to address it in some form or another. There is no counter to this type of poo poo on the left, so the right wing media basically gets to create its own frame and narrative whenever it wants.

based gaddis
Jul 4, 2012
She can't touch most of these dudes in terms of sheer bile, but Laura Ingraham unsettles me more than anybody, just because her rhetoric of "cultural decline" sounds so similar to the complaints waged against the Weimar Republic... like, the notion of contemporary culture as uniquely decadent/degenerate/trashy/toxic is there in full, just swapping in TV for film and rap for jazz.

Hollismason
Jun 30, 2007

Witchfinder General

I'm really of the opinion that overall we've lost. I mean it's literally a beast that cannot be stopped now. These people apply to the worst of human nature, fear, racism. Basically of the other. Their audiences are just fanatical. I find the whole thing sad overall, just if there is any decline it truly is because of the propaganda machine that's been in works for 20 years. Rupert Murdoch being the key figure for this, I mean I don't know what the agenda is other than to make so much money but still die and leave a legacy.


I mean where do we go? Whatever decency has left, I mean you guys want to think that you are in the Majority here but it's just not true in all of america. If you don't believe me start friending conservatives on Facebook. Actually speak and have discourse with them.

It's just frightening.

agarjogger
May 16, 2011

Hollis posted:

It's just frightening.

Eh, I wouldn't worry so much. They're generally cowards, and people who respect power over truth tend to also respond quite positively to getting their asses beat. America is a hell of a prize, and the decent people are not going to let it fall to these shitheads for free. The right also operates under a number of disadvantages that usually prove disastrous in a tactical engagement: they are defined by greed, anti-intellectualism, arrogance/lack of respect for one's enemy. Lastly, everything they say sets people's bullshit detectors blaring because none of it fits together quite right, no matter how much bullshit they've shoveled on top of them to drown out the noise. Their greed is our most valuable asset, because it assures that even if they are lucky enough to stumble onto a homeostatic state of oppression, it won't be enough for them and they will keep pushing and pushing no matter what.

Stop with the loving defeatism, it's grating. You're assuming that the truth prevails every single time, which is why you're stunned into submission that it has not done so this one time. Your side has the ability to think long-term and to sacrifice, so use it. People care, and they are not going to let this poo poo run unopposed forever. What's worth fighting for will inevitably be fought for. The right wing is a bloc that can be worked around. Like practically everyone else in America, throw some money at them and watch their bullshit ideology melt away.

Chimp_On_Stilts
Aug 31, 2004
Holy Hell.

Hollis posted:

I mean where do we go? Whatever decency has left, I mean you guys want to think that you are in the Majority here but it's just not true in all of america. If you don't believe me start friending conservatives on Facebook. Actually speak and have discourse with them.

It's just frightening.

Grow a spine. This isn't 1984 and Big Brother doesn't have absolute control over every facet of our lives.

Liberal thinking and human decency can and does slowly propagate, and progress is slowly made. Gay marriage will almost certainly be legal within out lifetimes, opinion on the war on drugs appears to be taking a turn, a black man is president, women's issues are discussed on a national stage, etc.

Are there problems? gently caress yeah. Will certain issues regress? Absolutely. Will certain places be (a lot) worse off than others? Stay the gently caress out of Mississippi. Progress is achingly slow, but it's progress, damnit.

Even racism, an old problem that is now relegated to the dregs of political thinking, just won't. loving. die. - and it won't be fully gone within our lifetimes if ever. But you have to remember that the United States was a nation of racism by law within the lifetime of many people alive today. Ruby Bridges is still a living person (!) but you cannot for one second think we haven't made progress since Rockwell painted her famous image.

During integration, right wingers spat and hissed and forced the motherfucking US Marshalls to come and keep the peace so a little girl could go to school. Ruby had to bring her own lunch every day because grown adults threatened to poison her school food. At every point in our history in which significant progress has been made on human rights and dignity there has been some element that screamed and made life hell for decent people trying to build a decent world and today is no different. Luckily, historical precedent shows that the decent people won out in this country every single time even if the road was tough and slow. Don't be such a pessimist - instead, make what little difference you're capable of and vote.


This felt preachy - sorry - but I can't stand to see defeatist attitudes.

Doughbaron
Apr 28, 2005
Everyone who has made the comparison between right-wing media and religious institutions is spot on. Listening to Rush or watching Hannity on Fox is exactly like attending church and listening to a sermon. Whoever is at the lectern makes constant references to holy figures (God or Reagan), devious actors (Satan or Obama) and an appealing narrative (good vs evil and left vs right) all within the framework of dogmatic principles. I'd like to examine this briefly by going through the myth of Reagan and how it relates to the modern right-wing story line.

Deregulating and cutting taxes are ideas as old as capitalism itself, but since these ideas are the very foundation of right-wing economic policy, they need be romanticized in order to appeal to listeners. The most effective way to do this is create a narrative with a strong antagonist, difficult conflict and clear resolution. This narrative needs to be played out in real time, but with a history behind it to provide context. In this case, the historical context is Ronald Reagan and his glorious administration. He is said to have captured the American spirit during the 1980 election against opponents full of malaise and dangerous economic policies that were stifling the good people of this country. Once taking office, he brought down a tablet from bullshit mountain stating that tax cuts and deregulation were the miracle cures to our economic woes. As a result, the country experienced one of the biggest economic boom periods of history. Meanwhile, the forces of evil, communist influences from the far east and at home, were soundly defeated. Reagan is nothing less than a true hero of the American republic.

Notice how the real-time narrative is following these exact same arcs. Mitt Romney is the new force for good in this country. We are promised that he is going to follow the messages first espoused by the prophet Reagan, primarily tax cuts and deregulation. He is the only defense against the leftist scourge inhabited by Obama and his socialist cronies, just as Reagan was the only defense against Carter and communism. Maintaining this narrative requires that the right-wing media mislabels Obama as a socialist/communist at every opportunity. Since there is no Soviet Union anymore, the enemies created within the original book of Reagan must be created from modern figures. Obama is now the most left-wing president in history despite all facts proving otherwise. He is foreign, not of the true nature of this nation. These are themes that must be hammered in day after day at the pulpit. The world of religion and right-wing media relies on figures larger than life and solutions as simple as good versus evil. Levin and Savage are our priests, Roger Ailes and the Koch's our cardinals, Romney is our pope, and the holy Reagan is our God, Jesus and Moses all wrapped up into one.

Dilkington
Aug 6, 2010

"Al mio amore Dilkington, Gennaro"

nachos posted:

The effect of right-wing media on its consumers is certainly terrible, but the real insidious poo poo about right-wing media is how it affects "neutral" media outlets like CNN. Birthers and their type should absolutely never have been a thing, but Fox News and the right have saturated the market to the point where CNN, in an attempt to construct a false equivalency, has to address it in some form or another. There is no counter to this type of poo poo on the left, so the right wing media basically gets to create its own frame and narrative whenever it wants.

http://www.people-press.org/2010/09/12/americans-spending-more-time-following-the-news/

I did a little reading and I was surprised by the number of people who watch the 24 hour news networks. I definitly underestimated their influence on the public discourse:



I wonder if similar delusions existed in other declining hegemonic powers like Venice, Portugul, Great Britain, etc. Widespread access to the Internet is just another interesting wrinkle to consider.


Hollis posted:

I'm really of the opinion that overall we've lost. I mean it's literally a beast that cannot be stopped now. These people apply to the worst of human nature, fear, racism. Basically of the other. Their audiences are just fanatical. I find the whole thing sad overall, just if there is any decline it truly is because of the propaganda machine that's been in works for 20 years. Rupert Murdoch being the key figure for this, I mean I don't know what the agenda is other than to make so much money but still die and leave a legacy.


I mean where do we go? Whatever decency has left, I mean you guys want to think that you are in the Majority here but it's just not true in all of america. If you don't believe me start friending conservatives on Facebook. Actually speak and have discourse with them.

It's just frightening.

Haha don't be so glum- generations die and things will change. Things look particularly bad because we have a lot of older Americans who enjoyed a decadent and unsustainable existence. This is just bullshit pop-philosophizing but I think American material prosperity after WW2 created generations of people incapable or unwilling to accept modernity. I think there are interesting parallels here between the US and some nations in the Islamic world.


EDIT: Chimp_On_Stilts put it much better than I could

Dilkington fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Oct 18, 2012

Dr. Quigley
Jun 28, 2008

9/24/2012 never forget:qq:
So what are some good ways to approach people you know of who are sucked into this poo poo. There's a guy I work with that I'm just getting to know, who seems like a really decent guy. He doesn't think pharmaceutical companies should be allowed to advertise on television, thinks fair trade agreements are bad, believes that wages are too low, and sees Wall Street as too powerful and corrupt.

But he's a Fox News addict who thinks that Romney is God and that Obama is literally bad in every way and a liar. What the gently caress!

I try to pretend I'm independent, and nod along with some of this poo poo cause I don't want to be confrontational. He thinks the entire media is a conspiracy and that Fox News are the ones giving him the real deal. But it's mostly the sort of soap opera politics fluff and not major, substantive ideological issues.

I think the key is that he is a white, middle-age, mid-level manager. It's like he can hear some deeper truth at some alien frequency in Fox News broadcasts that I can't pick up on. It's like the bell in The Polar Express.

agarjogger
May 16, 2011

Dr. Quigley posted:

So what are some good ways to approach people you know of who are sucked into this poo poo. There's a guy I work with that I'm just getting to know, who seems like a really decent guy. He doesn't think pharmaceutical companies should be allowed to advertise on television, thinks fair trade agreements are bad, believes that wages are too low, and sees Wall Street as too powerful and corrupt.

But he's a Fox News addict who thinks that Romney is God and that Obama is literally bad in every way and a liar. What the gently caress!

Debate & Discussion > Let's pool our knowledge: D&D helps D&D Debate and Discuss
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3443984

Generally, trap them by being nice, respectful, and sympathetic while you deliver your arguments. If they fall on deaf ears, be nice, respectful, and condescendingly pitying the next time. No one is lied to more than a right winger, so try to be nice. They've been forcibly removed to an alternate universe, and they can't understand why it's costing them friends.

paranoid randroid
Mar 4, 2007

Dilkington posted:


Haha don't be so glum- generations die and things will change. Things look particularly bad because we have a lot of older Americans who enjoyed a decadent and unsustainable existence. This is just bullshit pop-philosophizing but I think American material prosperity after WW2 created generations of people incapable or unwilling to accept modernity. I think there are interesting parallels here between the US and some nations in the Islamic world.


EDIT: Chimp_On_Stilts put it much better than I could

I've been saying this a lot lately, but hahaha hooooly poo poo if you think the boomers are bad just wait until GenX gets their stupid rear end in a top hat hands on the country. Buncha folks that came up in the late seventies and eighties, and think of the Reagan Times as "oh yeah, it was awesome. I loved He-Man."

Millions upon millions of Paul Ryans. Hope dies to the sound of Nirvana and Radiohead.

Fucitol
May 8, 2005

Ceterum autem censeo mundum esse delendam



Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris

astrollinthepork posted:

I listen to 89.7 WOSU, an NPR affiliate here in Ohio. I had to travel up to Toledo for work a few weeks back, and at some point, 89.7 becomes American Family Radio. Going from NPR to AFR was pretty shocking. They had some bullshit southern sounding guy on begging for money because "we don't have big corporate backers", the gently caress you don't. The show consisted of the guy talking about how your cash helps AFR defend you from "big gay." That is seriously what he said. They played back some calls from people saying that they're so happy they found AFR and because of their listening they feel informed. Now that they're informed they can talk to people about it. The only thin I pictured was facebook rants.

:hfive: What's up, fellow WOSU listener? I have also come across the instance of jumping from NPR to AFR whilst en route to visit friends that live up in Northwest Ohio. I've noticed the effect of scanning for radio stations in different markets while I drive only to truly grasp the flood of conservative radio out there. I obviously have my car set for the standard-fare stations when I'm home, but gently caress me if I ever need to look for something listenable. The drive from Columbus to Cleveland is more tolerable only in that I can sit on the same sports radio station until I get into Cleveland's market.

I used to live out in the conservative stronghold of Colorado Springs, and the NPR affiliate KRCC was a grain of sand to the overwhelming tidal wave that is conservative radio. There were times where I think KRCC held some fairly conservative concepts/ideas on their shows just to pull in listeners from the area. The difference of content between WOSU and KRCC seems to be night and day.

Also, God help anyone that needs to commute through the wasteland that is Kansas, Oklahoma, or Kentucky. The only radio options there were Jesus, Big XII footbaw (Texas Tech/K State circle jerks at the times I went through), or something equally detrimental to your sanity.

I don't have the wherewithal to listen to the conservative stations for any longer than 5 minutes. I've tried for multiple times to listen to Rush, Savage, or Hannity or whomever when they've been on, but I can only change the station in disgust. More power to all of you, I suppose, but seriously gently caress those opportunistic conservative shills.

Dilkington
Aug 6, 2010

"Al mio amore Dilkington, Gennaro"

Dr. Quigley posted:

I try to pretend I'm independent, and nod along with some of this poo poo cause I don't want to be confrontational. He thinks the entire media is a conspiracy and that Fox News are the ones giving him the real deal. But it's mostly the sort of soap opera politics fluff and not major, substantive ideological issues.

You have the right idea because I think the most significant barrier to this sort of dialogue is tonal rather than substantive.

Without being condescending, ask them to consider alternative viewpoints, and just have a chat. I think one of the most valuable things I've learned in life is how to criticize a person without attacking them. If you communicate to them that you respect them as a person, and recognize the complex and often contradictory relationship we all have to our beliefs, you're much more likely to have a constructive discussion.

Another way to think of it is the situation is not "you vs him," but rather you are working together to better understand something that is a problem for both of you. Also, be prepared to make compromises or change your preconceived notions. You aren't entering the conversation in good faith if you ask the other person to reconsider their ideas and you're not willing to do the same.

I think a fair number of people strike up these sorts of discussions because secretly they like getting into shouting matches. I was that person for a long time- my advice is avoid being that person.

Seoinin posted:

I've been saying this a lot lately, but hahaha hooooly poo poo if you think the boomers are bad just wait until GenX gets their stupid rear end in a top hat hands on the country. Buncha folks that came up in the late seventies and eighties, and think of the Reagan Times as "oh yeah, it was awesome. I loved He-Man."

Millions upon millions of Paul Ryans. Hope dies to the sound of Nirvana and Radiohead.

Haha- I hope you're wrong- I don't want to witness Nirvana being abused that way.

unlimited shrimp
Aug 30, 2008

Hollis posted:

I'm really of the opinion that overall we've lost. I mean it's literally a beast that cannot be stopped now. These people apply to the worst of human nature, fear, racism. Basically of the other. Their audiences are just fanatical. I find the whole thing sad overall, just if there is any decline it truly is because of the propaganda machine that's been in works for 20 years. Rupert Murdoch being the key figure for this, I mean I don't know what the agenda is other than to make so much money but still die and leave a legacy.
If this is the definition of "lost" then we lost ages ago. Just read the OP in that thread about the Cuban Missile Crisis, or look at the lead-up to the Iraq invasion. Look at how Israel and Palestine are treated by the MSM and how the MSM treats Israel's critics. We've always had our perception of reality shaped and reinforced by corporate or political interests -- Fox is just so shameless and overt that it's particularly galling.

Dr. Quigley
Jun 28, 2008

9/24/2012 never forget:qq:

agarjogger posted:

Debate & Discussion > Let's pool our knowledge: D&D helps D&D Debate and Discuss
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3443984

Generally, trap them by being nice, respectful, and sympathetic while you deliver your arguments. If they fall on deaf ears, be nice, respectful, and condescendingly pitying the next time. No one is lied to more than a right winger, so try to be nice. They've been forcibly removed to an alternate universe, and they can't understand why it's costing them friends.

Ah, I had totally forgot about that thread. Thanks! I don't want him to feel like I'm in this to convert him or anything. I don't know if I ever want to get to the point of being condescending since all that does is reinforce the insular mentality I would think.

Dilkington posted:

You have the right idea because I think the most significant barrier to this sort of dialogue is tonal rather than substantive.

Without being condescending, ask them to consider alternative viewpoints, and just have a chat. I think one of the most valuable things I've learned in life is how to criticize a person without attacking them. If you communicate to them that you respect them as a person, and recognize the complex and often contradictory relationship we all have to our beliefs, you're much more likely to have a constructive discussion.

Another way to think of it is the situation is not "you vs him," but rather you are working together to better understand something that is a problem for both of you. Also, be prepared to make compromises or change your preconceived notions. You aren't entering the conversation in good faith if you ask the other person to reconsider their ideas and you're not willing to do the same.

I think a fair number of people strike up these sorts of discussions because secretly they like getting into shouting matches. I was that person for a long time- my advice is avoid being that person.

In the past I've been "that person" but I'm not that kind of person anymore except when it's just me and the radio.

I totally agree with everything you are saying, but I guess what I would like is some more specific sources or issues that are good introductory methods for reintroducing someone to reality. Something inside of their comfort zone where they feel like it might be alright to disagree with their own side. I'm going to check that thread linked above to see if I can find some.

paranoid randroid
Mar 4, 2007

Dilkington posted:

Haha- I hope you're wrong- I don't want to witness Nirvana being abused that way.
It's already starting! Huntsman loves him some Nirvana, and Ryan is a big fan of Rage Against the Machine. I can see it now, "My fellow Americans, if chosen to lead this country I can promise I will rally 'round the family. By cutting family planning and overturning the Ledbetter Act."

Urban Space Cowboy
Feb 15, 2009

All these Coyote avatars...they make me nervous...like somebody's pulling a prank on the entire forum! :tinfoil:

Seoinin posted:

I've been saying this a lot lately, but hahaha hooooly poo poo if you think the boomers are bad just wait until GenX gets their stupid rear end in a top hat hands on the country. Buncha folks that came up in the late seventies and eighties, and think of the Reagan Times as "oh yeah, it was awesome. I loved He-Man."
I'm really getting tired of the "GEN X IS TOTALLY RIGHT WING DUDERS" line. Go read the Pew Research Center's report on generational trends again -- each generation is, generally speaking, more liberal than the previous. President Obama isn't a long-haired dirty leftist, but he ain't Alex P. Keaton by a long shot.

Nirvana? Rage Against the Machine? Big deal -- Reagan tarted the hell out of Bruce Springsteen too. Conservatives love to pretend to align themselves with yesterday's revolutions.

MODS CURE JOKES
Nov 11, 2009

OFFICIAL SAS 90s REMEMBERER
Load up on guns, bring your friends, It's fun to lose and to pretend... It already fits! :allears:

paranoid randroid
Mar 4, 2007

Urban Space Cowboy posted:

I'm really getting tired of the "GEN X IS TOTALLY RIGHT WING DUDERS" line. Go read the Pew Research Center's report on generational trends again -- each generation is, generally speaking, more liberal than the previous. President Obama isn't a long-haired dirty leftist, but he ain't Alex P. Keaton by a long shot.

Nirvana? Rage Against the Machine? Big deal -- Reagan tarted the hell out of Bruce Springsteen too. Conservatives love to pretend to align themselves with yesterday's revolutions.

That's actually kind of relieving. The stuff I'd read framed it in terms of increased belief that corporations are more trustworthy than the government, that racism is over, etc. And to be fair, the book made some vague claims that my generation was probably even worse. It's good to see some proof to the contrary.

Sydney Bottocks
Oct 15, 2004
Probation
Can't post for 61 days!
I grew up during the 1980s and was all into He-Man and G.I. Joe. When I served in the military in the 1990s, Nirvana was one of my favorite bands. And I'm for equal rights across the board for women, minorities, and gays; have a lot of disdain for organized religion in general; and would like to see less spending on "defense" (much of which translates into "someone's pet project" rather than salaries and necessities for the troops) and more spending on improving education; and finally, I'd like to get universal healthcare and other social safety nets reinforced or put in place where needed. So at least some of us haven't sold out to the soulless Randians and their FYGM philosophy. :colbert:

agarjogger
May 16, 2011

Urban Space Cowboy posted:

Nirvana? Rage Against the Machine? Big deal -- Reagan tarted the hell out of Bruce Springsteen too. Conservatives love to pretend to align themselves with yesterday's revolutions.

Only moral revolution is some other country's revolution. Or some other decade's revolution. I've just taken to referring to libertarians as anarchists, why not let them run with it, see where it goes. Hey, maybe they're the future, and we're the crotchety old reactionaries.

Rip Testes
Jan 29, 2004

I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.

BiggerBoat posted:

Just gonna leave this right here. From FOX's front page.



I love these and sign on to foxnews several times a day just to see what lovely pun they'll throw up on the front page. For the past several months I've been saving up these images as they appear. I'm waiting for that great white whale, the use of a triple ellipsis in their headline.

While all that of is amusing, the 'BIAS ALERT' is not. There should be a bias alert for 'BIAS ALERT'.

C.C.C.P.
Aug 26, 2005

by Y Kant Ozma Post

Goatman Sacks posted:

In St. Louis we have to deal with a real up and coming name in the art of indignantly reading the drudgereport for 3 hours, Dana Loesch. There is not a single talking point she won't regurgitate and yell about for the entire show. Luckily her radio station runs ads or 'news' for about 60% of their airtime, so if you ever accidentally tune it to 97.1, chances are you won't actually hear her. She got an "in" into national conservative stardom by being a huge Andrew Breitbart sycophant. On the day he died, she was in tears on the radio, and it was the greatest thing I've ever experienced.

One of the things she likes to complain about is lazy people, because she has time to homeschool her children while working THREE JOBS! (those jobs are the radio show, running a blog, and being a right-wing parrot on CNN, for a total of maybe 20 hours a week?)

Also, she's married to Chris Loesch who is semi-/sorta-well known in the St. Louis music scene and one of my past bands had the "pleasure" of having him engineer an EP we were recording and hooooooooo boyyyyyyyy what a creepy gently caress.

Also, during the recording sessions, which were at the studio they have in their house, we got to meet Dana who got REALLY OFFENDED when we didn't know/give a gently caress who she was. She's also "that guy (or girl in this case)" that can't shut the gently caress up about her loathsome opinions even in polite, mixed company.

Wasse
Jan 16, 2010

Urban Space Cowboy posted:

I'm really getting tired of the "GEN X IS TOTALLY RIGHT WING DUDERS" line. Go read the Pew Research Center's report on generational trends again -- each generation is, generally speaking, more liberal than the previous. President Obama isn't a long-haired dirty leftist, but he ain't Alex P. Keaton by a long shot.

Nirvana? Rage Against the Machine? Big deal -- Reagan tarted the hell out of Bruce Springsteen too. Conservatives love to pretend to align themselves with yesterday's revolutions.

I'm at the tale end of generation X (82). And while I am personally on the conservative side of things, I find among my age group that I've always been the oddball there. Most people in the age group are more liberal. Now, maybe the begining of Gen X is different, but at least the end of it - I think not.

Of course, the joke is that as you get older (and have more money) you end up becoming more conservative...

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Typical Pubbie
May 10, 2011
Its the greatest joke ever told. Let me tell you the one about a generation of spoiled brats who had the world handed to them on a silver platter, grabbed everything they could shove down their fat gullets, and now that all the low-hanging fruit has been picked they think its high time the younger generations tighten their belts and learn a lesson about personal responsibility. Its hilarious!

Typical Pubbie fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Oct 18, 2012

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