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It's been suggested that discussions of the media, its history and current role in the English speaking world deserves its own thread in D&D, so here we go. This thread is a bit of a throwback to the D&D of years past so perhaps it will fall of the front page and fail to generate much discussion. But I'm curious to see if anyone is interested in a discussion of the media that doesn't (exclusively) involve arguing about daily events. The focus is implicitly going to be on America and to a lesser extent on other countries in the 'Anglosphere' but feel free to expand the discussion if you've got something to contribute. Don't feel like you have to read the giant wall of text below this. I provide it as a sort of starting point for potential discussions but ultimately this thread is just intended to be a catch-all place for issues related to the media and media criticism. In the post after this one I will also post a big list of resources ranging from articles to books and documentaries. Please feel free to contribute your own suggestions as well. Introduction The following post seeks to give a rough outline of some important debates about the media, differing theoretical and political attitudes toward freedom of speech, and some key points on the historical evolution of media institutions in the last few centuries. What follows covers a period from roughly the 17th until the late 20th century. I hope to add some comments on the rise of the internet, the concentration of ownership in traditional media and the role of the 24/7 media cycle in constructing public attitudes toward elections, wars and a variety of other important issues. However, I think it would be better to discuss these topics once the thread has actually gotten started. Modern vs Postmodern ideas about the media, meaning and Truth First, some comments on how our thinking about the role of the media has changed. Speaking for the liberal tradition was have John Stewart Mill who characterized the political right to free speech as a necessary mechanism for determining the strength of an assertion. In On Liberty he writes: “Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; […] there must be discussion, to show how experience is to be interpreted. Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument: but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it” Like economic investment and production, the production of ideas has been characterized as a process that benefits from vigorous free competition. Chief Justice Olliver Wendell Holmes wrote in a 1919 decision that "when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas...that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out." This classical position can be attacked from several angles. On the most straightforward level one can question how well this principle operates when the ability to transmit your opinions is so unevenly distributed – in a world where some people spend most of their waking lives toiling for a wage while a select few own newspapers and television stations how 'free' will the market in ideas be? Various thinkers including Karl Marx and some of his 20th century followers such as Gramsci and Althusser followed this line of thinking and argued that the dominant classes of society monopolized intellectual production and thereby 'produced' ideas and cultural norms favourable to their interests. This Cultural Hegemony came to be viewed as a crucial bulwark to capitalist society. Gramsci in particular advocated that the proletariat would need to develop its own culture and its own intellectuals to articulate a counter narrative to the dominant ideologies of capitalism. Gramsci argued that while military conflicts between the proletariat and bourgeoisie could be thought of as a 'war of manoeuvre' there was an equally important 'war of position' that occurred in peacetime, in which the battle of ideas between classes shaped the terrain upon which the class war was fought. Later in the 20th century a further set of post modern and post structuralist critiques appeared. The theorist Jean Baudrillard, for instance, goes beyond the vulgar political economic critique of media ownership and attacks the very idea that more information lends itself to deeper meaning, arguing instead that in the modern era new forms of media like television and the internet present a more compelling version of reality than anything that could possibly exist, thereby crowding out the 'real' in favour of a simulated or 'hyper-real' world (when Morpheus welcomes Neo to the 'desert of the real' in the Matrix he is hamfistedly quoting Baudrillard's description of contemporary media consumers fleeing the 'desert of the real' for the comforting narcotic power of the simulation): Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy “Jean Baudrillard' posted:Baudrillard, a “strong simulacrist,” claims that in the media and consumer society, people are caught up in the play of images, spectacles, and simulacra, that have less and less relationship to an outside, to an external “reality,” to such an extent that the very concepts of the social, political, or even “reality” no longer seem to have any meaning. And the narcoticized and mesmerized (some of Baudrillard's metaphors) media-saturated consciousness is in such a state of fascination with image and spectacle that the concept of meaning itself (which depends on stable boundaries, fixed structures, shared consensus) dissolves. In this alarming and novel postmodern situation, the referent, the behind and the outside, along with depth, essence, and reality all disappear, and with their disappearance, the possibility of all potential opposition vanishes as well. As simulations proliferate, they come to refer only to themselves: a carnival of mirrors reflecting images projected from other mirrors onto the omnipresent television and computer screen and the screen of consciousness, which in turn refers the image to its previous storehouse of images also produced by simulatory mirrors. Caught up in the universe of simulations, the “masses” are “bathed in a media massage” without messages or meaning, a mass age where classes disappear, and politics is dead, as are the grand dreams of disalienation, liberation, and revolution. Baudrillard has come somewhat back into fashion in some quarters since Trump's election because his writings on 'hyper reality' seemed to many to provide a clue to the American white working classes support for Donald Trump, among other reasons. But before we get into high fallutin' discussions about the nature of information, meaning and knowledge let's survey the modern history of the media. Framing the issue: Hume on the role of opinion vs. Force David Hume posted:NOTHING appears more surprizing to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as FORCE is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular. The soldan of EGYPT, or the emperor of ROME, might drive his harmless subjects, like brute beasts, against their sentiments and inclination: But he must, at least, have led his mamalukes, or prætorian bands, like men, by their opinion. As Hume notes, all governments are founded upon opinion. From the earliest periods of history we know government has sought to control and shape opinion to its own ends. Consider the importance of religion in legitimizing government power or the cliched role of 'the mob' in any popular history or fiction about the Roman Republic. But it was the emergence of modern media, beginning with printing, that upgraded the importance of public sentiment or later 'public opinion' to the crucial role it seems to occupy today in the halls of government. Hume also here sounds a note of concern that elite theorists of democracy and the media will return to again and again: the dangers of irrational public behaviour and the need to manage how public discussion is conducted: Hume posted:[T]hough the people, collected in a body like the ROMAN tribes, be quite unfit for government, yet when dispersed in small bodies, they are more susceptible both of reason and order; the force of popular currents and tides is, in a great measure, broken; and the public interest may be pursued with some method and constancy. Classical liberalism can be understood, at least in part, as a precarious balancing act by an emerging merchant-aristocratic class that on the one hand wanted to tame the monarchy while on the other hand restraining (and in fact further oppressing) the freedom of the peasant and artisan commoners. This tension is reflected in the history of the British Civil War and French and American Revolutions, each of which were lead by property owning aristocrats but largely fought by commoners. In all three revolutions the prospect of a greater social revolution was raised but eventually suppressed. In all three revolutions the role of freedom of speech and opinion became a critical flashpoint. The eventual triumph of liberal theories of government lead to the establishment of 'free speech' as a core value of American society. But the exact meaning and utility of free speech, or the 'free trade in ideas', has always been contested. This tension in liberal thinking - the danger of the mob, the balancing act between having enough free speech to monitor the sovereign without sacrificing too much control of the views of the masses - has become a hallmark of democratic theorizing, though it rarely merits mention in popular discussions of democracy. ”The Fourth Branch of Government” Freedom of Letters and the Separation of Powers The first printed newspapers appeared in England in the second half of the 17th century and spread to North America in the following decades. Papers and pamphlets arguing for and against political and religious viewpoints created a vibrant but often violent culture of debate in the colonies. Local government in turn often sought to suppress contrary viewpoints through censorship. Pamphlets and newspapers played a crucial role in fomenting the American revolution against Britain and their significance was recognized in 1792 with the passage of the Postal Services Act: Wikipedia, “Postal Services Act” posted:Because news was considered crucial to an informed electorate, the 1792 law distributed newspapers to subscribers for 1 penny up to 100 miles and 1.5 cents over 100 miles; printers could send their newspapers to other newspaper publishers for free. Postage for letters, by contrast, cost between 6 and 25 cents depending on distance.[6] This subsidy amounted to roughly 0.2 percent of US Despite some early struggles over government censorship the principle of 'freedom of letters' became an established part of American identity, and a core principle of liberal philosophy. While issues such as flag burning, blasphemy and obscenity remained heavily debated topics into our own era a basic princple of 'free speech' had been embedded with the self consciousenss of the American republic. Beginning with Montaigne in the 17th century a common component of liberalism has been the so called 'separation of powers' between legislative, judicial and executive branches of the government. The free press would gradually come to be viewed as a 'fourth branch of government' (or 'fourth estate' in some European countries) – an informal and private but vitally necessary check on government action. This is still the vision of the press you'll get in a typical high school civics class. Nineteenth Century Media Newspaper circulation grew rapidly during the 19th century, with most papers adopting a nakedly partisan tone and editorial stance. Advances in printing and communications technologies shaped the evolution of the medium and lead to the emergence of an increasingly national media. After the Civil War newspapers became an enormous growth industry, with the significance of many towns measured by the number of local newspapers. The number of daily papers in the United States increased dramatically: Wikipedia, History of American Newspapers posted:The number of daily papers grew from 971 to 2226, 1880 to 1900. Weekly newspapers were published in smaller towns, especially county seats, or for German, Swedish and other immigrant subscribers. They grew from 9,000 to 14,000, and by 1900 the United States published more than half of the newspapers in the world, with two copies per capita. Out on the frontier, the first need for a boom town was a newspaper. The new states of North and South Dakota by 1900 had 25 daily papers, and 315 weeklies. Oklahoma was still not a state, but it could boast of nine dailies and nearly a hundred weeklies. In the largest cities the newspapers competed fiercely, for newsboys sold each copy and they did not rely on subscriptions. Financially, the major papers depended on advertising, which paid in proportion to the circulation base. By the 1890s in New York City, especially during the Spanish–American War, circulations reached 1 million a day for Pulitzer's World and Hearst's Journal.While smaller papers relied on loyal Republican or Democratic readers who appreciated the intense partisanship of the editorials, the big-city papers realized they would lose half their potential audience by excessive partisanship, so they took a more ambiguous position, except at election time Mass Society and Mass Media By the turn of the century Enlightenment era ideas about the 'public sentiments' of men gathered in coffee shops and taverns had been replaced by the updated concept of 'national opinion' shaped by mass circulation newspapers and tabloids. Local economies and cultures began to merge into a national market and a national culture that socail scientists began to refer to as “mass society”. As one dictionary of social science describes it, Mass Society was thought to entail an unprecedented degree of conformity and centralization: ”Mass Society”, Penguin Dictionary of Sociology, p. 255 posted:The concept of mass society is central to an influential social theory which holds that contemporary society has the following characteristics: most individuals are similar, undifferentiated and equal, showing no individuality; work is routine and alienating; religion has lost its influence and there are no deeply held and important moral values, although the masses are prone to ideological fanaticism; the relationships between individuals are weak and secondary and ties of kinship are not important; the masses are politically apathetic and open to manipulation by dictatorships and bureaucracies; culture — art, literature, philosophy and science has become a mass culture, that is, reduced to the lowest level of taste. Under-girding this new mass society was a national media market in which new communication technologies such as radio and later television dramatically increased the reach of the media and opened up new opportunities to utilize word and image. By most accounts 'Mass Society' was distinct from the older sense of a “public” that had emerged during the Enlightenment the following key ways: ”Mass Society”, Wikipedia posted:Sociologist C. Wright Mills made a distinction between a society of "masses" and "public". Propaganda, Public Relations and World War As the above descriptions already implies the emergence of mass society coincided with a new set of anxieties about the role of public opinion in politics. As the political upheavals of the 20th century gave way to wars, depressions, revolutions and the emergence of new extremist anti-liberal ideologies on the left and the right there was an immense degree of both excitement and fear at the prospect that an easily manipulated public would become consumed by irrationality and use its newfound democratic powers to destroy liberal society. While it has many antecedents the birth of state propaganda is typically traced to the liberal governments of Britain and American during the First World War. For the British a key role in Great War propaganda was to maintain the crucial sympathies of the American public to the British war effort. For the Americn government – whose President Woodrow Wilson ran on an anti-war platform – the key issue became mobilizing the public in support of the war. Following America's entry into the conflict in 1917 the US government set up its own special government agency, the Creel Commission, which propagandized heavily in favour of the war effort. Writing shortly after the war Walter Lippmann – sometimes called the “father of modern journalism” - reflected on what he viewed as the incredible successful of the Creel Commission in rousing the public to support the War, and concluded that developments in modern psychology and communication had lead to a revolution in public affairs. In his influential 1922 book 'Public Opinion' Lippmann summed up the new elite consensus: Walter Lippman, “Public Opinion” posted:That the manufacture of consent is capable of great refinements no one, I think, denies. The process by which public opinions arise is certainly no less intricate than it has appeared in these pages, and the opportunities for manipulation open to anyone who understands the process are plain enough. . . . [a]s a result of psychological research, coupled with the modern means of communication, the practice of democracy has turned a corner. A revolution is taking place, infinitely more significant than any shifting of economic power.... Under the impact of propaganda, not necessarily in the sinister meaning of the word alone, the old constants of our thinking have become variables. It is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the original dogma of democracy; that the knowledge needed for the management of human affairs comes up spontaneously from the human heart. Where we act on that theory we expose ourselves to self-deception, and to forms of persuasion that we cannot verify. It has been demonstrated that we cannot rely upon intuition, conscience, or the accidents of casual opinion if we are to deal with the world beyond our reach. In the following decades these emerging techniques of opinion management cross-pollinated with corporate advertising and the development of modern psychology. The manipulation of public opinion became a science in its own right no known as 'Public Relations'. Elite liberal opinion – once fixated on its fear of irrational popular sentiments in mass society – increasingly came around to the view that the emergence of mass society represented a fundamental change in the nature of government. The crowd must be managed carefully, presented with per-determined options and focused on specific topics of interests so as to maintain social order. Nevertheless, strong norms around anti-censorship and the deep liberal commitment to freedom of speech and thought were bolstered by the need to develop a counter-narrative against fascism and 'totalitarianism'. The rising spectre of fascism and communism meant that freedom of speech and thought became even more closely associated with the liberal creed and this created greater political space for agitation against government action and for deep investigations of corporate power, government corruption, and a myriad of other social phenomena. The Post War Era At the end of the World Wars the United States had grown into the dominant power of the new world order. Surveying the vast new military power of the American government, Dwight D. Eisenhower worried that the emergence of a massive arms industry on the one hand and of a permanent warfare state on the other meant that traditional American democracy was at risk. He famously put his faith in an 'informed and alert citizenry' as the only safeguard. I think this Eisenhower quote is worth remembering because it lays out the basic civis 101 vision of the role of the press in modern society: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address posted:This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together. The decades after the Second World War were something of a golden age for American journalism: the press was influential, trusted and had a global reach. Politicians often relied on the media to reach their followers and make appeals to the public. The large corporations that now dominated the American economy also found themselves subject to unwelcome journalistic scrutiny that sometimes drew unwanted public attention. There's a tendency to take this postwar period and to romanticize it. Iconic stories from this era still shape the way we think about journalists and the media: the reporting on Vietnam, the revelations of Rachel Carson's “Silent Spring”, the release of the Pentagon Papers and of course, most famously, the Watergate break in that still defines our understanding of a political 'scandal' and which remains the ur-case for investigative journalism. Insofar as the media retains any respect today, it is mostly living on the inherited reputation of its mid-20th century heyday. Indeed must of our faith in the government and our skepticism toward conspiracy theories or outlandish sounding claims is predicated on the assumption that if such allegations were true they would be reported on in the media. This is also the era when the 'heroic journalist' trope began to feature prominently in films and on television. Our image of the reporter as a scrappy loner who defies the odds to get the best scoop are largely derived from this time period when newspapers were profitable, had a national or international reach and could afford to bankroll extensive investigations. Did the press in this era live up to Eisenhower's vision? The United States government still entered a murderous colonial war based on an invented incident. Political corruption remained rampant. Corporate power continued to grow despite an increase in government activism that included the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Suffice it to say the record is mixed, but by the standards of the decades before and since the post war was a high water mark for the influence and power of traditional media. Elite and Popular Anxieties about the media By the end of the 1970s there was a growing sense of national malaise that many social elites were beginning to attribute to the press. Within the US establishment and military there was a sense that negative coverage of the Vietnam war had contributed to America's defeat. In the halls of corporate power there was rising anxiety about the way journalists had publicized highly unflattering stories about corporate malfeasance, corruption and environmental degradation. There was also a powerful sense of resentment emerging out of 'middle America' that saw the press as a hectoring pack of liberals trying to push alien values onto a naturally conservative and God fearing country. As racial desegregation, the aftermath of the Vietnam War and then the later emergence of the 'culture war' came to dominate American politics in the last quarter of the 20th century the 'liberal media' began a familiar boogyman and punching bag for conservatives. The emergence of new forms of communication – notably direct mail in the 1970s, and talk radio in the late 1980s and early 1990s – also created new media platforms for distributing a conservative anti-establishment message. The sense of a 'liberal media' elite engineering a radical change in social values became a common trope on the right, while leftist counter culture groups came to blame the postwar consumer society and the advertising and popular media that attended it as fetters on the public mind that held back the revolutionary potential of the masses. The conflicts over the sexual revolution, deseregation and the Vietnam war also drove a wedge between many working class groups – the backbone of the old labourist left – and the student and professional classes that opposed the war and supported more progressive social values. This split – too complicated to discuss here in depth but perhaps worth talking about below – had immense significance. Among other things it undermined the old New Deal era coalition that was so crucial to the econmic stability of the post War era and introduced a new kind of cultural acrimony between the left and the masses, one that has arguably never healed. It is arguably from this moment onward that American leftist begins its seemingly irreversible shift from a focus on workers to a focus on students. Whereas the left once celebrated the wisdom and humanity of the masses, growing trends in leftist thought will increasingly come to view the masses as reactionary, prejudiced and tawdry. Meanwhile, changes in government regulation and the evolution of market forces also lead to dramatic changes in ownership structure for most of the media. Concentration of Ownership This topic deserves a thread of its own but let's at least review a couple basic facts. First a helpful (albeit slightly outdated) infographic, courtesy of Business Insider. Business Insider posted:NOTE: This infographic is from last year and is missing some key transactions. GE does not own NBC (or Comcast or any media) anymore. So that 6th company is now Comcast. And Time Warnerdoesn't own AOL, so Huffington Post isn't affiliated with them.  I'll also grab some helpful numbers from this write-up at PBS on the increasing concentration of media ownership: PBS posted:The trend of media conglomeration has been steady. In 1983, 50 corporations controlled most of the American media, including magazines, books, music, news feeds, newspapers, movies, radio and television. By 1992 that number had dropped by half. By 2000, six corporations had ownership of most media, and today five dominate the industry: Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany and Viacom. With markets branching rapidly into international territories, these few companies are increasingly responsible for deciding what information is shared around the world. Lets talk about the media: what it is, how its changed, what it reports on, how it interacts with other areas of society such as policing, war and partisan politics. Feel free to bring in related topics such as the rise of think tanks, the internet or the 24/7 media cycle have influenced society. I also encourage people to go deeper and discuss how things like social media addiction, parasocial relationships with celebrities and politicians or our voyeuristic attachment to images of catastrophe and degradation are all tied up in the development of the media.
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As always, exercise critical thinking and seek out alternative viewpoints wherever possible. This is intended to be a list of viewpoints worth hearing out not an endorsement of everything contained within. If you have your own suggestions of interesting or relevant (even if you don't fully agree with them) viewpoints please share them and I'll try to add them to this list. Podcasts Radio War Nerd While it's normally paywalled, Radio War Nerd offers a lot of insightful and interesting media criticism, mostly focused on war and international conflict. This free episode is an interview with the late Robert Parry, a veteran mainstream journalist who broke some of the most important stories of the 1980s and 1990s before going independent and founding his own news organization (Consortium News, linked below). Very important and well worth a listen, provides some important insights into the sea change in journalistic attitudes that occurred in the 1980s. Citations Needed - quote:The show covers issues both foreign and domestic - from decades of relentless government propaganda about "disobedient" nations like North Korea and Iran to the tortured language employed relentlessly by the press to protect police and other institutions of power - and features interviews with journalists, analysts, activists, academics, and artists. Unauthorized Disclosure – quote:Journalists Rania Khalek & Kevin Gosztola question social and political norms that too often go unchallenged and cover subjects that rarely receive complete attention in the U.S. Media Canadaland – Canada has the most concentrated media ownership of any country in the G8 and its most influential business paper is owned by a literal baron. If you can get over the host hawking mattresses every two minutes then this podcast is a good introduction to many aspects of Canadian media. On The Media quote:While maintaining the civility and fairness that are the hallmarks of public radio, OTM tackles sticky issues with a frankness and transparency that has built trust with over one million weekly radio and podcast listeners. OTM can be heard weekly on more than 400 stations and has a biweekly podcast. It has won the Edward R. Murrow Awards for feature reporting and investigative reporting, the National Press Club's Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism, it is the only back-to-back winner of the Bart Richards award for media criticism, it is the winner of several Mirror Awards, and it has a Peabody Award for its body of work. Blogs Naked Capitalism quote:Naked Capitalism is an American financial news and analysis blog that "chronicles the large scale, concerted campaign to reduce the bargaining power and pay of ordinary workers relative to investors and elite technocrats".[1] The Daily Howler quote:The Daily Howler is an American political blog written by Bob Somerby.[1] It was perhaps the first major political blog,[2] started in 1998. The style is by turns earnest and sarcastic. Somerby criticizes what he considers the media's frequently biased or lazy coverage. In his view, the media frequently latch on to a generally agreed "script" with little regard for facts that contradict the script. For instance, in the runup to the U.S. 2000 election it was frequently said or assumed that Al Gore was untruthful, but Somerby shows that much of what supposedly underlay that script was in fact untrue, misrepresented or greatly exaggerated.[3] He also argues that the media frequently ignore substantive issues and concentrate on trivial ones instead (in the 2000 presidential election, for example, professing bewilderment in response to the candidates' budget proposals while writing repeatedly and at length about irrelevant issues such as Gore's choice of clothes, or in 2006 writing articles about Barack Obama's middle name.) Despite being left of center in his politics, Somerby also critiques liberals in the U.S. mainstream media who he feels do poor journalism, such as Rachel Maddow[4] and Keith Olbermann,[5] both of MSNBC. Beat The Press quote:Beat the Press is Dean Baker's commentary on economic reporting. He is a Senior Economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). Talking Points Memo - One of the larger mainstream liberal establishment blogs covering federal American politics. Functions as a reasonably good roundup of news on whatever liberal pundits are currently focused on for those times when you don't feel like killing your soul scrolling through Politico. Alternative Media Sources Propublica quote:ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force. We dig deep into important issues, shining a light on abuses of power and betrayals of public trust — and we stick with those issues as long as it takes to hold power to account. Consortium News quote:From the Late Founder and Editor Robert Parry: When we founded Consortiumnews.com in 1995 – as the first investigative news magazine based on the Internet – there was already a crisis building in the U.S. news media. The mainstream media was falling into a pattern of groupthink on issue after issue, often ignoring important factual information because it didn’t fit with what all the Important People knew to be true. Counter Punch quote:CounterPunch began as a newsletter, established in 1994 by the Washington, D.C.-based investigative reporter Ken Silverstein.[6] He was soon joined by Alexander Cockburn and then Jeffrey St. Clair, who became the publication's editors in 1996 when Silverstein left.[7][8] In 2007, Cockburn and St. Clair wrote that in founding CounterPunch they had "wanted it to be the best muckraking newsletter in the country", and cited as inspiration such pamphleteers as Edward Abbey, Peter Maurin, and Ammon Hennacy, as well as the socialist/populist newspaper Appeal to Reason (1895–1922).[9] When Alexander Cockburn died in 2012 at the age of 71, environmental journalist Joshua Frank became managing editor and Jeffrey St. Clair became editor-in-chief of CounterPunch.[10][11] Real News Network quote:The Real News Network (TRNN) produces independent, verifiable, fact-based journalism that engages ordinary people in solving the critical problems of our times. As legendary journalist Ida B. Wells said, “The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.” The Canary – quote:The Canary is a left-wing news website based in the United Kingdom, which editor-in-chief Kerry-Anne Mendoza says is "here to disrupt the status quo of the UK and international journalism, by creating content that compels audiences to view the world differently".[2] While it focuses on UK political affairs, it also has a "Global" section, a satire section ("Off the Perch"), and "Science", "Environment", and "Health" sections.[3] Articles The Long Con By Rick Perlstein. A very important and luridly fascinating dissection of how conservative media outlets (starting with direct mail and television and then graduating to the internet) is organically linked with all manner of scram operations such as people selling gold, promising anti-aging miracles and otherwise preying on people's credulousness. A fascinating examination of the intersection between conservative politics and marketing. Another Side of C.Wright Mills: The Theory of Mass Society by James E. Freeman Offers further discussion of Mill's writings on Mass Society and the specific role of the press. Watch this man (a review of 'Civilisation: The West and the Rest' by Niall Ferguson) by Pankaj Mishra. An effective and wide ranging takedown of Niall Fergusson's writings on empire that conveniently doubles as a survey of various pro-imperial apologists who began to appear in the media following September 11th, 2001. Books (these are full pdfs) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman (crappy scan of an important book) An early critic of what we now think of as infotainment (though for Postman all TV is infotainment). I'll quote wikipedia here to summarize his book: quote:Postman asserts the presentation of television news is a form of entertainment programming; arguing that the inclusion of theme music, the interruption of commercials, and "talking hairdos" bear witness that televised news cannot readily be taken seriously. Postman further examines the differences between written speech, which he argues reached its prime in the early to mid-nineteenth century, and the forms of televisual communication, which rely mostly on visual images to "sell" lifestyles. He argues that, owing to this change in public discourse, politics has ceased to be about a candidate's ideas and solutions, but whether he comes across favorably on television. Television, he notes, has introduced the phrase "now this", which implies a complete absence of connection between the separate topics the phrase ostensibly connects. Larry Gonick used this phrase to conclude his Cartoon Guide to (Non)Communication, instead of the traditional "the end". Liberalism - A Counter History by Domenico Losurdo. While not focused specifically on media censorship this book offers important historical context to the development of liberal ideas and governments, emphasizing the linkage between liberal thinkers, white supremacy and inequality. An important antidote to the overly glowing and triumphalist mainstream account of liberalism. On Liberty by John Stewart Mill. The iconic 19th century statement of liberal support for, among other things, freedom of speech. Helsing fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Dec 17, 2018 |
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Helsing fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Dec 8, 2018 |
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Dec 8, 2018 21:00
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Thank you for this thread Helsing. The introductory posts were a fantastic read. To be frank, around three years ago I started to feel more and more alienated by popular media. This includes both entertainment and the news. Weirdly, I think the real catalyst started when I was watching a laundry detergent commercial on TV and noticed a bright orange vase sitting on the white kitchen island of whatever suburban everyhome the ad was taking place in. The woman who was gushing about how well the stains came out of her sweater was wearing a blue blouse. Orange and blue being the colours of laundry detergents' product packaging. Soon, I started to see this type of background-to-product-packaging colour-harmony everywhere in all advertising. It really disturbed me. My mental health and overall satisfaction with life improved immensely once I started removing myself from the media environment. These days I'll read articles of local interest, but my news diet is primarily filtered through the lens of this forum, which is about as an authentic vox populi experience as I can get. On the one hand I feel like I've never been more informed because of this shift. On the other, I feel as though I have real stomach-churning understanding of how the world operates. While I wouldn't trade this view for anything, it can be naseuating and depressing. Luckily I've learned to counter those feelings with the joy I find in experiencing the world as it manifests itself before me and the peace I get from being present in the "real". I have to, as to do otherwise would be to sink into the dark malaise brought on by the constant fun-house hall of mirrors reality that capitalism seems hell bent on dragging everyone through. In fact, the more I remove myself from a diet of media consumption, the more I find myself finding the absurdity of it bewildering and alarming. I understand the psychology, for instance, of why a woman in a detergent commercial speaks to the camera as if she were confiding to her best friend about a product, but thinking through the implications of what a constant barrage of this type of manipulation could do to someone is, well, kind of horrifying. Not only have these type of human relations been replaced by simulations, there seems to be an expectation that human relations shoukd simulate these simulations, ad absurdium. I don't know if I have the right words to fully articulate how all of this affects me or leaves me feeling. I don't think there is anything I can do about it, and I can't really talk to anyone about it either. For a long time this left me feeling alienated. But this morose feeling wasn't doing any good. So, now I just accept that it is, and that for the sake of my own mental health, I've learned to find peace by accepting my view of reality and enjoying it as much as I can from the priveleged position I'm in. I don't know whether this is a form of capitulation, but it's the only way I've been able to cope. Sorry if none of that made any sense. But I feel that reality is being subliminated by mass media and that by focusing by what I desire to 'know' as being true is the only way to accept it. Even then, though, I question whether those desires are a reflection of a fundamental humanity or an artificial implant to desire authentic experiences where the close relationships I foster lead to situations where friends confide to me their preference for laundry detergent products. sitchensis fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Dec 9, 2018 |
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Dec 9, 2018 04:17
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sitchensis posted:
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I think in practice its hard to separate what precisely constitutes a "reflection of a fundamental humanity" and what is just "an artificial implant" and that precisely this tension has been at the heart of a lot of critiques of the media, especially those going back to the 1930s (i.e. the writings of the Frankfurt school) through to the 70s (when you get guys like Herbert Marcuse). A lot of people have hoped, following the general line of thinking that goes back to Rousseau ("man is born free but everywhere he is in chains") that underneath all the layers of social conditioning there was a true and authentic core humanity that naturally desired freedom, love, companionship, meaning, truth, etc. A lot of 60s era instructions to "find yourself" were premised on something like that belief. A lot of people thought that if you could just strip away the layers of conditioning imposed by the state, the church, the patriarchal family and the workplace then everyone would naturally and spontaneously become free and self actualized. In Adam Curtis' "Century of the Self" documentaries he talks about this at some length, describing the great hope that a more pure and authentic humanity could be produced by simply scrubbing away the social programming of the old society. In practice it hasn't always worked out: strip away all the social conditioning and you don't necessarily find an authentic humanity underneath, just a whirling chaos of desires, fears and ambitions. Or at least, that's what the counter narrative has argued. And then of course there's a collection of liberal and right-wing discourses that emphasizes the extent to which human nature requires something like capitalism to have a functional society. So these debates about what is authentically human and what kind of society caters to the authentically human are very pertinent. (If you're interested in reading more on how different strands of leftism reckon with the question of human nature I'd recommend the Foucault-Chomsky debates (full pdf here) in which you get a pretty good rendition of the classical Enlightenment leftism of Chomsky clashing with the Nietzschean-derived post structuralist ideas of Michel Foucault.)
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Dec 12, 2018 18:42
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The problem with media criticism is that the people doing said criticism today are either uninformed at best or politically motivated at worst. This whole fake news debacle is similar to the anti-media efforts that happened during the Nixon administration. Like you approach media criticism from philosophical angles OP, but I think our disagreement is far more fundamental; like we disagree on what is reality in the first place, especially how easy it is to manipulate people's perception of reality nowadays.
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Dec 12, 2018 19:50
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SSNeoman posted:The problem with media criticism is that the people doing said criticism today are either uninformed at best or politically motivated at worst. This whole fake news debacle is similar to the anti-media efforts that happened during the Nixon administration. Like you approach media criticism from philosophical angles OP, but I think our disagreement is far more fundamental; like we disagree on what is reality in the first place, especially how easy it is to manipulate people's perception of reality nowadays. I think a lot of that problem can be laid at the feet of conglomeration. When a single Boardroom of 12 Decrepit White male Boomers decides what information you acquire you're going to get a skewed impression of reality. The dangerous part of conglomeration comes from the fact that people don't know it exists (because the corps hide it). When you hear something from someone/something your belief in its accuracy is often dependent on how many "separate" sources are claiming the same thing. And since people don't know all these people are the same they mistakenly think lot's of independent sources are verifying it so it must be true. I think this is the cornerstone of the "alternate reality" that the Right has sucked so many people into.
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Dec 13, 2018 03:31
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The Canary's editor in chief went on David Icke's youtube channel to redpill people on the globalist elites, anyone who works for them belongs in a Gulag.
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Dec 15, 2018 17:30
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Fallen Hamprince posted:The Canary's editor in chief went on David Icke's youtube channel to redpill people on the globalist elites, anyone who works for them belongs in a Gulag. Those links aren't endorsements and honestly you taking a giant poo poo all over a bunch of lefty alternative news sources probably has a better chance of attracting attention to this thread than another of my prolix posts on the density of 19th century newspaper coverage and the differences between Gramsci and Baudrillard so by all means if you have a link for that please post it.
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Dec 15, 2018 19:38
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Helsing posted:Those links aren't endorsements and honestly you taking a giant poo poo all over a bunch of lefty alternative news sources probably has a better chance of attracting attention to this thread than another of my prolix posts on the density of 19th century newspaper coverage and the differences between Gramsci and Baudrillard so by all means if you have a link for that please post it. I don't want to end up on that particular watchlist so I'm not taking any screenshots but here's a link Content warning:  https://www.davidicke.com/article/3...y-not-elections
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Dec 15, 2018 20:58
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Helsing posted:Those links aren't endorsements and honestly you taking a giant poo poo all over a bunch of lefty alternative news sources probably has a better chance of attracting attention to this thread than another of my prolix posts on the density of 19th century newspaper coverage and the differences between Gramsci and Baudrillard so by all means if you have a link for that please post it. counterpoint: d icke is bad and should be eliminated via drone strike, anyone standing next to him during a show is bonus targets.
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Dec 15, 2018 22:09
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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To be honest appearing with David Icke and telling people to vote seems less harmful than stanning for the Iraq War or being a propaganda outlet for the Tories but this wouldn't be the first time a lot of liberals cared more about who looks stupid rather than who objectively does the most harm.Fallen Hamprince posted:I don't want to end up on that particular watchlist so I'm not taking any screenshots but here's a link Sadly the youtube video seems to have been taken down.
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Dec 16, 2018 19:59
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On The Media is pretty much the only show on NPR worth listening to, but hoo boy it's good
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Dec 16, 2018 23:55
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i say swears online posted:On The Media is pretty much the only show on NPR worth listening to, but hoo boy it's good Thanks for the recommendation, I've added it to the list of podcasts.
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Dec 17, 2018 00:40
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Helsing posted:To be honest appearing with David Icke and telling people to vote seems less harmful than stanning for the Iraq War or being a propaganda outlet for the Tories but this wouldn't be the first time a lot of liberals cared more about who looks stupid rather than who objectively does the most harm. I think collaborating with neo-nazis is at least as bad as supporting the Iraq War, but I guess I can see how someone with different sympathies might disagree.
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Dec 17, 2018 02:03
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Fallen Hamprince posted:I think collaborating with neo-nazis is at least as bad as supporting the Iraq War, but I guess I can see how someone with different sympathies might disagree. Last time I heard anything about David Icke the general consensus was that he earnestly believes in lizard people and they're not any kind of code word for Jews. Did he reinvent himself as an alt-right grifter or is this just your usual routine?
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Dec 17, 2018 03:47
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Helsing posted:Last time I heard anything about David Icke the general consensus was that he earnestly believes in lizard people and they're not any kind of code word for Jews. Did he reinvent himself as an alt-right grifter or is this just your usual routine? He is way into protocols of the elders of Zion now, but like a weird reverse way where he thinks they were a major leak on the reptiles so the reptiles edited it to be about Jews instead. So he’s not great but still more literally insane than anything.
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Dec 17, 2018 06:16
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"He's way into the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but..." Too late man, I, editor of The Canary, am already speeding to his studio as fast as possible.
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Dec 17, 2018 07:53
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Holy poo poo Helsing you wrote so many words, when I asked you to make this thread I said you didn't have to write me a term paper.  Good job tho! This thread is going to replace the old lovely "Left Wing Media" thread and I think it will be much better.
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Dec 17, 2018 09:13
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Re: War Nerd http://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-called-it-indians-and-pakis-too-faggy-for-war/all/1/
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Dec 17, 2018 09:18
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Volkerball posted:Re: War Nerd  What the Christ is this?
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Dec 17, 2018 09:23
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Lightning Knight posted:
Alternative media.
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Dec 17, 2018 09:24
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karthun posted:Alternative media. Oh is this where Mark Ames writes? I get him confused with Michael Tracey a lot, that's probably insulting to one of them but I'm not sure which one. Probably worth discussing Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal's Moderate Rebels podcast, and I'm sure they'll provoke all kinds of interesting takes. Re: lizard conspiracy man, I'm not sure "I actually believe in lizard people but not in an anti-Semitic way or anything" really... works, as a defense, tbh.
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Dec 17, 2018 09:30
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Lightning Knight posted:Probably worth discussing Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal's Moderate Rebels podcast, and I'm sure they'll provoke all kinds of interesting takes. I think the big questions like whether or not first responders in Syria are terrorists who hate us for our freedom are probably best left for the brain trust in CSPAM to tackle.
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Dec 17, 2018 10:05
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Helsing posted:Last time I heard anything about David Icke the general consensus was that he earnestly believes in lizard people and they're not any kind of code word for Jews. Did he reinvent himself as an alt-right grifter or is this just your usual routine? You really need to ask yourself where you are when you're starting to defend anyone associating themselves with David "Lizard People" Icke. Don't cancel out the hard work you put into the OP of this thread by engaging in skirmishes like this.
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Dec 17, 2018 14:13
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Absurd Alhazred posted:You really need to ask yourself where you are when you're starting to defend anyone associating themselves with David "Lizard People" Icke. Don't cancel out the hard work you put into the OP of this thread by engaging in skirmishes like this. Maybe a good idea for this thread is a moratorium on who looks crazy and instead a focus on what people say. Otherwise it’s just going to turn into six degrees of David Ickes/Henry Kissinger between the normal factions.
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Dec 17, 2018 16:14
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Alas, we can't get off the subject of David Icke because Alice Walker just mentioned him favorably in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/books/review/alice-walker-by-the-book.htmlAlice Walker posted:“And the Truth Shall Set You Free,” by David Icke. In Icke’s books there is the whole of existence, on this planet and several others, to think about. A curious person’s dream come true. The Jewish magazine Tablet (which publishes its own share of bad takes, but that's an issue for a separate post) criticized the Times for giving a platform to Icke's antisemitism: https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/277273/the-new-york-times-just-published-an-unqualified-recommendation-for-an-insanely-anti-semitic-book Apparently Walker also recommended an Icke book on the BBC a few years back: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-...cs-8622648.html Now, here's the interesting media criticism angle: Why doesn't someone at the Times do a quick Google search on the recommended books when they do book-recommendation book interviews like this? More importantly, why doesn't someone at the Times do a quick Google search on someone before interviewing them? The lizard people stuff is right there on her Wikipedia page.
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Dec 17, 2018 17:54
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Silver2195 posted:Now, here's the interesting media criticism angle: Why doesn't someone at the Times do a quick Google search on the recommended books when they do book-recommendation book interviews like this? .
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Dec 17, 2018 18:59
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Silver2195 posted:Now, here's the interesting media criticism angle: Why doesn't someone at the Times do a quick Google search on the recommended books when they do book-recommendation book interviews like this? More importantly, why doesn't someone at the Times do a quick Google search on someone before interviewing them? The lizard people stuff is right there on her Wikipedia page. because they were trying to cut costs and fired their copy editors https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2018/06/14/new-york-times-gets-rid-of-copy-editors-mistakes-ensue/ Rent-A-Cop posted:Because legacy media has abandoned any pretense of doing actual journalism in favor of just quoting whoever is currently standing in front of them.
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Dec 17, 2018 20:08
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What scale of media is this thread aiming to discuss? The larger outfits are, in some cases, doing okay but local orgs, be they newspapers or broadcasters, are cutting back or disappearing. The media concentration is a part of this, of course. As large orgs, like Torstar and Postmedia to cite Canadian examples, swallow up smaller local papers, they either shutter them completely, or fire their journalists and replace the content with their own stuff from their national desk.awesmoe posted:because they were trying to cut costs and fired their copy editors https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2018/06/14/new-york-times-gets-rid-of-copy-editors-mistakes-ensue/ Is this why they sometimes tweet those "copy edit this" quizzes?
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Dec 17, 2018 21:56
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Leofish posted:What scale of media is this thread aiming to discuss? The larger outfits are, in some cases, doing okay but local orgs, be they newspapers or broadcasters, are cutting back or disappearing. The media concentration is a part of this, of course. As large orgs, like Torstar and Postmedia to cite Canadian examples, swallow up smaller local papers, they either shutter them completely, or fire their journalists and replace the content with their own stuff from their national desk. When I pitched this thread to Helsing as an idea I imagined it would be a place to discuss the media as an institution and metanarrative, inspired by discussion of the Russia investigation in a meta context of it being used for various agendas. But discussing media consolidation and corporate influence on media are germane to this thread imo. It’s a good place to discuss media in general from a critical perspective, whether it’s what they cover or how they’re structured.
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Dec 17, 2018 21:59
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At the same time all this is going on companies that strive to model what is actually occurring in the world and how control it are taking authoritarian regemes on as clients. (Eg. McKinsey ) We are modeling for them how they can do the most harm to us feeding us lies.
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Dec 17, 2018 22:10
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Absurd Alhazred posted:You really need to ask yourself where you are when you're starting to defend anyone associating themselves with David "Lizard People" Icke. Don't cancel out the hard work you put into the OP of this thread by engaging in skirmishes like this. That's wasn't a rhetorical question, the reason I asked is because I haven't heard much about Icke in years and he totally seems like the kind of person who might have reinvented themselves as an alt-right or Qannon guy.
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Dec 17, 2018 22:20
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Helsing posted:That's wasn't a rhetorical question, the reason I asked is because I haven't heard much about Icke in years and he totally seems like the kind of person who might have reinvented themselves as an alt-right or Qannon guy. I think if you’re unironically quoting the Protocols even if you sincerely believe in actual lizard people, you’re still spreading propaganda of fascists and should be considered as such.
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Dec 17, 2018 23:24
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Helsing posted:That's wasn't a rhetorical question, the reason I asked is because I haven't heard much about Icke in years and he totally seems like the kind of person who might have reinvented themselves as an alt-right or Qannon guy. he's still the same sort of nutter https://twitter.com/davidicke/status/1074786482244726790 probably has somewhat more right-wing unironic fans these days than left-wing, but david icke ain't gonna reinvent poo poo also he's apparently hardcore pro-brexit, lol
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Dec 18, 2018 00:12
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Is anyone able to give a fair synopsis of NY Times criticism? I remember back around ‘08 when I’d say so many blogs even Daily Kos continually harp on the paper. Yes, some of it was minor but after seeing so many mistakes and even corrections I was incredibly surprised. Fast forward to today, if we looking at polling those liberal-leaning have their confidence in the press sky rocket. Granted, I’d say much if this is Trump’s doing but I’m curious in real critique of the times beyond slightly biased or incomplete headlines.
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Dec 18, 2018 07:30
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Tab8715 posted:Is anyone able to give a fair synopsis of NY Times criticism? their news coverage is... they have some amazing stories. They have some of the best reporting in the business. they pretty regularly break national and international news on deeply reported stories that the public would never know about if they didn't do the legwork. They are one of the most trusted sources of news in the business. They also make some deeply loving questionable editorial calls, at times (iraq war, the amount of coverage given to clinton's emails, 'no fbi probe', etc etc etc). The first point makes the impact of the second point that much worse. they make dumb copy-editing level mistakes because as mentioned above, they fired everyone when they were losing money and they crank out a shitload of words a day so some of them are wrong. They also should be better about admitting mistakes/corrections on stories, see next point. They're deeply resistant to criticism. They seem to institutionally take being attacked from both sides as proof that they should double down when that is often extremely not the case (clinton, 'no fbi probe' story, etc) They lean towards overly moderate language especially in headlines. This isn't exactly 'truth-in-the-middleism', it's more being a little afraid to call a spade a spade. There is endless speculation to be made about why (capitalism, cowardice, centrism, trust that their readers can make their own judgements, who knows) but the reasons are probably case by case. It's worth noting that all these criticisms are of someone acting in good faith. for example, a criticism of fox news would be "they lie to their viewers consistently and knowingly to promote a specific worldview". The times otoh takes seriously their mission of informing - rather than influencing - their readers. They occasionally totally and utterly gently caress it up, but I think that's their goal and it's a good one. their op-ed section is garbage garbage garbage from an rear end e: oh also helsing et al will have completely different criticism coming from a completely different place. i'm coming from a place of cheerfully mainstream western capitalist culture. awesmoe fucked around with this message at 08:41 on Dec 18, 2018 |
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Dec 18, 2018 08:37
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Can anyone explain why NYT op-ed is so bad? It's National Review bad.Lightning Knight posted:I think if you’re unironically quoting the Protocols even if you sincerely believe in actual lizard people, you’re still spreading propaganda of fascists and should be considered as such.
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Dec 18, 2018 15:18
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Halloween Jack posted:Can anyone explain why NYT op-ed is so bad? whats a good op-ed page supposed to look like?
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Dec 18, 2018 15:35
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:whats a good op-ed page supposed to look like? Filled with thoughtful analysis and arguments made in good faith? Come on dude, this isn't difficult.
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Dec 18, 2018 15:38
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