Many talk about biases in the media, by which they typically mean the ‘mainstream’ (corporate) media. Most people would agree that biases exist. Yet it is hard to find agreement about what those biases are. Maybe that is an important part of it. The issue isn’t just about biases, but how our very perception of biases becomes biased. We lose perspective because our entire reality has become so mediated by media. The more our lives become saturated with media, the less we are able to see media clearly.
It’s similar to looking into a funhouse mirror and trying to discern the meaning in the warped image one sees reflected back. Now imagine if you were surrounded by funhouse mirrors on all sides, everywhere you went. To understand the distortions of one mirror, you’d look into another mirror with different distortions. We’ve come to see the funhouse mirror as reality. We are simply arguing over which funhouse mirror is least distorted or else distorted in a way that confirms our own expectations. What most of us never think about is who are the people who make the mirrors and remain hidden behind them.
Maybe the purpose of so much media isn’t in what it shows but in what it doesn’t show. The bias isn’t necessarily toward a particular ideology but rather away from the real source of power and influence. It’s a tool of distraction, a key component of politics as spectacle. If you want to know what are the issues of greatest importance and what are the views of greatest explanatory power, pay close attention to what is ignored and dismissed, what is precluded and occluded. Look for what is absent and lacking, the gap in between what is stated and the space outside of the frame where something should be.
The failure of corporate media is as much or more ommission than it is commission. Various media figures attacking each other about their supposed biases is yet more distraction. Arguing over biases is a safe and managed debate, each side playing the role of controlled opposition for the other. But what is it that both sides avoid? What is disallowed by the propaganda model of media? What is not being spoken and represented? What is missing?
Remember this?
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/13/why-ridiculous-official-propaganda-still-works/
While I think Trump is terrible, the noeliberal order is also pretty awful.
I do remember that. It is a useful explanation. The substance of the propaganda is irrelevant. And it doesn’t matter if anyone believes it. The only purpose it serves is as a way of filtering out those who would challenge the system. It’s a test for determining who will make a good authoritarian follower.
Right now the partisan Democrats seem to believe it.
The joke is that the partisan Democrats now sound like a Democratic version of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh.
This guy said it best:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/03/what-constitutes-reasonable-mainstream-opinion
He’s one of the few I trust a lot.
Many Democrats have gone off the deep end. The reason for this is that this past election challenged their entire worldview. They were forced into a position to revise what they believe according to reality or to double down on crazy.
Hmm… I think the Internet ate my comment.
This is why I trust this guy to know what he is talking about:
http://static.currentaffairs.org/2016/02/unless-the-democrats-nominate-sanders-a-trump-nomination-means-a-trump-presidency
Yeah – notice this guy was saying this in February of 2016. He wasn’t just right; he was right for the right reasons.
It appears the internet did eat your comment. I looked in the spam box and there was no comment there by you. It just disappeared into the ether.
It’s too bad more Democrats didn’t listen to such predictions. There were others making similar predictions or at least warnings. But it wasn’t what the status quo Democrats wanted to hear.
Nope … they’d rather lose with Clinton than win with Bernie.
Above all, they want to retire rich.
Some interesting article about foreign students
http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/survey-finds-foreign-students-aren-t-applying-american-colleges-n738411
That could have an impact on the town I live in. The economy here is very much dependent on the university. And the university has seen its large growth from foreign students and hence foreign money.
May not be as bad as the MSM says:
http://www.aacrao.org/docs/default-source/TrendTopic/Immigration/intl-survey-results-released.pdf?sfvrsn=0
35% report a rise. I think that they are letting their anti-Trump bias go crazy.
Yeah Trump is awful, but they shouldn’t be sacrificing all journalistic integrity too.
Looking at one of the graphs, the only region of students effected seems to be the Middle East. But even there it doesn’t appear to be a major impact.
About half of the colleges said that they’ve either seen an increase of Middle East applications or a maintaining of their numbers. Only around 40% said they experienced a decrease of Middle East applications.
All the other regions are seeing high rates of applicants. You have to be careful about how things get reported in the news.
Yeah Trump is having an impact beyond students.
Tourism potentially too.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-us-travel-slump-1.4008256
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
This was an aspect I hadn’t thought about before. It never occurred to me that things would get so bad so quickly that people might even be afraid to travel to the US. I’ve become quite cynical, but I underestimated Trump’s power to create an atmosphere of total fear.
The impact has come in other ways as well. I wrote about it in relation to a death of an immigrant:
https://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2017/03/05/an-unknown-life/
“Pulkrabek believes people are not talking with his investigators in the death investigation of 30-year-old Darling Yosseli Acosta Rivera because they are concerned the questions will turn to their own immigration status.”