Author Topic: No Better: Media and You  (Read 589 times)

Jaelbird

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No Better: Media and You
« on: April 22, 2013, 10:51:44 am »
This thread had a background article, found here, which briefly introduced the subject.

! I DO NOT ANSWER FOR HARD FEELINGS !, but discussion is Free For All.




Media is arguably the most powerful tool up-to-date to manipulate people's thoughts. It was designed to appear to the public, average folk as a great, informative and world-broadening system, by providing hot news across the globe as well as local news for every person. What people did not, and still do not know however, is that it also devalued humanity and provided coinage and power to a selected few.

The faults made by the various forms of media are surprisingly common, yet hard to notice by an average person. This is either because of the individual's inability to comprehend certain terms or simply due to the easy-going attitude; "information supplied by media couldn't possibly be false".

Here, I'm going to speak out for some of these mistakes; the devalued humanity, in other words the celebrities, the accidentally or intentionally false information (misinformation/disinformation) and of course, the greed.



"OH MY GOSH, it's Justin Bieber! He's the God of music ON EARTH!!!"

The money-making piece of the media pie are the, you know it, celebrities; the people so much admired over and highly sought after by those who wish they could be like their idols. "Gossip magazines", Youtube, Facebook, every social organisation and aspect promotes a handful of "superior" people to us "normal" citizens, when all we really should care for is how to take care of ourselves and have fun while doing it. So why does this minor group sell so well?

Typical to all these famous actors, singers, royals and the whatever categories there are is that they usually have some sort of a special talent, are very good at doing something, are easily remembered and so on. What most of us do not realize, is that they are regular like the all of us in EQUALITY! Simply because someone can act better than you, sing better than you or be of "royal blood" doesn't mean that they are somehow superior to us OVERALL. We have to remember, that where they are exceptional at, we are exceptional at something else where they are not.

Admiring someone who can do something better than you is fine when it's WITHIN LIMITS. The best would be if you could learn something from your idol. Pretending to live the life of your idol is not the way to do it. Copying your idol's opinions and making them your own, so that you're denying your very own opinions, isn't the way to do it either. These are what the media wants you to do, so that they could milk more money out of you by selling you commercial garbage of your idol, such as T-shirts with a picture of your idol.



"There've been rumours of a dozen people getting killed."

A sharp eye can pay notice to a few pieces of misinformation on the information provided by the media network every now and then. What's representative for these faults, is that it is not usually the overall image that's shared wrong; it is the details. But even a single mistake on a word can have a big impact on the whole news article.

Politics are one of the most confusing subjects to discuss and because of that, people often hate talking about politics or politicians alike. The media is no better; after all, there are no Gods working for the media, but us humans. And a human is fallibe. Therefore, it is not abnormal for a newspaper for example to explain a politic term wrong by mistake. People who strictly believe all that the newspapers say can learn something incorrect and in that way conflict with someone else's opinions when they were taught something wrong.

Another major source of misinformation (OR disinformation, more about that later) are the rumours spread amongst the people. When someone shares you a rumour, always remember that a rumour is NOT confirmed information; it could be the exact opposite of the truth. While the media has started to do better with confirming the rumours over time, the people reading or watching the news don't always pay attention. The "unverified" part of the news might slip past the eye and yet again a false image is formed.



"I did nothing, I remember nothing, I comment nothing."

The toughest flaw to prove in the logic (media) is the abuse of it. Shortly put, money buys all, money redeems everything. Did you do something wrong in front of the media? Pay some green coinage and the news on your part won't be published. Do you own the news company? Order your employees to destroy the evidence or they'll be fired and sued, at worst assassinated.

Given all the assurance that such abuse doesn't happen, it is still pretty obvious and surely has happened (yes, it has been proved to have happened). And it doesn't take more than an enough selfish person to happen again in the future. But this is only the "illegal" part of abusing, the legal part is at least equally wrong.

Before the internet became popular in every household, people often read the newspapers and watched TV (and before TVs merely read those papers) to be aware of the situation of the world. When the web came out, it opened a whole lot of possibilities to milk cash from the consumers with devious marketing tricks. One of these was and still is to publish stub news articles online and put a restriction note there, saying "to view the full article, buy our latest newspaper". With this trick, the purpose is to capture the reader's interest and torture it to make him pay for the satisfaction. The sad thing is, that this isn't the only way...



For now, that is all.

Deal, JB.
« Last Edit: May 06, 2013, 12:51:56 pm by Jaelbird »
"Wohoo, we spent five hundred kay on the ground, isn't that great? I love wasting money."

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Shinokyofu

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Re: No Better: Media and You
« Reply #1 on: April 22, 2013, 12:45:26 pm »
You know, I felt a great difference between the "JB" in the last topic and the "JB" in this one. Is it because we're talking in Galeoth's Sanctuary? Well, No harm meant, let's stop the off-topic now.

As a matter of content, I agree with pretty much everything you said.

I'd like to add that I agree too that anyone can be good at something and while a person can be good in a thing, some other can be good in a completly different thing. Yet, as you said, the useful abilities are those which can make money, in a way or another, and the ones that make more money are more useful. In conclusion, you can say that even if you have a unique ability, if it isn't sufficiently good to make money or something extraordinary, it'll be ignored by your parents, friends, society itself. This also limits our own potential since we think that to have a unique ability is synonym of being a genius, which is not.

I'd like to point out another thing too: education, money and media. Talking about my country, it's incredible what goes by the mind of some people. Talking about the whole, Brazil have many poor people, and, if not poor, people in a not that good condition. Since education here other than the private schools are pretty much bad, and that these people most of the times can't even get a computer, it wouldn't be weird to expect people completly(or almost) manipulated by the media. In fact, if you exclude a few exceptions, most are like this, manipulated by the media and by the politicians to do what they want(and yes, politicians are also there, to make sure that they don't receive education and, as a consequence, keep voting on them and doing what they want without questioning), but why I feel amazed(not in a good way!) is because that even some people with good or even REALLY good conditions are in the same situations. They don't question the media at all even when they are more than capable of doing so. That's also a bad side of having money. To don't have money is bad, to do have too much money is also bad. Both ways can make you dumb when it comes to thinking on your own. With little money, you can't develop your thinking, with too much money, the money thinks for you.

Perphaps what happens here happens in another places too, I don't doubt, but I can't talk about countries that I don't know, neither judge them. I can do with mine, because...well, I live here...
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Blackdoom59

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Re: No Better: Media and You
« Reply #2 on: May 03, 2013, 08:14:27 am »
The media likes us knowing and liking only what they preffer.However in truth , without means such as this of socialisation , we would be wondering aimlessly.Truth be told, media sells lies , and has already sold so many , that lies are now a form of currency.

Yeah man I heard that student bombed Boston.

Naw man it's that other guy who commited suicide , I'm sure of it.

People started thinking that all rummors are actually true , and for the media this is like a huge advantage.

I agree with most of JB said.At this point people are divided in two parts:
  • People who believe anything they are being told without question and who will support an idol just by knowing his name and will aid him(directly or not) against another idol
  • People who never beliave anything and refuse to choose between one side or another.

Shortly , we are either fools(1) or ignorants(2).This is what we have become.

Jaelbird

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Re: No Better: Media and You
« Reply #3 on: May 06, 2013, 12:52:43 pm »
Healthy bump to possibly bring more insight.
"Wohoo, we spent five hundred kay on the ground, isn't that great? I love wasting money."

Blackdoom59

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Re: No Better: Media and You
« Reply #4 on: May 17, 2013, 02:41:26 pm »

Dedicated to JB.