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M$: It's all very well saying that you're specifically talking about TV news and mainstream newspapers, but the arguments so far seem to be concentrating on the idea that any news that doesn't appear to immediately affect you is pointless
Well, not pointless, not at all. But the global reach of the media, and the fact that, on any given day, the sexiest story may well be one which is linked to me by the same level chain of causation that a butterfly's wings may affect a hurricane, and the fact that such stories, in a large number of cases, are inseperable in their news-worthiness from the fact that they are being reported, and globally at that, that is that acts such as the bombings of a market-place in Delhi are instigated, planned and set-up to exploit the reach of the global media, so that it can be in your front room ready for breakfast, and my noticing the gradual sexing up of the story as the day progresses, the cutting away of any fat and chaff to deliver the punchiest, sassiest most narratively pleasing mediation of the events, has lead me, personally, to feel very marketed at, sold to, and as I have already said, I do not know what I am being sold, nor whether I want to buy it...but by watching, I am participating in the supermarket sweep. Nothing else to it...I'm not out to convince you or anyone else that that is a *fact*, just reporting my own feelings and appealing for others to voice theirs...
You're not going to have to look very hard to find people saying that network news does not provide you with useful information.
You really think so? Beyond the 5000-odd members of this community and similar such communities, you think most poeple feel that network news and major newspapers are insufficient or lacking balance?
So if that's all you're asking, "How and Why do you consume Popular News Media?" then the answer is going to be in the majority of cases "I don't".
I call bullshit. Point to this majority.
I personally consume very little; I keep up with it to see what other people are watching, but generally I work on a composite picture drawn from dozens of different sources, each filtered appropriately.
Well done. I guess I do to, excluding the sensation and spectacle of the news networks and print empires who are running profit driven organisations.
You seem to be saying more than that. It appears that you are saying "why should I care about anything outside of my immediate environment?"
Excuse me. Not what I intended. Although, as is often the case, there is a fire beneath that smoke somewhere. I'd hardly frame it as "Why should I care?", and haven't, in fact. But I still ask, "What does it benefit me, or you, or those involved, that I know from a ceaseless stream of mediated reportage about the horrors in the world, unless I am compelled to act and help restore the sitaution to one of harmony and balance?"...I think those who have an answer to that have adequately covered it in this thread already, and I think there was truth and sense in what they said...I think what I have missed is the point of the immersion in the sensation of it all...the daily, even many-times-daily engagement with it which inevitably becomes entertainment.
And I'm afraid that that does not reflect well on you, because, as other people have pointed out, you are not an island, and your awareness of what is going on around you will affect your decisions and have effects on both yourself and other people. Comments like "The beauty of freedom, eh? Democracy! It's just great, isn't it?" say to me that you are only thinking in terms of either personal power and the myth that anything can be achieved through the legal processes we have. That's shite.
Look, I'm sorry, but if you are unable to appreciate the bitter and cynical irony of somebody stating that they feel it was important that they 'Register their disapproval' of the Iraq invasion, and then followed a year and a half of families pulling the shattered bodies of their children out of the rubble of their homes, in tears, in anger, in disbelief, in disgust, then I'm afraid I feel that does not reflect well on *you*.
Action can be taken that affects things - not just by you, it has to be done collectively - and that can't take place without information.
%The Iraq protests being a beautiful illustration of that, I see exactly what you mean.%
Either you blindly follow what other people are saying, something I would not support, or you make decisions based on what you've learnt and try to help whatever seems appropriate, in which case you need information.
Agreed.
And if you're determined not to engage in any communal effort regardless, I'm afraid that that makes you out to be an asshole.
Except I already said I am very much involved in my community, because it's clearly important. I've also written to my MP over various issues, beginning with the scheduling of Psilocybin as a Class A, and onto various things since, and been at plenty of anti-war rallies and so on. I'm not a for a second suggesting that these things are pointless or worthless, nor am I resigned to a Government doing what it pleases because 'it just doesn't make any difference' what I do (although my statements above may come across that way).
Whatever, you know? I just packed in the telly, and don't read the syndicated press. Works for me. You do as you please, and Im sure you don't need a ficsuit on a web discussion board to tell you that. |
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