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I'm talking about just what you mentioned, those who align with a cause simply for the social status it carries, left or right. Flyboy, I can't give an "example" because I can't very well round up a crows of hipsters wearing anti-W pins and have them give you a call. [...]I can't very well speak for every American citizen, I can only talk about what I've observed personally in New England.
Oh, hey, I'm in New England too. I guess I already said that though.
I think, Phallicus, your perception of these anti-W hipsters may have to do with your age and social sphere. A lot of people in their teens do a lot of things for social status or group identity... I think it's a normal phase of adolescence but hardly representative of Americans as a whole.
It may, oddly enough, be representative of the political identities of college students, however. Yesterday when I was composing a post I found this article talking about trends among college freshmen, including -
[UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute found] more students than ever viewing themselves as politically extreme, with 3.4 percent calling themselves "far left" and 2.2 percent "far right."
The percentage of students identifying themselves as liberal (26.1 percent) or conservative (21.9 percent) also rose from last year. The category "middle of the road" remained the most common at 46.4 percent, but declined 4 percentage points from a year ago to its lowest level in 30 years.
(Also, total threadrot but I really have to throw it out there, the next paragraph says The survey also found a record 22.7 percent of freshmen believe that racial discrimination is no longer a problem in America, but the number reporting that they frequently socialized with members of other racial or ethnic groups fell slightly, as it has since 2001, to 67.8 percent. Fucking yikes!!)
Moving on,
it seems to me that the right wing slant in the US media has created the impression that there is some kind of enormous, organised socialist bogey man out there (often located in Hollywood, or not located at all) and that the Right are standing firmly against it. And, you know, I reckon that's complete bollocks.
Hm. It's definitely complete bollocks but I'm not entirely sure that happens in reality. I think that is a narrative that the media likes to perpetuate but it's not wholly accurate. I actually don't believe there is a right wing bias in the media, nor a left wing bias. There is only a simple profit bias and a concern with pandering to the largest possible audience (a rating bias). The media, when not actively manipulated or shushed by the government (another topic, another time), is generally biased toward whichever way the wind blows. They're pro-war and kissing the President's ass when his approval ratings are high, and they're - well, maybe not anti-war but they ignore the war and show more coverage of the latest BushAdmin scandal when his ratings and support for the war are low. I think it's a mistake to portray the media as politically motivated - it's profit-motivated, period.
Last weekend CBS's 60 Minutes did a segment on the Dixie Chicks, who of course are the country music starts somewhat infamous for making the comment that they were "ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas" and publicly espoused an anti-war stance. The interviewer remarked that although the band's new single is pretty low on the charts, it's the number one download online (he didn't say where, but you get the gist) - when asked why that is, Natalie Maines pointed out that "I think you explain it that when you're in the corporate world and when that's your livelihood and when 100 people e-mail you that they'll never listen to your station again, you get scared of losing your job."
What I'm getting at is that the media is a beast totally separate from the public and public opinion - it's a self-contained, self-referential behemoth. It tells a story, and then it tells another story about its own reaction to its own stories and so one, ad infinitum (The Dixie Chicks are anti-war! There is a huge backlash! They're not getting radio play! No one likes them anymore! The country hates anti-war people especially when they're celebrities)... fueled by ratings alone this story may eventually not resemble reality in the least. People don't consume media that they agree with - they consume media that is exciting, accessible, entertaining, fascinating, titillating, etc. Those are all totally apolitical qualities. |
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