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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The State and the Fate of the Fourth Estate
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
So, the youngs do not read or watch traditional news very much. Social media is a free for all of real, fake, truth, spin and hoax. So, unless age brings with it a desire for newsprint and the desire to be told when to view news on a box with little interaction, what is the way forward for serious news?
The olds, who do like paper, tend to be more conservative. Most traditional news sources being owned or controlled by conservative interests. SO, whilst traditional media have the resources to be researched and nuanced, they do not always exercise them.
To borrow a phrase from a company which doesn not appear to know what it means, where shall we go to find Fair and Balanced News?
[ 14. June 2017, 16:26: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
NPR ran a story yesterday about how the Washington Post is using technological innovation to boost revenue, which provides resources for its journalistic work.
Apparently when Jeff Bezos took over a few years back, he encouraged the news room to stop whining about how the internet had taken publishing away from print media, and start thinking about how it opens new platforms for journalism.
All to say that people in the industry are working overtime to solve your question, some people are finding answers, and the people who do stand to make some money off of their solutions. Journalism isn't dead, it's just having to adapt.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Ohher
Shipmate
# 18607
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Posted
I wonder about the state of the news consumer. While journalism is busy adapting to technology, how do the olds and the youngs, regardless of whether they're reading / viewing / listening to sound bytes, pixels, or inkblots, sort the real from the fake, significance from distraction, information from propaganda?
Has part of journalism's job become the teaching of media literacy?
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From the Land of the Native American Brave and the Home of the Buy-One-Get-One-Free
Posts: 374 | From: New Hampshire, USA | Registered: Jun 2016
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
My honest feeling is that there is only so much media can do to counteract the hard-wiring of the human brain, which has been shown to react calmly when presented with uncontroversial information, but which will resort to "fight or flight" when presented with controversial information. This is one reason why it is hard to get people to listen to new information that contradicts their deeply held beliefs- the brain processes it in the same way that it processes someone attacking you.
The human brain is not wired to care about truth. It is wired to care about keeping us safe, which often means that it favors that which is familiar.
(This is also one reason why optical illusions work- your brain takes the light that comes in through the eyes, and filters out what it considers to be unimportant. This can result in us seeing things differently than they really are. Your brain means well, but it lies to you all the time.)
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
Whilst demonisation and character assassination have been possible with traditional news outlets, it impossible to deny that the Internet has taken it to a whole new level.
Just yesterday after clicking a link from a post in Hell, I noticed RH side boxes which were riddled with fake news aimed directly at the Mayor of London. Many of the comments were best not read unless you wanted to be confronted with blatantly racist vitriol.
Mind you it works both ways in terms of the Internet pedalling hurtful falsehoods or exposing the truth. IIRC the first murmurings on savile began on the Net before the 'free Press' dared touch it.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
I'm not sure if I want a free and fair press if it involves putting cameras in the faces of people whose relatives are missing and/or dead.
The self-righteousness of the press on their "right" to continue to doing this in the immediate aftermath of a disaster is sickening.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Ohher
Shipmate
# 18607
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Posted
While I share some sympathy with mr cheesy's viewpoint, the OP raises questions about "serious news," while the sticking of cameras in the faces of victims and the freshly-bereaved isn't, or so I'd argue.
One problem lies in the desire of the public to be entertained (and entertainment, alas, includes subjecting the newsconsumer to shock, horror, scandalization, etc. etc.) rather than, or in addition to, or perhaps even instead of, a desire to be informed.
Journalism's increasingly precarious economic situation as a for-profit enterprise means it's forced to serve up at least some of that which draws ears and eyeballs by whatever means available. Unpalatable as this function can become, it's also essential; without attracting ears and eyeballs, traditional western-style journalism goes out of business, and then who is there to carry out the serious job of informing the public what their government is up to? We know what happens when we rely on governments to tackle this task: we get tweet-storms and "alternative facts."
In recent decades, the merging of these functions into infotainment has worked an unhealthy change in the newsconsumer. Was it Neil Postman who wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death? I think that's what we're seeing unfold here in Trumplemania. We're watching, and sometimes commenting on, appalling abuses of government authority.
But what are we actually doing about this? How many of us are actually taking this wholesale theft of our government seriously?
The Minute Men of my birth state, Massachusetts, must be spinning in their graves. The extent to which governance is now something we simply watch unfold is in inverse proportion to the belief Americans once had that we could exercise actual influence in this sphere.
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From the Land of the Native American Brave and the Home of the Buy-One-Get-One-Free
Posts: 374 | From: New Hampshire, USA | Registered: Jun 2016
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
The thing with Facebook, which in my view makes it fundamentally evil - not in the sense that sacrificing children to Satan is evil, but in the sense that a barrel of toxic waste floating downriver through a nature reserve is evil - is that it is specifically designed to show me what I want to see. Which is fine if what I want to see is funny cat videos, but not fine if what I want to see is 'Jeremy Corbyn is the answer to everything' or 'Everything is the fault of immigrants and the EU'.
To an extent the Press do the same, but at least they are fairly open about it. If I choose from the shelf the newspaper with the headline 'Now migrant horde wants YOUR pension pot', then on some level I have made a conscious choice that that's the kind of news I want to read. With Facebook there is no choice and no transparency.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
One dubious but probably realistic advantage to getting your news over social media is that it calls attention to the fact that everything has a slant, even when it's pretending not to have one.
Of course there are some people who can't recognize a slant when it's so far gone it's nearly horizontal.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
The thing with Facebook, which in my view makes it fundamentally evil - not in the sense that sacrificing children to Satan is evil, but in the sense that a barrel of toxic waste floating downriver through a nature reserve is evil - is that it is specifically designed to show me what I want to see.
Firstly, I think it's easy to overestimate the extent to which this happens. As a side effect of other things, I can turn on and turn off targeted ads, and yes some things are certainly targeted (though lots of these are based off the syndicated platforms that cross wider than facebook), but to a large extent they simply reflect your social circle anyway. I have a number of connections to tend right - so I do get suggestions that I might like the Daily Mail, or Order-Order, or a facebook group called 'Labour are C**kwombles'
And so I don't see facebook is a huge step change over and above what would have been encouraged by 'traditional' social circles in the past, where people would have mainly known people who worked, played and prayed like them and everyone else was beyond the Pale or an 'athien'
quote:
To an extent the Press do the same, but at least they are fairly open about it. If I choose from the shelf the newspaper with the headline 'Now migrant horde wants YOUR pension pot', then on some level I have made a conscious choice that that's the kind of news I want to read.
.. which is why this is somewhat incorrect. I would suggest that by and large people don't look at the serried ranks of newspapers and think 'what story would i like to read about the world?' but rather 'which newspaper gives me the truth about the world?' (where truth is 'as I have already pre-defined it'). You get traces of this attitude in phrases such as so-and-so 'telling it like it is'.
I think targeted/personalised ads and the data collection implied is very troubling, but when it comes to the media, the purveyors of outrage (and usually tits) are far more to blame than facebook. They've built an entire industry out of selling anger as entertainment, and damn the consequences.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
To get quality news sources you have to pay for at least some of them, but it doesn't mean you don't consume them digitally or via social media.
I consume a much wider variety of high-quality journalism from many more different countries than I ever did before discovering Twitter. The trick is to follow high-quality journalists who link to their own work, and to the work of other people they find reliable, and who tweet about their areas of expertise. You can usually get a few articles free before encountering a paywall and then you can decide what you read regularly enough to subscribe or register.
So to give examples -
for British politics
Stephen Bush (New Statesman)
Faisal Islam (Sky News)
Ian Fraser ( author of Shredded expert on banks/financial system)
Alex Thomson (Channel 4)
John Curtice (psephologist)
David Allen Green (Financial Times/legal blogger)
Andrew Brown (Guardian)
Libby Brooks (Guardian - currently on leave)
For Scottish/British/ Irish politics
Peter Geoghegan (The Ferret/Freelance/various Irish quality papers)
Gerry Braiden (Herald)
Scottish -
Iain Macwhirter (Herald)
Alastair Brian (Ferret fact checking service/ex STV)
Hugo Rifkind (Times)
Leslie Riddoch (Ex BBC)
Mandy Rhodes ( Holyrood Magazine)
Alex Massie ( Spectator)
Andrew Tickell (@Peatworrier - legal academic who writes for The Times)
Jamie Ross (Buzzfeed)
For matters European
Alberto Nardelli (ex Guardian, now Buzzfeed)
Jeremy Cliffe (The Economist Berlin Bureau chief)
Guy Hedgecoe (Irish Times, Spain correspondent)
Matthew Tempest (based in Brussels - ex Guardian/AFP)
Matthew Holehouse (UK-EU Correspondent, MLex.)
America
Max Fisher (New York Times)
Josh Marshall (TPM)
Mid East
Borzou Daragahi (Buzzfeed)
David Pratt (Herald)
Chemi Shalev (Haaretz)
Lisa Goldman ( 972 mag)
Hisham Melham (Annahar - Lebanese paper)
Africa
Thomas Fessy BBC West Africa correspondent.
Olivier Herviaux (editor Le Monde Afrique).
I pay for the Financial Times which is best overall on Brexit and British news though not so good on Scotland and for Haaretz (best on Middle East news, also good on America) and the New York Times (they had a cheap offer for the American election). I have apps for them on my phone too.
I also follow various legal academics and academic resources on stuff like Europe/Brexit as sometimes you need to see what people with in-depth knowledge think.
Journalists will often link to good sources you wouldn't otherwise read eg. Peter Geoghegan will link to relevant stories in the Irish Times. I don't read them everyday I see stuff when it's flagged by someone I follow.
Again via the journalist you find the good online-only stuff - Buzzfeed, Slugger O Toole, TPM, The Ferret, 972 mag... you see what they rate and what they don't and get a feel for it yourself.
Remember you don't need to post things yourself on Twitter (though posting a bit and retweeting things can help build a network) but it can be like making your own daily newspaper - you gradually acquire people having seen them linked by others and it builds up.
So go on Twitter, start with some journalists you like from reliable publications, follow them and then see who they link to - and then when you see what you like and find interesting follow it, but do add in some people you don't agree with for roughage or you'll get the bubble effect. (Hence Tories Rifkind and Massie appear on my list and the FT rather than the Grauniad). This is basically how journalists do it - as I learned from my other half who is one. Just sit and quietly follow good people and you avoid any problems.
I also follow a lot of academics and pick up lots of history/archaeology news that way. It's not a solution for everyone but if you want quality news to consume digitally - that's how to find it.
[ 15. June 2017, 00:31: Message edited by: Louise ]
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Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
All to say that people in the industry are working overtime to solve your question, some people are finding answers, and the people who do stand to make some money off of their solutions. Journalism isn't dead, it's just having to adapt.
The problem is that this still competes with the free and the false.
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
The human brain is not wired to care about truth. It is wired to care about keeping us safe, which often means that it favors that which is familiar.
IT favours behaviours that kept our species safe in the past. The ones that relate to news are related to belonging. We have the capability to override this.
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
To an extent the Press do the same, but at least they are fairly open about it.
And they can be held somewhat accountable.
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
To get quality news sources you have to pay for at least some of them, but it doesn't mean you don't consume them digitally or via social media.
Paying, and the effort you demonstrate, are not incredibly common. I don't see this changing.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
This will horrify many of you, but when Murdoch set up The Australian in the mid-1960s as Australia's first national daily newspaper, it was an exceptionally good paper. Left-liberal in its political opinion columns, reasonably neutral and thorough in its straight reporting, it was a paper well worth reading.
Things only improved when Adrian Deamer became editor. At the time of the Bangladeshi war, the Liberal Party (ie conservative) government supported the Pakistanis, probably because it was a fellow Commonwealth member. Public opinion largely supported the Bangladeshis, but the government would not budge. Deamer wrote a very powerful editorial in favour of Bangladesh and instantly the government caved in. A rare example of an editorial changing government policy for the better. Alas, while The Australian continued as a quality paper for some years after then, Deamer was sacked for writing an anti-apartheid editorial during a Springbok tour (Madame and I, in our second fling together, were some of those demonstrating against!).
These days, the opinion columns are not worth reading, but the news reporting remains ok. Certainly better than the competitors.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
The events around the London fire have shown the inadequacies of many involved. The relief effort appears to be completely haphazard and unorganised, the local authority doesn't appear to have any kind of civil emergency plan (no idea why not, I thought this was a legal requirement), churches and mosques and others are basically winging it as best they can. I don't understand what has happened to organised response or why the London Mayor or even national government couldn't have co-ordinated a response.
We don't know how many died (some saying it could be hundreds ![[Eek!]](eek.gif) ) but it seems inarguable that some were killed by advice to stay in their flats.
And the media, once again, haven't helped. Not only are they doorstepping those grieving, they're now giving undue prominence to some of those trying to hand out supplies and not reporting at all about others.
In terms of the press, this is one of the strangest collective ways I've ever seen that they've reported a large disasterous event. I really can't fathom it.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Louise: quote:
I consume a much wider variety of high-quality journalism from many more different countries than I ever did before discovering Twitter.
This is the key to rising above the problem of bias in journalism, I think. Everyone is biased, even you yourself. You have to approach every news story as if it were an unreliable historical source (which of course it will be, in the fullness of time). Who wrote it and why? What were their sources? What is their political stance? What do they want you to believe after reading/viewing it? Has anyone else reported the same story, and if so what did they say about it?
Children in the UK are taught how to assess the reliability of Internet sources as part of the National Curriculum. Judging by my own daughter's behaviour, at least some of them are paying attention in class.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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wabale
Shipmate
# 18715
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Posted
History education should also deal with bias. In spite of the efforts of the Education Department a few years ago, the idea of the need to understand bias is now embedded in History teaching, though there remains a minority position that young people ‘just need to be taught the facts’. Some children never get beyond the black and white idea of sources being either biased or unbiased. It depends on the situation. I would trust The Sun’s weather report for example, whilst being more skeptical of their view on Corbyn. I have noticed on other forums and blogs that while those with a History background are ready to share their own personal bias, people from other disciplines often champion the idea that they are totally objective - and you shouldn’t be biased. I gather Fox News has just changed its tag from ‘fair and balanced’ to ‘Most Watched. Most Trusted.’
Posts: 74 | From: Essex, United Kingdom | Registered: Jan 2017
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
Yes I never expected my training in historical research to come in so handy in the digital age.
What I'm outlining is a strategy for people who are interested in news - I learned it from a journalist and I apply my source-critical background to it. It's not a solution for everybody.
Otherwise a lot comes down to the schools teaching people to think about bias and evidence.
One thing I mean to look into is that the British tabloid press is apparently (with the odd exception) practically unique in Europe.
I don't know why this is - whether other countries don't have a taste for it or whether they have better regulation. I do know that it's a problem - one similar to Fox and broadcasting/talk radio in the USA. If you feed a large part of your electorate 'alternative facts', you end up getting terrible decisions. People can't see danger looming in front of them and think any attempt by subject specialists to warn/educate them about what is actually the outlook for them is partisan. I don't know the answer to this at all - though somehow it must involve producing a more level playing field at elections when money can't buy you a megaphone, hence the concern about 'dark money' and targeted facebook ads that only those targeted see, e.g.
BBC: Election 2017: Scottish voters targeted by 'dark ads' on Facebook
Open Democracy: The dark money driving the Scottish Tory surge
[ 15. June 2017, 16:21: Message edited by: Louise ]
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Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Louise: quote:
One thing I mean to look into is that the British tabloid press is apparently (with the odd exception) practically unique in Europe.
Yes, a German friend was quite shocked that the British tabloids are allowed to behave the way they did in the late election campaign. Even the French press (which can be vicious at times) is not so blatantly biased.
And openly biased publications in other countries are balanced by other newspapers/journals with different political stances. There isn't a mass-market print equivalent of The Guardian. Local newspapers - the ones that survive - don't really have the resources to do investigative journalism.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Teen Vogue and their amazing work during the US election. Again, young people hold the answers.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Teen Vogue and their amazing work during the US election. Again, young people hold the answers.
If the young people had put down their fucking electronic toys and VOTED we wouldn't have this pinheaded grifter as a president.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Or Brexit.
ETA: Of the people I know, the younger are more likely to have a broader knowledge of politics and a more nuanced view of the same. But fewer vote. It is sooo fucking frustrating.
[ 15. June 2017, 23:26: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
Someone elsewhere was commenting on the fact that our vicious tabloids have printed pictures of the poor chap whose fridge exploded, triggering the Grenfell disaster - pointing out his nationality.
I tend to agree with their comment -
'One day, I hope buying those fucking rags is as socially unacceptable as drink driving.'
There is a campaign http://stopfundinghate.org.uk/ which targets their advertisers asking them politely not to give money to newspapers that spread hate.
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Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Teen Vogue and their amazing work during the US election. Again, young people hold the answers.
If the young people had put down their fucking electronic toys and VOTED we wouldn't have this pinheaded grifter as a president.
Judging by its name, one would imagine that many people who Teen Vogue is written for couldn't legally vote.
Good call. Although unless they are VERY different from their older siblings, that won't matter.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
Despite the efforts of the Jeff Bezoses of the world investigative journalism is not likely to survive, let alone thrive, unless more people are willing to pay for the news. Newspapers/newsmagazines, offline or online, have long relied on ad revenue in addition to subscriptions, but the movement from a dual-funding source model to a primarily ad-funded model (especially for all but a select few publications that manage to get people to subscribe to them because of their own prestige (The New York Times, etc.) and/or the wealth/status of their audience (The Financial Times, etc.) means that revenue will be primarily driven, for most publications, by impressions, clicks, and conversions (purchases that happen as a result of clicks). Articles are being conceived, assigned, and written, even for the most prestigious of publications but even more so at the vast majority of others, in such a way as to maximize these measures. Some news sources (The Guardian (based on the little I know as an American), the BBC, NPR), have unique revenue sources and management structures that make it easier to uphold a commitment to reporting relevant stories accurately rather than selling ads - but even they are making decisions they never thought they would have to in the past. I'm not sure what is the best way to ensure the future of investigative journalism. Some people seem to be willing to subscribe to streaming services for television content (although many people steal this content too). Maybe this might point to some way to fund journalism aside from ads? I remain skeptical, though.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
Also, forgive my asking, but could someone explain how so much of the British print media became so biased towards the right? Is it mainly because of Rupert Murdoch and news titans of his era? Or does it go back earlier than that? How much earlier? In the US, I grant that Bernie Sanders was not taken seriously by most of the media, but much if not most of the print media and quite a bit of broadcast and cable media has at least a slight liberal slant (in the way a mainstream Democrat like Obama is liberal), partly because many of the people who choose to pursue careers in journalism are liberal themselves. Fox News, right-wing talk radio, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, National Review magazine, and now Breitbart (shudder), as powerful as those media sources are among their bases, all view themselves as a bulwark against a (real) majority of liberals in the media capitals of NYC, LA, and DC.
Why does Britain seem to be lopsided in the opposite direction, at least in terms of print media? Does it have to do with the history of the British class system? What other historical explanations are there?
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
Also, forgive my asking, but could someone explain how so much of the British print media became so biased towards the right?
I suspect that historically some of it is due to the presses roots in industrial capital (even the Guardian was originally set up by businessmen pushing mild reform to counter the more radical workforce), and I suspect that like the culture at large the press gained a prurient edge through the long Victorian-era.
Post war, the Conservative party was quite a large members movement - taking in many of the aspirational lower middle-class - and so I assume constituencies like this shored up the right wing side of the press.
Of course, more recently you've had the influence of the Murdoch, Maxwell, Black, the Barclays brothers, the Rothermeres (who have long swung right).
Finally, of course is the fact that the 'major' newspapers are very London centric - which means that the journalists all know each other and - for much of the time - were all located near each other and all socialised with each other. Which tends to mean that a few bell-weathers can set the tone with which a particular story will be carried. With increasing numbers of people moving between the print and broadcast media, this has tended to carry over to radio/tv coverage also. There's long been a kind of herd mentality to the British Press that is less the case in other countries where regional newspapers are more important.
[ 16. June 2017, 07:42: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
As a side effect of other things, I can turn on and turn off targeted ads, and yes some things are certainly targeted (though lots of these are based off the syndicated platforms that cross wider than facebook), but to a large extent they simply reflect your social circle anyway.
I wasn't thinking of targeted ads so much as the Like button and similar. AIUI, if you Like X, and the algorithm detects that people who Like X tend to Like Y as well, then it will show you Y because it thinks that's what you want to see. Again, fine if Y is a cat video, less fine if Y purports to be political commentary.
quote:
I have a number of connections to tend right - so I do get suggestions that I might like the Daily Mail, or Order-Order, or a facebook group called 'Labour are C**kwombles'
If you are sufficiently engaged with your right-wing connections that their preferences are showing up in your feed, that suggests that what you want to engage with is a diversity of political opinion, and so that is what Facebook is showing you. However, not everyone is so honourable.
quote:
And so I don't see facebook is a huge step change over and above what would have been encouraged by 'traditional' social circles in the past, where people would have mainly known people who worked, played and prayed like them and everyone else was beyond the Pale or an 'athien'
True, but the sort of thing shared on Facebook has a veneer of authority not possessed by what some bloke in the pub told me.
quote:
I would suggest that by and large people don't look at the serried ranks of newspapers and think 'what story would i like to read about the world?' but rather 'which newspaper gives me the truth about the world?' (where truth is 'as I have already pre-defined it'). You get traces of this attitude in phrases such as so-and-so 'telling it like it is'.
That's why I said 'on some level'. If you think a blatantly partisan newspaper is telling it like it is, then your criteria for discerning truth from falsehood is probably based on emotion rather than reason - in other words, it's based on what you want rather than what you think.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
I suspect that like the culture at large the press gained a prurient edge through the long Victorian-era.
In all serious, if you think our press is bad now, take a look at the Victorian tabloid/gutter press -it makes the Sun/Star/Mirror, etc look like angels. In a small way I suppose that ought to be encouraging (inasmuch as it might not feel like it, but it has actually changed for the better in the last 150 years, and *could* continue to do so).
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Louise: quote:
Someone elsewhere was commenting on the fact that our vicious tabloids have printed pictures of the poor chap whose fridge exploded, triggering the Grenfell disaster - pointing out his nationality.
I bet they don't publish the nationality of the landlord* who provided the faulty fridge. After all, s/he is probably still alive and rich enough to sue them.
I was wondering when the tabloids would get around to blaming the victims - I didn't have long to wait before they lived down to my expectations.
*I've been in rented accommodation myself, and usually had the kitchen appliances provided by the landlord. I have no inside knowledge of whether this was the case in Grenfell Tower, though.
[ 16. June 2017, 08:35: Message edited by: Jane R ]
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
I bet they don't publish the nationality of the landlord* who provided the faulty fridge. After all, s/he is probably still alive and rich enough to sue them.
The landlord was Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council (Tory controlled since Adam). It managed on their behalf by a private company.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
If you are sufficiently engaged with your right-wing connections that their preferences are showing up in your feed, that suggests that what you want to engage with is a diversity of political opinion, and so that is what Facebook is showing you. However, not everyone is so honourable.
quote:
And so I don't see facebook is a huge step change over and above what would have been encouraged by 'traditional' social circles in the past, where people would have mainly known people who worked, played and prayed like them and everyone else was beyond the Pale or an 'athien'
True, but the sort of thing shared on Facebook has a veneer of authority not possessed by what some bloke in the pub told me.
I'm slightly doubtful this is the case, in part because I don't think this is an entirely fair comparison.
Perhaps there was a brief period in the post-war era where the measure was what 'some bloke in the pub told me', but in general in the past people lived in communities in which they were surrounded by people very like them, doing similar kinds of things who set the measure of what 'all right thinking people think', and really they had very little contact with the wider world. I don't think that fundamentally the kinds of social reinforcements operating wrt facebook are necessarily any stronger, at worst it's a reversion to that norm.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
In all serious, if you think our press is bad now, take a look at the Victorian tabloid/gutter press -it makes the Sun/Star/Mirror, etc look like angels.
I do not believe that anything in my post suggested that the press now was comparable in that sense to the press in the bad old days - and I'm fairly familiar with the Victorian gutter press. The reference was in terms of influence - and in that case I do think that there is a certain prurient edge that's directly traceable back to the gutter press of those days.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Teen Vogue and their amazing work during the US election. Again, young people hold the answers.
If the young people had put down their fucking electronic toys and VOTED we wouldn't have this pinheaded grifter as a president.
If white Americans weren't so racist you wouldn't have a white supremacist as a president. It shouldn't be surprising that a rich old white lady who likes bombing brown kids wasn't seen as a great alternative to young people with a moral backbone. Young people in the US rallied, campaigned, marched, protested in their thousands, hundreds of thousands - but racista outnumbered them. Perhaps take a look at the plank in your generation's eye first, ie wrecking the economy and your online incompetence allowing fake news to flourish. It's our use of 'electronic toys' that means we don't believe that Obama is rounding up Christians to send them to Muslim indoctrination camp.
I have voted in every single election I have been eligible to vote in. I have doorstepped for local candidates. I have posted leaflets. I pay my monthly political party membership fees. So do thousands of young people. I know teenagers who are not even eligible to vote who helped campaign in the last general election, delivering leaflets in between GCSE revision. Frankly your generation doesn't deserve us. Thanks to you we are unlikely to own property or have a pension. Your generation in the US caused a recession that affected the whole world. You should hang your head in shame.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
For those able to process more than 'young people are bad because they resent baby boomer incompetence, how dare they also have fun online', this article published by Buzzfeed today is illuminating.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Ohher
Shipmate
# 18607
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
If white Americans weren't so racist you wouldn't have a white supremacist as a president. It shouldn't be surprising that a rich old white lady who likes bombing brown kids wasn't seen as a great alternative to young people with a moral backbone. Young people in the US rallied, campaigned, marched, protested in their thousands, hundreds of thousands - but racista outnumbered them.
As a US member of the generation being decried in your post, I'll just point out a couple of things:
1, the white supremacist president was elected by a minority of the US electorate polled. Does racism remain an intractable problem in US society? Absolutely. Do racists outnumber non-racists? That's not so clear.
2, IME, racism routinely crosses generational lines. I teach part-time in a small college, so I deal mostly with folks decades younger than me. Every semester, I encounter students who object to my "infringement" of their first-amendment rights in my syllabi, which prohibits the use of slurs in the classroom. Among my own age-peers, I encounter people willing to use racial slurs maybe once every 3-4 years; among the young people in my classes, this happens once or twice per semester. Of course, this is "anecdata" and therefore useless as an argument. Is it possible that your own experience is biased similarly, but in the opposite direction?
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
Perhaps take a look at the plank in your generation's eye first, ie wrecking the economy and your online incompetence allowing fake news to flourish. It's our use of 'electronic toys' that means we don't believe that Obama is rounding up Christians to send them to Muslim indoctrination camp.
Would you be willing to support your assertion that "my generation" wrecked the economy? There may be differences between the US and UK actors in that mess, so you may be right about the UK perspective.
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
I have voted in every single election I have been eligible to vote in. I have doorstepped for local candidates. I have posted leaflets. I pay my monthly political party membership fees. So do thousands of young people.
You're to be commended for your civic engagement. My own activities mirror yours, though in the US there are no party membership fees; I do contribute what I can afford to candidates' campaigns. I've even run for minor elective offices and served in some.
You might consider doing likewise, though I suspect you might have to moderate your rhetoric a bit for stump speeches.
[ 18. June 2017, 13:52: Message edited by: Ohher ]
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From the Land of the Native American Brave and the Home of the Buy-One-Get-One-Free
Posts: 374 | From: New Hampshire, USA | Registered: Jun 2016
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
For those able to process more than 'young people are bad because they resent baby boomer incompetence, how dare they also have fun online', this article published by Buzzfeed today is illuminating.
First, that article doesn't say what think it does as the olds get news from social media as well.
Second, It wasn't the young who swung the vote,* it were middle aged swingers.
*American readers be aware that in the UK, red and blue are reverse to what you are used to.
quote:
Originally posted by Ohher:
1, the white supremacist president was elected by a minority of the US electorate polled.
A significant minority of voters.
quote:
Does racism remain an intractable problem in US society? Absolutely. Do racists outnumber non-racists? That's not so clear.
Part of the lack of clarity is that racism isn't an on/off switch. It is a spectrum, it can also be largely unconscious.
Adn, as old people vote in higher percentages, their racism has more effect.
quote:
2, IME, racism routinely crosses generational lines.
Of course it is. But it will be more stark, and therefore more visible, in the younger generations because of the nature of youth to be more outspoken and because the definitions of what constitutes racism have changed.
But is is massively difficult to believe that the more subtle variations of racism that were accepted in the past have increased in today's youth where they are less of an excuse.
[ 18. June 2017, 15:07: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
....and Gen X sits in the middle feeling like the gooseberry on some kind of date for coprophiliacs. Presumably we're just supposed to wipe shit out of the most recently afflicted eyes? Or are we permitted some other role, like finding a way of actually living?
I am seriously tired of everything being defined in terms of baby boomers vs. millennials. There are lots of us about which fit into neither category, and just want to get on with things, without seeing any reason why we should volunteer to stand in the middle of this shitfest.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
....and Gen X sits in the middle feeling like the gooseberry on some kind of date for coprophiliacs.
Not really, in general Gen Xers are afflicted by the same issues as millenials - unless they got relatively lucky early on in their career.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
....and Gen X sits in the middle feeling like the gooseberry on some kind of date for coprophiliacs. Presumably we're just supposed to wipe shit out of the most recently afflicted eyes? Or are we permitted some other role, like finding a way of actually living?
I am seriously tired of everything being defined in terms of baby boomers vs. millennials. There are lots of us about which fit into neither category, and just want to get on with things, without seeing any reason why we should volunteer to stand in the middle of this shitfest.
Do not fret. Soon you will slide into the sweet senility of yelling at people to get off your lawn, complaining about foreigners ruining the country and voting Tory against your own interests.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Ohher - I find it hard to believe that joining a political party in the US is free. Are there really no membership costs involved?
Also of course young people are racist too, but racist young people are less likely to vote, and/or participate in politics in non-standard ways. In the US they tend to identify as Libertarian rather than Republican. In the UK there's no one party that tends to gain their support now UKIP's vote has collapsed.
Thunderbunk, Gen X is a much smaller cohort than either the Boomers (who can really be split into two groups, with Generation Jones being the later group) or the Millennials (who officially stretch from 1982 births right up to 2004 births - though I think this is too big a grouping). You get less attention simply because there are fewer of you. I was born in 1989, so an older Millennial, and my parents are Gen X - but most parents of Millennials are younger Boomers. Some call the group between Gen X and Millennials 'Generation Oregon Trail' - certainly current cohort groupings are not particularly helpful IMO. I don't have very much in common with anyone born in the 00s!
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
A list of Generational cohorts that may be useful, for reference.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Ohher
Shipmate
# 18607
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
Ohher - I find it hard to believe that joining a political party in the US is free. Are there really no membership costs involved?
In the US, party membership is a matter of registering to vote as a Republican, Democrat, or Independent, and political identification can be quite fluid, sometimes changing from one election cycle to the next. In some states, I believe, one can register as a member of some other parties --Libertarian, Green, Social Democrat, etc. if the state allows those on ballots. There's no fee to register to vote, though increasingly one must provide one or more forms of photo ID to do so.
That doesn't necessarily mean there are no costs. Costs *can* be $0 if all one does with one's political affiliation is vote in elections. Those who get involved enough to attend meetings will usually find there's a hat passed, and attendees chip in what they will. Many voters also donate to their parties and/or to specific candidates or causes.
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
Also of course young people are racist too, but racist young people are less likely to vote, and/or participate in politics in non-standard ways. In the US they tend to identify as Libertarian rather than Republican.
Again, can you offer any statistical published support for these assertions?
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From the Land of the Native American Brave and the Home of the Buy-One-Get-One-Free
Posts: 374 | From: New Hampshire, USA | Registered: Jun 2016
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
Also of course young people are racist too, but racist young people are less likely to vote, and/or participate in politics in non-standard ways. In the US they tend to identify as Libertarian rather than Republican. In the UK there's no one party that tends to gain their support now UKIP's vote has collapsed.
You may well be correct, but any evidence for that?
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
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Posted
Journalism and the Free Press are going to be fine. Louise's posts are great. Hope I've got the right person. My wife too reads a large amount of news online, subscribes where necessary, and also follows the rule of following the quality journalists and opinion writers.
The Age in Melbourne is going to go eventually. Its prided itself as the paper of record in this town. It held that spot since the 1950's, when it drove The Argus out of business. That happened in 1957 according to the internet. The Herald, a daily afternoon newspaper in Melbourne merged with The Sun in 1990 and became the Herald-Sun, known by its enemies as the Hun.
Life goes on. Changes happen. People suffer in countless numbers of ways. Pastoral care skills to the fore. Don't panic. DRSABC or something. I'm due for a first aid refresher soon.
Fake news too will pass. Eat more prunes.
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Human
Posts: 1571 | From: Romsey, Vic, AU | Registered: May 2014
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ohher:
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
Ohher - I find it hard to believe that joining a political party in the US is free. Are there really no membership costs involved?
In the US, party membership is a matter of registering to vote as a Republican, Democrat, or Independent, and political identification can be quite fluid, sometimes changing from one election cycle to the next. In some states, I believe, one can register as a member of some other parties --Libertarian, Green, Social Democrat, etc. if the state allows those on ballots. There's no fee to register to vote, though increasingly one must provide one or more forms of photo ID to do so.
That doesn't necessarily mean there are no costs. Costs *can* be $0 if all one does with one's political affiliation is vote in elections. Those who get involved enough to attend meetings will usually find there's a hat passed, and attendees chip in what they will. Many voters also donate to their parties and/or to specific candidates or causes.
quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
Also of course young people are racist too, but racist young people are less likely to vote, and/or participate in politics in non-standard ways. In the US they tend to identify as Libertarian rather than Republican.
Again, can you offer any statistical published support for these assertions?
Precisely because registering with a political party is free in the US, there are quite a few registered Democrats who almost always vote Republican (this is most prevalent in Appalachian States like West Virginia - white Coal Miners became very loyal to Democrats around the time FDR was president, but as Democrats began to adopt more socially progressive policies regarding race, gender, reproductive rights, sexuality, etc., while at the same time pursuing trade and environmental policies that although not wholly responsible to the decline in coal mining jobs (the shift to burning natural gas and automation in the industry also played a part), resulted in the voting patterns we see today in these areas. Younger people in these areas who vote Republican are likely to register Republican when they first vote, but many older people are still registered Democrats from earlier in their life and have never really thought to change their affiliation because there are no party dues and most people do not vote in party primaries (even though voting in a party primary is free and is crucial in determining what kinds of candidates the parties nominate!!!).
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Ian Climacus
Liturgical Slattern
# 944
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Posted
Another problem to me is some journalists' ability. When press releases from corporations are breathlessly reported as news or in the name of "balance" equal weight is given to MMR vaccine scaremongers or to climate change deniers, how valuable is the news? I do not lay this wholly at the feet of journalists...cutbacks and editorial pressures no doubt contribute. But I have noticed a "dumbing down" lately, and I'm hardly an intellectual giant. When the BBC promotes an article on Beyonce's baby I nearly dropped the phone; I know I'm in the minority but shouldn't that be kept to a celebrity hole? I couldn't care less.
Not sure if the balance thing, when clearly one side is wrong, is feeding some need we have to think we are weighing evidence. But when it comes to vaccine safety or climate change, I'm an ignoramus - give me facts, statisitcs, etc. and I can reach a conclusion. But don't give each side equal space...please.
I agree with Louise paying is the way to go. I susbcribe with money to one Australian media outlet and am considering a NYT subscription; The Guardian keeps asking but it gets a bit loony and too precious at times for my liking, but I may succumb as, despite Peak Guardian articles, it has its place.
Posts: 7800 | From: On the border | Registered: Jul 2001
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
Just about every political discussion clip I watch from CNN is a shouting match. It includes a pro-Trump person for balance, who ends up saying unreal nonsense that gets everyone else jumping up and down and the moderator loses control and there's no discussion.
For me this really degrades the value of watching CNN. They did this during the election as well. It creates an obvious impression that you have two sides angry with each other and both unable to articulate an argument. I think this really plays into the hands of the Trump campaign.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
CNN used to have generic Republican and Democrstic commentators who would have shouting matches and stick to their talking points without answering the questions asked them, but when Trump became the nominee and then the president they decided to maintain balance they had to have their republican commentators be ones that espoused the Trumpist point of view (as many Republican commentators who are not dependent on Trump for fundraising to keep them in office or otherwise detest Trump and aren't afraid to say so), which meant that any pretense of a fact based discussion or a rational debate went out the window. Trump supporting commentators not only try to shout down their Democratic counterparts but also try to shout down the journalists moderating their discussion.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Pomona: quote:
A list of Generational cohorts that may be useful, for reference.
An American list. Similar to what a British list would look like, but not exactly the same. Britain did not take part in the Vietnam War, for example, so we did not have large numbers of Army veterans being discharged in the 1970s. University education was effectively free in the UK until the 1980s.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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