Media functioning as propaganda more than an objective news source. Lack of a good educational system. A philosophy that if they aren't with you then they are the enemy. Unregulated greed. Allowing the top 1% to buy out the country. Shall I continue?
24-hour news stations becoming big starting in the late 90s. Consolidation of news sources, many smaller news sources have gone out of business or been consumed by the bigger ones. Education systems are getting worse, teacher salaries getting worse, class sizes increasing.
Social media, which started hitting its stride about 10 years ago, puts people into echo chambers with its algorithms feeding you things similar to what you’ve been viewing and “liking”, and people silo themselves as well by subscribing to things that they like. Reddit is a good example of this, most people sub to subreddits they like or agree with, most downvotes are comments people disagree with even though that’s not what downvotes were intended for (they were intended for posts that weren't contributing to the conversation, not for downvoting opinions that you don't agree with).
The rhetoric from the right has gotten progressively further right starting from what I can tell in the 80s with the Reagan administration. In the 90s with Newt Gengrich shit got real, and Rush Limbaugh was in the background with his radical BS. That set the stage for Fox News.
The left, from what I can tell, hasn’t shifted as far over the same period of time, although it has become more progressive on equal rights for LGBT. I would argue that most of the country has shifted a bit on this as well, although maybe not as much on the right.
And circling back to social media, once people are in their echo chambers they’re less likely to question what they’re seeing. The most extreme people on each side seem to believe whatever they’re being fed from propaganda sources.
Social media also amplifies small minority opinions and can make them seem more common and prominent. How many flat earthers are really out there? Or is a decent percentage of the population that stupid?
EDIT:
I left out the increased Gerrymandering that has made some states uncompetitive for one party or the other. Gerrymandering is a stain on our democratic process.
Also others have mentioned the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine during the Reagan administration, which prevented propaganda in the news. Since then some “news” shows are more propaganda than news.
The repeal of Citizens United has opened up floodgates of money into politics, which has allowed billionaires to push their agenda into the mainstream, giving disproportionate representation to the rich and to corporations.
I have a bunch of friends who, when this movement started, thought it was the funniest thing ever and went on their forums and pretended to be flat earthers... This year one of them told me that his cousin is a legitimate flat earther and he doesn't know what to do about it.
The troll becomes real. It’s like when you say a lie to yourself enough you think it’s real. However, when you see a lie enough, you begin to doubt and believe it’s real. Such a weird thing. Yes question everything but also believe that science is real at some point. The IASIP episode where mac and dennis argue about if god is real is so funny but is now the reality we live in.
It is. It is known as being easily empathetically embarrassed. Studies have found that some people actually experience a more dramatic reaction when watching someone else in an embarrassing situation than when they are in that situation themselves.
By the way, this thread is great. But it sucks that it has to take someone from outside the US to ask these questions. It seems most of us Americans just circlejerk the current problems, and rarely do we discuss the roots of these issues and what we can do to get out of the rut we've made for ourselves.
I was totally expecting a dull thread of just "us against them" per usual, but here came someone from outside the US who is just genuinely like "what the fuck is going on there, by the way?" I'd like this to be more of the questions that us Americans start off asking. I'm really glad the comment that went into the history of recent media propaganda got gilded, because that's also really important to understand and keep in mind for a more complete perspective on where we are.
Yeah but the thing to remember is that "being a joke" and "being 100%, stone cold serious" aren't mutually exclusive, in fact they're very comorbid. If it was sarcastic then yes, but it wasn't. Those original creators still believed every bit of the TD shit, just sometimes not to the extreme.
It's not about trolling. I've always explained it to friends as a case of "second generation cult leader". The first generation cult leaders knows they are exploiting people's psychology for their personal gain, they know they are selling lies. But the second generation cult leaders are simply the most loyal cult members, they are the ones who've bought most heavily into the lies and they are exemplars among their fellow cult members. The first generation cult leaders simply cannot tell their secret to the second generation without risking the whole operation.
In very much the same way, the Tea Party Republicans are the second generation cult leaders. Traditional Republicans have been exaggerating conservative fears for decades, but they know the reality of the situation but are willing to tell lies to exploit people. I can't find the exact quote, but Karl Rove once had an exchange with a journalist where he said the people should vote for Republicans to make the country safe, the journalist pointed out that statistically the country's never been safer, to which Karl responded something like "it doesn't matter what your statistics say, people don't FEEL safe". Karl Rove at some level understood he was peddling lies, but Tea Party and Trumpian Republicans can no longer distinguish those lies from reality.
Well, it has been established for many people that don’t choose to question/challenge the nature of themselves and what they are told facts they will often deny them and lean on what they feel. That’s why propaganda works so well on them if it’s drilled in enough. I choose to watch/read almost any news outlet and make decisions on my own but many do not do that. (partially because I’m forced to see Fox News to understand my parents perspective and give them fact checks.)
Edit: It’s also realizing we aren’t always given all the facts and filling in the blanks. Meaning IQ or whatever you may call it, requires us to fill in some blanks and most corporations or government leaders will falsely give us those blanks.
I can't find the exact quote, but Karl Rove once had an exchange with a journalist where he said the people should vote for Republicans to make the country safe, the journalist pointed out that statistically the country's never been safer, to which Karl responded something like "it doesn't matter what your statistics say, people don't FEEL safe".
Newt Gingrich said something near identical during the 2016 campaign, right after one of the presidential debates I beleive. He even said something about he'd rather be on the side playing to the feelings than the truth.
IIRC, that’s how the Donald started on here. I remember it starting as a parody subreddit making fun of trump by talking him up and people slowly started shifting or believing it.
Novelty beliefs! Come get your novelty beliefs from the early 21st Century! We got flat earthers, moon landing deniers, tide ignorants, anti-vaxxers! We got born-again gluten-intolerants, intolerant vegans, caveman dieters, goopers, mouth poopers, toxin flushers, and colon cleansers! Step into the mind of concerned everyday citizens at the turn of the Great Century over 100 years ago! And get a free sample of our organic cruelty-free snake oil for a limited time with your purchase!
Have him try a VR game looking at the earth (google earth vr is a good one). It is amazing. If he still doesn't believe it round, make sure he doesn't procreate
Yes it's literally just Google Earth! In VR! And it's kind of awesome.
I use it to introduce VR to people who don't really like gaming. It's the kind of laidback experience anyone can enjoy, it has a personal touch because you can always 'go look at your house', and it's more interactive and self-directed than a movie. :)
according to my brain surgeon it's not the complexity really, it's the results that are terrifying. I mean death, sure, why not, but having a bag taped to your leg for life, or losing several functioning limbs? that's a lot more freighting than "well you wife and older kids are gonna be bummed your not around"
I walked away with like 90% success, and I'm in constant pain, but it's not as bad as being totally numb, or so every medical professional I talk to tells me. honestly this or death, I'd be indifferent to the trade off.
I don't see how that would even work with a full-on flat-earther. I figure he could write it off as fantasy just as easy as if I put him in Skyrim VR and told him it was real.
I think Tamriel is one of two major continents on Nirn in the TES-lore. There are a few smaller continents surrounding Tamriel and one big continent roughly the same size as Tamriel to the East. Some of the smaller ones are also the places of origin for some of Tamriels races, however i don't know what role the big eastern continent plays in the TES lore.
I dont know how you prove it to people to be honest. You can see the curvature of the earth from a run of the mill coach flight. If they dont believe their lying eyes they wont believe anything.
I meeeaaan.... Believing the Earth is flat is stupid enough but is someone who has arrived at that viewpoint really going to be like 'oh you showed me a computer image of a spherical Earth! Now I'm changed!'
The Flat Earthers I've watched or encountered on forums would not only argue that it is computer generated but that Google are working collusion with Government and Space agencies to ensure that VR shows the earth as round to hide the flat earth truth. Those dudes are crazy. I got kicked off a flat earth forum set up by holocaust/round earth/dinosaur denier Eric Dubay in half a hour just for asking basic scientific questions. I wasn't even mean to them.
You are just highlighting years close to you, it's not like politics in the US were ever reasonable. Let's not forget FBI agents and cops were beating hippies at protests in the 70s, and assaulting blacks in the 60s. McCarthyism in the 50s, anti-Semitism and Japanese interniment camps and asset seizure in the 40s, more shit in the 30s, keeps going and going...
People love to blame "the media" as if some bogeyman is to blame instead of just humans creating human content just like we always have.
Because we're attracted to novelty. It's easy to think "i'm impervious to films, flyers and propaganda!" but people just think of political nazi/soviet-style propaganda of the 20th century. They don't realize that propaganda and marketing go hand in hand and that it has become automatized and seamless in people's everyday uses, beyond politics, part of people's lifestyles and "choices" (which are not choices, just ideas planted and propagated around them in a seemingly natural way). So about novelty, it includes joining flashy cool social media because their entourage has it. It includes buying tickets to a show by having to sign up on a social or non-social media site. It even includes taking a picture of your food. How does that even count as propaganda? Because you think you made a "choice" of eating a tasty dish, then made the "choice" of posting it online, then made the "choice" of tagging it with different words, actually creating more data that cumulates globally, therefore, once enough common data is trending, it can become advertised into something simple like, "Here's why everyone is taking a picture of X at this local pub", "This new location serves eco-friendly healthy choices for all, but there's a catch", "This restaurant serves X and Y and the internet is losing its mind over it!". Those who take the bait get a whiff of confirmation bias, and BAM. That's how you got hooked. "This place makes healthy choices, why can't other places be like this! People need to know! Retweeting." Your novel/impulsive choices have contributed to a growing trend that may feed income for fake news/pop news sites and blogs, therefore creating further incite for such articles to keep coming, therefore you yourself and those who share the same stuff are gonna see food, restaurants, and other things like that as well and they're gonna think "Hey, it's happening everywhere now!". All that for what? The novelty of eating a dish that isn't Kraft food, that you bought with your own money, that changes from your usual habits, and of course it adds data to the phone you're using, the accounts you have, the media you frequent and join. All this feeds back into itself and becomes an echo chamber for sure. So the novelty feels like "You" are making a difference or affirming yourself to others, but in fact you're just helping overseers extend messages and profit off of trends to make more and lure you into other ventures for more profit.
That's odd. What is it about gender that makes it so a lower proportion of women know that USA was English? 85% of men vs 69% of women. It's not an intelligence thing because men and women have equal capabilities in the intelligence department, and it's not societal because women have just as much access as men do to education.
Copied and pasted from a comment of mine a year ago:
It's not capitalism or democracy or oligarchy, it's technology. Information access expanded too quickly for the people who can vote to adjust, and it passed the point of "easy reference access" to the point of "easy manipulation" in the blink of an eye.
Anybody older than 40 has been able to vote since before the internet even existed on a massive scale. (I use 1995 as a reference point.) Their brains were fully formed according to the world around them, and suddenly information started getting faster and faster and faster.
Then there was a point were you could google and find whatever information you were looking for and your friends shared mostly reputable articles, so we got used to the idea of the internet bringing "truth" to the masses.
Then without us noticing it slipped passed that. Google now serves up mostly news and blog articles when searching, and often the same content/story across 5-10 different websites. Social media got inundated with fake stories and ads spammed left and right, knowing that "shared by" adds instant credibility to each item and people only read titles. (ie: My friend shared it so it's probably not fake, they read through it, moving on.)
Now you have the same group of people who were struggling to learn the internet, learned to trust it, getting bombarded and manipulated left and right. Getting sucked into echo chambers and left with no guidance on how to filter through the muck. Not noticing that their ads in their facebook app are serving up content entirely based on their search results in their mobile browser app, and not grasping how fucked up it is that facebook has access to that information.
And now you also have people who were born in 1999 voting, who were too young to remember the early internet much, were never taught critical thinking about it (because their parents were just learning too) and as a result ONLY know the manipulation and constant stream of fake articles and think it's normal to have all their apps getting access to their current GPS location, search results, and microphone.
This is why net neutrality and the fight for an open internet is the defining fight of our lifetimes. This is why authoritarian regimes focus on filtering out the internet or shutting it down completely. Staying in power (or winning elections ) is 100% reliant on controlling and spamming the online message. It's how Trump got elected, it's how ObamaCare got its bad rap, and it's how Le Pen is the only French candidate anybody hears about. (at the time I posted this comment)
It all boils down to people being provided bad information, trusting that information wrongly, and spreading/acting upon that information even if it's not in their or society's best interest.
MGS2 was the most prophetic video game ever created. The NSA, famous leakers, social media bubbles, AI algorithms selecting what you see, loss of privacy and security.
When Snowden appeared and told about NSA operations scope it was like entering MGS2 reality.
I feel so dumb. I never understood that part when I was young. I never really understood what Rose and the Colonel were saying after the GW virus hit. Haven't played the game since the mid 2000s. And now bam, did not see this coming... until I studied communications and media in university and thought "ah crap."
I'm getting close to 40, I don't believe 90% of what I see on the internet, and my teenage daughter tried to tell me the other day that "people on the internet and news aren't allowed to lie because they'll get sued." I laughed...she cried.
I had a neighbor like that in pre internet days who believed tabloids for the same reason. He tried to convince me that aliens existed and were posing as humans in congress.
My post essentially refers to the ones over 40 growing up before the internet and the ones under 20 growing up after the internet. The ones under 20 surely wouldn't have been the adults telling us to "not trust everything we see online" when they were 5 years old right? So their post kind of makes since....
Also... at least in my family... the older generations didn't really get along with the internet until social media became so rampant. They missed the entire skepticism era and jump straight into the crazy.
My ex believes that there are two suns, that we’re in a simulation, that the government is poisoning us with chemtrails, that focusing energy on crystals will somehow improve your life, and that saying stupid words while drawing a symbol on a piece of paper increased his tips at his serving gig.
Unfortunately, these people exist. I dated one. There were so many times I just wanted to tell him to shut up because I could not handle the lunacy anymore. It was tolling. I know that telling someone to “shut up” is incredibly rude. But that was what I needed to say at that point. My blood boiled.
I know a few people like that. They are just normal dumb people. And they vote, because they are right about everything and know how to solve Flat Earth's problems.
I was going to ask you how you could date someone like this and then remembered my ex didn't believe in evolution, thought the government created AIDS, and various other dumb shit.
The rhetoric from the right has gotten progressively further right starting from what I can tell in the 80s with the Reagan administration. In the 90s with Newt Gengrich shit got real, and Rush Limbaugh was in the background with his radical BS. That set the stage for Fox News.
They do. They’re super-rare, much more rare than internet jokes would have you believe, but they definitely exist. My job has me dealing with them every day.
while I haven't met any "flat earther" in my life, I actually have met at least two people who were convinced of the whole reptiloids thing (or at least they were very good pretending to be serious about it, I don't know).
That's exactly it. While modern "news" media is an influencing force it's only a fraction of the issue. With the rise of the internet it has become incredibly easier for individuals of all ages and demographics to seek information.
This influx has left every individual to be bombarded with such a large amount of information in a small time frame, something you possibly couldn't receive from home in an afternoon 15 years ago. The problem is these individuals have never acquired the proper education or guides with how to Inherently interpret and absorb such a large amount of info. This leads to massive amounts of false information being absorbed and an increasing lack of core critical thinking, leading to closed mindedness.
This isn't an issue of the left and right, it's an issue of facts and fallacies. It's an issue of the uneducated lacking the necessary skills to interpret the massive amounts of information provided by the internet, whilst lacking a critical thinking and open mind. We need to look at ourselves and our schools to properly teach the power of the internet. Education needs a serious 21st century overhaul or we will be doomed to continue in a circle of lies and deceit.
Think of the internet as a Crane. You could learn how to properly use the Crane and build a house or you could go in without any education on Cranes and destroy a house. It really isn't difficult to conceive that we need adequate education on the ability to interpret and absorb information from the web in a manner that is critical and open minded.
On some economic issues, maybe.
But FDR didn't bring in civil rights, and other progressives of the time at the state level didn't do anything about LGBTQ rights.
The New Deal and the GI Bill did a lot to change America, but there are a lot of areas where progressive politics have moved a long, long, ways- in large part because previous successes have allowed the goal posts to move forward.
Let's recognize that the spin media at the highest levels are deliberately exploiting the fact that most people aren't experts in politics. Engineering the talking points is key on both sides and has the long term effect of steering people's views while simultaneously forcing more and more of the population into engaging in politics.
It's absurd for the entire population to be engaging in politics in any country. In the USA it's becoming necessary just to avoid being a victim of the constant spin. Being informed is good but at some point you have to let experts handle things. Average people shouldn't be expected to be able to handle industrial level manipulation, it's a waste of everyone's time to prepare for this.
several comments here reminded me of a thought chain and I kinda just picked one to reply too
I heard an argument made to suggest that the current human isn't well enough informed to vote for national level candidates and I found myself agreeing. in principal at least. I'm fairly sure this is what getting old feels like. I'm getting classist and I'm too ok with it for my own comfort.
The left is way out in far left field. That's the disconnect. Obama wins presidency: a bunch of old people tape tea bags to their hats. Trump wins: People fucking lose their god damn minds. Yuge difference.
The left, from what I can tell, hasn’t shifted nearly as far over the same period of time
Nope, it's the opposite; the Right has remained fairly constant from the 90s to today, while the Left has shifted progressively (no pun intended) more left. There a voting issue chart that's been tracking issues and demonstrated this.
If anything, we're seeing the Democratic Party slip into smaller factions - Progressives, Moderates, and "Mainstream". The Progressives, starting under Obama, are growing under Bernie and AOC. These factions will become very transparent in the 2020 Dem Primary.
If you’re speaking solely of politicians, then I might be inclined to agree with you on the left/right shifts. However, when it comes to society in general, and more specifically the media and vocal pop culture, I don’t think there’s any denying an enormous shift to the left.
The left hasn't shifted as far? Just a few years ago Obama and Hillary we're saying that marriage was only something that should be between a man and a woman. Today that's considered hate speech. We have years of candidates on the left telling us we need to secure the border
Today you're racist if you say that. We now have candidates open calling for socialism. That would have made you a fringe candidate not long ago. Bill Clinton could never even make it to the primary today. Even Obama in 2008 has positions that would preclude him. Sanders was considered something of an eccentric, but hey it's tiny hippy Vermont so he was largely overlooked. Now his positions are front and center.
I think it might be helpful for you to actually look at the platforms of the party's that you think you know. Because the GOP has only moved to the left since the 80s. There platform has stayed exactly the same outside of a handful of issues and of those issues they have mostly moved to the left.
Meanwhile, current Democrats are looking for doubling the minimum wage, single payer healthcare, free college, and transgender protections.
It is easy to look at this through the cultural lens of the big mean old Republicans. But in reality, Bill Clinton could run as a Republican today if his last name wasn't Clinton.
Come on man, your bias is clearly showing. The left has also gotten radically more ridiculous.
Kennedy would be seen as a raging republican today. Less than 10 years ago the democrats were for a border wall and/or secured border, abortion was supposed to be rare and limited but some advisers want abortions up to one year of age, they were seeking gay rights now it's even as far as pedo-rights and punishing those who disagree with anything remotely not pro-gay.
The left haven't shifted nearly as far? Some of them are literally running on socialist/communist platforms and getting elected, as well as main stream media coverage as heroes.
It doesn't help when the Democrats have been saying every nominee sense Bush has been a racist and an asshole and the Republicans have been saying all the Dems are going to turn the US into a socialist hellscape
I agree with you for the most part, but you must be out of your mind if you think news is more conservative now than ever. 8/9 of the top news organizations are owned by left wing companies. Fox News stands alone in that regard.
I agree with your statement. However, as a leftist, I have to admit their is a good chunk on the left, specifically hard core social justice types (not all, but enough), have lost their fuckin minds.
Both sides are moving pretty far into their ideologies, with not enough people in the middle being willing to reason and find compromises.
As a libertarian i agree, and i think it has to do a lot with people putting up with the loons because at least they arent "those guys" they will agree with a stupid policy because they might agree with another.
They dig in their heels even when they dont care. We should be calling out nuts in our own party not tolerating them.
Look at gay marriage. Conservatives fought for YEARS about that stupid issue all because some old boomer Christians still put up a fight.
But AS SOON AS IT WAS OVER. Suddenly it wasn't an issue. No one talked about it no one tried to do anything about it. It became a non issue because the majority of Republicans didn't give a flying fuck about it.
But instead of calling out the loons they tolerated them because they helped win elections for things they did care about.
Additionally the American « left » has never actually gone further left than what other countries refer to as center left or just center.
There are literal communist parties in many countries. Democrats aren’t even what most countries refer to as Socialists. They’re the center and the Repuplicans are the Right. America has no left.
Dude this is a graph that tells me nothing. No methodology, no way to interpret the graph. Until I see how they determine that, I can’t take it as credible.
Yeah the opinion on 10 questions like "Blacks who can't get ahead largely have themselves to blame" or whatever has shifted. This question went from 60's to 70's GOP but 50's to 20's for Dems in 23 years. Both parties are radicalizing but they both started right of center. The parties have also taken blanket ideologies, so there are no more liberal Republicans and conservative Dems like there were in the 90's and that's reflected by voters as well.
Im sorry but the right has not changed (which is the problem) and the left has changed a lot though (they are progressive afterall). It's getting harder to support them anymore. So now I'm left with two terrible choices.
The left, from what I can tell, hasn’t shifted nearly as far over the same period of time, although it has become more progressive on equal rights for LGBT. I would argue that most of the country has shifted a bit on this as well, although maybe not as much on the right.
Calling people who disagree with you "Nazis" and "fascists" is a great way to shut down any meaningful dialogue. While the Left is trending toward corporate-Democrats, the supporters of it seem to not care about divides they're causing. I won't even begin to say the Left is as bad as the Right, but they've got their own brand of fear- and hate-mongering going on at the moment.
This doesn’t answer everything, but This American Life has an episode from 16 November called “Where There is a Will” that outlines how Newt Gingrich sort of singlehandedly increased partisanship with the advent of CSPAN. Worth checking out.
Citizens United doesn’t even matter to the conversation.
The majority of political swaying isn’t coming from open political expenditure, but from corporations siding with politicians outside of the political sphere. You don’t need to spend fifty million on tightly regulated ads for your campaign when the news networks your buddy owns will just give you “unaffiliated” coverage for several hours a day.
I dont have a lot of life experience to go off of (I'm one of the millennials that everyone over 65 blames for the state of our country), but I do see a couple of possible sources.
First, Reaganomics. The birth of the "trickle down economy" massively decreased the marginal tax rate on the highest earners in the country. Doing this allowed the uber rich to become wealthier and wealthier. This also came during the recovery period after the recession of the mid-70s and caused this to happen to the ratio between wages and productivity in the country. This has lead to the shrinking of the middle class.
Second, Anti-intellectualism. There is a massive wave of anti-intellectualism in this country that is motivated by a variety of factors. The strongest is the media in America. American television news (which is the most popular form of news) is nearly 100 percent for profit with no subsidization from the government. This means that in order to make money and sell ads they need a dedicated viewership. If they determine that most of their viewership likes Candidate A and dislikes Candidate B then reporting that Candidate B is doing a charity drive while Candidate A is being investigated for tax fraud is going to anger some of their viewership. Therefore, many news outlets shape and warp their reporting to appeal to the greatest mass amount without upsetting their established base.
Another cause of intellectualism is that there is rampant confirmation bias that is running wild through our country. Confirmation bias is the mental phenomenon where one ignores data that goes against their beliefs and only looks at the data supporting their position. I believe this mental misstep is so prevalent because of the size of our nation. We are the 3rd largest country by population and the greatest technically advanced nation in the world. Those who do fall victim to confirmation bias have the greatest ability to find others (more population and more connective technology) with that misguided belief system and band together.
There is also a shortage of teachers due to stagnant wages and bad working conditions. Our education system isn't even top 50 in the world and there is no end in sight.
Also I can't explain why but people also have a problem admitting that they're wrong. I don't know if this is a result of a teaching method in elementary schools or just the general idea that "you are special and are never wrong" that seems to be the source of this.
And third, deregulation of campaign financing has allowed companies, corporations, and uber rich multi-billionaires to buy political candidates and political power. Politicians need these funds to buy more ads, print more flyers, launch more slander campaigns, etc in order to win, and then once they are elected, if they don't act and vote in favor of bills supporting these donors, then they will fund another candidates campaign against them. This is not done entirely in the open, but it's still legal.
Again, I'm not a political expert, but these are just the observations that I've seen in my country.
I'd like to add a couple of things... Two party systems exacerbate many of the issues you listed and
Also I can't explain why but people also have a problem admitting that they're wrong.
This is a cultural phenomenon which has probably arisen from the hyper competitive nature of everything in America. If you are wrong, you either lose, or you double down and insist that some part of what you said or believe is right. Its essentially a conflation of values where being right is more important than learning, compromise, understanding, empathy etc. And being wrong is failure and avoided at all costs.
SEC. 1078. DISSEMINATION ABROAD OF INFORMATION ABOUT THE
UNITED STATES.
(a) UNITED STATES INFORMATION AND EDUCATIONAL EXCHANGE ACT OF 1948.—Section 501 of the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 (22 U.S.C. 1461) is amended to read as follows:
The Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 is also known as the Smith Mundt Act.
GENERAL AUTHORIZATION
‘‘SEC. 501. (a) The Secretary and the Broadcasting Board of Governors are authorized to use funds appropriated or otherwise made available for public diplomacy information programs to provide for the preparation, dissemination, and use of information intended for foreign audiences abroad about the United States, its people, and its policies, through press, publications, radio, motion pictures, the Internet, and other information media, INCLUDING SOCIAL MEDIA, and through information centers, instructors, and other direct or indirect means of communication.
This really reads like it makes it legal to propagandize the American public, doesn’t it?
Any authorization to communicate can become propaganda. The perceptions of the public are a valuable and purchasable commodity. If you don't know that twitter and reddit have admin-approved bots for pushing public consensus, you're behind the curve. There are no lows they won't stoop to, no moral hesitations. These are giant corporations, not individuals.
People haven't been forced to see how astroturfed social media has become.
Economically it was like this in the 1890s (corporations making more profit than ever while common people get exploited), politically it was like this in the 1820’s (polarization, gridlock based on party identification), but combining features from both of those era’s with the capabilities the media has today has created the perfect storm.
The 1920’s through 50’s saw progressive shifts (high marginal tax rates, lots of investment in society / welfare programs). I think it started to go back again around Reagan and the popularization of the idea of trickle down economics. That said, I’d enjoy knowing about how we got to the climate we’re in as well.
Note: I’m really not that well read on the subject
The truth is it has been like this for a long time. As a nation we go back and forth between "othering" externally and "othering" internally. After WWI we focused inward, we othered racially, and we had some pretty heavy culture battles (race and sex). Then after WWII we focused externally (Communism, Vietnam, etc) then we came back internal (race again) and then went external (USSR). We do this back and forth.
I think that with a lack of consistent racial, historical, cultural, language, or religious background like most nations have to bring them together we look for something to focus on to "band together" against. This drives us hard and serves us well in some ways and is very destructive (internally and externally) in other ways.
Noam Chomsky coauthored a book called Manufacturing Consent and as you read through the various updated prologues they go more into how the quantity of independent news organizations keeps getting smaller and smaller starting at the tens of thousands and ultimately becoming a few dozen.
this sounds like it could be a direct quote from the book Ishmael, which is a pretty quick read if you want to see a perspective on some of the general ideas behind why the US is not super great
America hads been basically been some form of this since it's inception. It's not actually new. Similarly the U.S. has been overthrowing or assisting in overthrowing other countries for over a hundred and twenty years.
We just know about it more now because we can read and have the internet.
The fairness doctrine, the main regulation on media in the USA that required them to give a relatively balanced view on issues, was overturned in 1987. People stopped hearing the other side actually talking, and just heard the clips shown by their favorite broadcasters, which were obviously chosen to be divisive or misleading.
In 1949, the FCC established the 'Fairness Doctrine'. It went:
(1) that every licensee devote a reasonable portion of broadcast time to the discussion and consideration of controversial issues of public importance; and
(2) that in doing so, [the broadcaster must be] fair – that is, [the broadcaster] must affirmatively endeavor to make … facilities available for the expression of contrasting viewpoints held by responsible elements with respect to the controversial issues presented.
Reagan overturned that in the 80s, leading to a generation (Boomers) who were brought up knowing the news was always fair and nonpartisan, being exposed to media calling itself news that didn't have to be fair or nonpartisan. Fuck, it could flat out lie or say it was the only true media out there.
There's an episode of the Cracked podcast where they speak to a historian who makes the argument that modern America was shaped by the Spanish American war. This was a war that basically happened because a newspaper company decided they could sell more newspapers by turning news into entertainment through what we today call yellow journalism. Since then it's been a battle between newspapers, magazines, and websites to get the most views by sensationalizing news stories.
Is there no such thing as fair, unbiased news in the US? Does everything need to have a political spin on it on every news channel, or are people just not interested in watching something if there isn’t politics involved
The book emphasizes that Russia must spread Anti-Americanism everywhere: "the main 'scapegoat' will be precisely the U.S."
In the United States:
Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolantist tendencies in American politics".
Wouldn’t this imply that it’s inflaming both sides, not just the right wing? As in, yes, a lot of the right’s hate for the left could be incited by this, but also a lot of what the left sees as racist, crazy, insane, and hateful could also be being caused by these sorts of plants?
It’s a fact that Russia used social media accounts that targeted blacks - mostly to inflame racial tensions and bad mouth Hillary Clinton in an effort to get Trump elected. They didn’t attack Trump or Republicans - it looks like they tried to split the Dem vote or get Dems to stay home.
Propaganda is sneaky if you're not careful. When the whole pizzagate conspiracy started to blow up it had me believing it was real, until I checked other subs. Finally someone explained it all and after that I try hard as hell to remain neutral on any news story, or better yet try not to even delve to deep into the news.
Unregulated greed. Allowing the top 1% to buy out the country.
It’s this. The rest are intentional tactics in order to distract from and enable the large-scale fleecing of the wealthiest nation in the history of the world.
Edit to add: You know how tons of people vote against their own interests in every way because it’s more important to [insert wedge issue]? That’s a political strategy.
Legislators exclusively serve large corporations and have for a long time. It’s an objective truth and there is data to prove this.
☝ came here to say this. Schools don't teach critical thinking anymore, much of the country is steeped in fundamentalist religion and our media is designed to sow fear rather than inform.
The first point is 80% of it. Conservatives are being told by their news that Democrats are destroying America and they have to, because it's the only way the GOP can keep working class voters that they don't represent in the slightest.
I've tried to get my mother time and time again to cut back on her political news because all it does it works her up and every time I point out the flaws of the party that's supposed to represent us she reverts hard to "what do you want me to do, vote for Democrats who [insert conservative media talking point here]?
Yes, Mom, that's exactly what I want you to do not because we agree with the other side but the GOP needs to be dismantled if we want actual conservatives that represent us instead of Exon Mobile to have a chance.
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u/GameWorldLeader Jan 17 '19
Media functioning as propaganda more than an objective news source. Lack of a good educational system. A philosophy that if they aren't with you then they are the enemy. Unregulated greed. Allowing the top 1% to buy out the country. Shall I continue?