76 comments on Resource Depletion, Persuasion, and the Ongoing World Meme
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I may be barking up the wrong tree here, or just barking, but I believe we need to differentiate between the quantity and the quality of information. There can be no doubt that the quantity of information, news, ect. has never been more abundant. Never, in all human history, have we been subjected to such barrage of information, supplied by the mass media, let's call in news, because most other information, for most people, if it's not 'news' could probably be best described as 'specialist' information directed at an 'elite' audience, much like most of the contributors to the Oil Drum. I wish it wasn't so, but I think we all know it is.
For various reasons I believe we're moving away from a society where the primary source or medium of information is the written word, towards something else. I'm not sure this is a positive development. Words are not only cheap, their easy, robust and contain collosal ammounts of information, and almost become living things in the 'dialogue' with the reader. For example, check out poetry for density of meaning. It's almost like the cognative version of oil!
We as a society seem to be moving towards 'symbolism' again after a long period when words were dominant. Don't we say a picture is worth a thousand words? Well, perhaps, it's actually the opposite that's true. A word is worth a thousand pictures!
Where am I going with this? It's easy to get into metaphysics and philosophy here, and though it's tempting, I'm not sure we've got the time for all that. So I'll just say that I think we're in a uphill battle, against very powerful societal forces that base their power and wealth on pandering to the lowest common denominator and dumbing-down the population.
For example the Murdoch press. News International destroys everything it touches, drains the life and quality out of once pround institutions, like The Times and the Sunday Times in England, and replaces them with dry, husks. Not to mention the ghastly Sun, which should carry a health warning! But here I go sounding very elitist indeed, sorry.
It's said in England that The Sun chooses who is going to be the next Prime Minister. This is slightly over-the-top, but not by much. A politician, or party, or individual that gets on the wrong side of The Sun is in Big Trouble. In England Tony Blair often consulted with The Sun's owner Rupert Murdoch on important issues before he talked to members of his own government, now that is real power!
Murdoch developed his style in Australia. One could call it 'fast food news'. A mix of sex, scandal, gossip, and more sex. There's an anti-intellectualism, or anti-intelligence slant to The Sun and other Murdoch newspapers, that reminds one of the style of Der Sturmer and other papers from Nazi Germany, which is really disturbing.
But to cut to the chase, I think 'reality' will just have to step-up and bite us hard on the arse, before we wake-up. It's not as if we're really asleep, but we are 'drugged'. We're like the Romans, dulled and entertained, with bread and circuses. Obviously this is depressing stuff, if my analysis is true or accurate. Are things really as bad as they seem?
I don't think we have hope in hell of cutting through the crap given the current way our mass media are organized, owned by a handful of 'aristocrats' for the benefit of the 'aristocracy' and their world-view. What's bizarre is, that research has shown that it's not as if most people who read and watch the mass, mainstream, media, even really believe what they're presented with, but they are 'entertained' and 'diverted' and that's probably bad enough, as people only have room in their heads for so much 'news' before they get saturated and switch off completely.
Journalism is in deep crisis too. Journalists are expected to produce more and more, quicker and quicker, with fewer resources. This leads to spreading the butter too thin. Journalists who actually knew stuff, who specialized, are being replaced by all-round generalists who are expected to cover everything and are parachuted into an area and have to get up to speed and then move on. This leads to rather superficial reporting to say the least.
The whole debacle of Iraq shows just how bad things have become. America was dragged into war based on a pack of lies. Lies, often so obviously false and manipulated, that it's hard to believe even a novice journalist could have given them any credence. So our mass media is really, really, sick; but is it terminal? The very structure of the mass media mitigates against understanding and the real disimination of information of high quality, just like Mcdonalds isn't really food at all, it only has the appearance of food. It only 'symbolises' food.
Is there any hope then? Gosh, I don't know! Sometimes one feels like one is drowning in a sea of crap. Surely in a free and democratic society we can take back control from the tiny group of men who have accumulated such enormous media power and use it to further their own narrow economic interests and start over? But do I believe that? No, not really. I'm afraid it's a romantic dream.
But, but, there have been times when information did break its bonds and become free. Unfortunately these were pretty turbulent times, do we really have to wait that long? In the years leading up to the English Civil War, centally contolled censorship broke down, and literally thousands of new presses printed 'radical' pamplets and books. There was an explosion and people were starving for information and ideas, suddenly, everything apparently possible or thinkable and society was in flux. There was revolution in the air people breathed. This period lasted perhaps ten to twenty years, and then the old restraints returned and Britain's presses were under firm control for almost the next three hundred years!
Are we going to have to wait for a period of 'flux' like that, or revolutionary France where the same thing happened? Unfortunately, I think the answer is yes we are. Of course there's the internet, which is a great resource, and opportunity and a fantastic outlet, but corporate control of the media and what we think about, and how we think about it, and the context and framing of the debate, is frighteningly pervasive and effective.
writerman
Phew ! - Once again I find myself agreeing with everything you say.
One positive development you touch on is the way in which web sites like TOD are taking over the function once performed by quality newspapers. Since I started reading TOD I personally have become MUCH more discriminating in my choice of reading matter. For example, whilst I used to hold the Financial Times and WSJ in high regard in economic matters and well over my head, I can now see that much of what they report about, for example, the energy situation, is just so much ignorant crap.
The reportage of the BBC is beyond and beneath contempt. There is more genuine insight and news in a six month old copy of Womans Own.
Nobody likes to hear bad news unless there's some good news in it. Charismatic religious leaders promise a better life or afterlife. Hitler promised a greater Germany and blamed "somebody else" for their problems.
What's our promise of something better? Even in the most hopeful forecasts of the post-oil age it's not going to be much fun around here.
A few thoughts on the structure and nature of the news media
Media and Advertising:
First and foremost the current structure of the MSM news media drives it toward poor coverage. We tend to think of news companies as engaged in the business of investigative reporting. Where they research a story, generate a report and sell it to the consumer to cover the cost. In this model a news company competes with its peers to provide higher quality news. Once upon a time that was true, but now the model is slightly different. Since the advent of modern marketing and advertising news companies are engaged in the business of producing an audience and selling advertising space to cover costs. In this business model the reader, listener or viewer is not the consumer but the product. In this model news companies compete to provide a higher quality audience. Higher quality news uses the central processing route. A higher quality audience uses the peripheral processing route. High quality news is all about critical thought. A high quality audience is all about click, whirr infotainment. Critical thought is not conducive to selling tons of crap that one doesn't really need.
Opinions about the Media
When thinking of the news media we typically think of the free press. Which directly leads us to think of freedom freedom of speech. Consequently we think that the role of the news media is strongly aligned with the interests of democracy. A free and open exchange of ideas and information being debated in the public sphere. If one has a strong objection to the quantity and quality of reporting on a particular issue, say peak oil, then negative impressions of the integrity of the free press develop. In order to maintain these negative opinions one needs a reason to think badly of the press. For progressives it's Rupert Murdoch and corporate hegemony, for conservatives it's the liberal media. For Joe six pack it's neither, the news is just fine. Joe isn't sufficiently informed about anything to find fault with the coverage. It is worthwhile to note that the low quality of coverage makes it easy to find fault, but the fault that you find is based on what you were already concerned about that was missing or poorly covered. This leads you to believe that the news is biased against your particular values whatever they may be. Since the practice of investigative journalism is rapidly dying (if not already dead) more people are finding fault with the media. News companies are experiencing a credibility problem. We are already seeing comedy routines like The Daily Show replacing network news as a source of news and of course the internet, which brings me to my next point.
Search vs Broadcast
The traditional news media of print, radio and television are all broadcast systems. The news comes to you. The internet is a search system. Open up a browser to the homepage and then go looking for news. If you want to know what everyone else is looking at then you go to Google news or something similar, but if you want to know what the latest news on peak oil is then you need to type peak oil into a search engine. It is not possible do do this with out already knowing the term. Thus using the internet to find the content not presented in the broadcast news is investigative journalism for one and that is not very efficient. News in the sense that we know it requires broadcast systems. So the question is how do we fix the broadcast news? I see two answers. One, we go back to subscription news services without advertising. Two, we create a new system to share all of that individual investigate journalism, sort it, covert it to manageable packets and broadcast it all in a high quality way without a revenue stream from advertising or subscriptions. I'm open to suggestions on this.
Dropping Out
On a closing note many people are realizing the poor quality of the MSM people are dropping out. They are not consuming news. The upside of this is that people are no longer subjecting themselves to the infotainment that passes as news. The downside is that current events are no longer disseminated. Just as anecdotal evidence of this I work at a Cooperative Organic foods store and a locally owned coffee shop, both in close proximity to university area and thus a liberal crowd. Fully half of my coworkers did not know that Al Gore had won the Nobel prize until I asked them what they thought about it.
Tim Morrison
PS Professor Goose, it was nice to finally meet you. Gail introduced me to you after your speech at the conference.
Good to meet you too Tim!
(I pretty much agree with all you say here, btw.)
But "Der Sturmer" didn't have such hot pinup girls.
Still, it's nice to know a newspaper editor (Julius Streicher) can be executed for war crimes.
Now that I've read your whole entry -
When societies were small and simple and news was scarce,
ordinary folks were hungry for information.
Maybe modern complexity has caused a feedback loop that undermines democracy. The rich have a vested interest in further complexity and inequality, and can hire specialized stooges to manage it in their favor. Complexity and specialization turns off ordinary citizens, however, so that they become info-saturated and no longer want to get "involved".
So the only kind of revolution that both nature and popular tendencies support is a collapse of complexity, which is so often discussed here.
Just for the record, Who owns the media?
I think we have as much chance of encouraging people to drive less, use CF lighting, etc will work about as much as we try to have them walk up to the TV and change the station while the Remote Control is still sitting on the table.
We will keep doing what we're doing till we can't, then we won't.
Date this quote:
"The class inhibitions that haunt the contemporary press under its multimillionaire ownership are responsible in large measure for the neurotic character of American newspapers. Because so many fields of editorial investigation and exposition are taboo, the press as a whole must confine itself to a relatively restricted "safe" area.
This accounts for the undue measure of attention given to the underworld; to petty scandals involving actresses, baseball players, and minor politicians; to sporting affairs and the activities of the quasiwealthy. The press, in short, must compensate for enforced lack of vitality in dynamic fields by artificial enthusiasm in static fields. In place of an evenhanded, vital, varied daily news report, the American press as a whole is obliged to present a lopsided news report that is of doubtful reader interest. And in order to recapture the constantly waning attention of readers it must rely upon comic strips, inane "features", contests, gossip columns, fiction, cooking recipes, instruction columns in golf, chess, bridge, and stamp collecting, and similar nonsense. American newspapers, in short, are, paradoxically and with few exceptions, not newspapers at all."
-Ferdinand Lundberg, "America's 60 Families", c. 1938
And probably the most disturbing thing about this piece is that since the 30's things have actually gotten worse. The concentration of media power has accelerated, espcially in the last twenty years. The 1930's almost seems like a 'golden age' of ownership diversity! I read the other day that the FCC was considering 'relaxing' the restrictions on concentration even further. The way we're going in a relatively short space of time over 90% of the US media will be controlled by just three giant corporations who 'co-opperate'.
One can also look at the negative cultural effect all this has on American music. There's so much great music that never gets played or heard, because the formats are so proscribed and controlled. These days many of the iconic and groundbreaking bands from the sixties would never get played because they don't conform to the station's format. These 'monopolies' are strangling American music culture, and that's a shame.
Writerman,
Your right man.
So my response is to find that music on the FM radio as 'Golden Oldies' and of course zero 'news' on that station or just a very little.
That music however just doesn't seem to want to 'fade'. Its far too good to do so. Yet mainstream America doesn't listen to it...one wonders just what the hell they do listen to?
I think nothing ...except the incipient(correct word?)..cellphone stuck to their ears and the ubiquitous TV.
My wife was enchanted and enthralled by the 'infomercials' on TV..she thought they were honest folks who knew everything. I suppose to her Ron Popeil was a visionary.
For her generation(the one after mine) she was totally hooked and never could squirm off. It seemed to feed some part of her brainstem, some imperative to just 'listen' to this quakery. And then of course "Go Shopping"....
I never did understand this behavior in her. Perhaps why I live more or less alone sans TV..but lots of sound and music..bluegrass primarily and some favorites from my youth...music that really spoke to the inner person..and not just advertising trash.
To this day my wife hears it on TV..to her its gospel!
She never really was able to read either fiction or non-fiction..her parents had wired her brain backwards I think. My daughter ditto...even if she is a school teacher...my son the same..even if he is a CPA and has a MA in accountancy...they are wired far different than myself...not a boomer. Yet my wife's father was never in the military!