A New Approach to News Medias

Putting together ones life with the modern world.
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Nefastos
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A New Approach to News Medias

Post by Nefastos »

I have always felt that there's a big problem in the way how the news medias present the world. I do not mean political affiliations (which would be prohibited discussion in SoA anyway, due to our rule of avoidance of political issues), but how the idea of giving only a certain kind of news is acted out in practice.

In a planet that is in many ways in a disastrous state, and also opened to global communication, news become like your daily piece of apocalypse. It would be bad enough (even though and because very important) to see in what state are the things you can actually do something about, but mostly the news are about disasters you can do nothing about. Daily outpouring of this global distress and emergency would need a counterbalance, and that counterbalance should come from the same source. Otherwise it is not credible, but places itself differently in the brain.

I think we would have a great need of "statistically constructed news." Only this would give to people the correct idea of what is happening in the world. So, in addition to newsflashes about every day's catastrophes from different parts of the world, statistically equal amount of good news should be distributed accordingly. And I mean actual news, not something that is made to lull people into that unthinking state where we go while watching a stream of instant videos. That is the opposite reality.

For every news pieces about wars, natural catastrophes, murders and social injustices, there should be statistically valid stream of news how things have gone well. Because this is not done, the balance is sought from enterteinment that does not actually answer to the problem, but creates two realities: the global reality (which is fucked up) and personal reality (which is made of self-picked fantasy).

I actually think this small-seeming thing is actually quite a large part of the reason why our world has become so horrendously relativistic and nihilistic, every individual crawling into one's personal seashell. Worlds of the macro- and microcosm are being separated because they no longer have a shared platform. (Such a platform was formed automatically in the old world smaller scale communities. But after the break through of the global culture, those communities must be created artificially, and that is handled very poorly nowadays; in all the ways that encourage separatism.)

Edit: weird typo
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
Kavi
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Re: A New Approach to News Medias

Post by Kavi »

There could be analysis on how News media outlets really are not neutral messengers when it comes to news but I'd point shortly that News run on idea about emotions. You get fear and anger and then suddenly afterwards funny little entertaining piece about celebrities or something quite trivial which makes us restful until the next time.

Lot of yellow press especially plays with this in variety of ways - dumb down articles that don't even meet the criteria of news with intention to just generate emotion, hence more clicks and so on.

Really wished there were more critical analysis on different phenomenas instead of just scratching the surface and there was time actually to stop down and contemplate but I feel steam is growing and this pathological modes of binary of fear - joy increasing. Not to forget how we are bombarded and seeking to be bombarded with stimulating things to feed our dopamine receptors each day.

I feel that this makes us want at least some form of stability and be in secure. Maybe partially this explains why we tend to hold on small groups for security because that's only thing we have left but maybe there is ways to increase belonging and social cohesion for others.
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Nefastos
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Re: A New Approach to News Medias

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Kavi wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 3:56 pmNews run on idea about emotions. You get fear and anger and then suddenly afterwards funny little entertaining piece about celebrities or something quite trivial which makes us restful until the next time.

The newsfeed as a whole usually does that, although it most likely shouldn't. When thinking about writing the text above I came to think for the first time how different it might be to read the newsfeed or a newspaper in case I'd be into spectator sports. The news about them appear to give this counterbalance, even though that is absurd. First there are real news about real events, and then there are these pseudo-news about completely artificial events.

But in case we would like to think about the "hard" news, we must leave both spectator sports and gossip about the celebrities out. Those are not actually news pieces: they are the same instant fluff that does not actually mean anything unless one projects meanings into those events. It really does not mean anything that someone wore a certain kind of dress, or that someone managed to hit a ball with club. Such irrelevant news are made interesting solely by astral glamour. In a real world or real emotions they would be be parts of what I was calling "statistical news," nothing more. In the middle of the news about little Tim's hedgehog having babies and aunt Bob finding a boyfriend from a holiday trip.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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Benemal
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Re: A New Approach to News Medias

Post by Benemal »

There would be a lot, but just briefly, a question. Did anyoone else start to feel, last year, that the daily corona statistics became a prayer, of the new inescapable viral religion? Seemed to me almost everyone was converted. I admit there was feelings of superiority often, watching the circus. And of course it's a religion, when everyone can/or has to choose their facts. Be in this or that faction, relative to the new paradigm. Part of it being your faction is the one, that has chosen the right, god given facts. Whichever media/authority priesthood you subscribe to are representatives of your religion, and also dipping into the other side, you risk heresy and social punishment. Most media represents the left/right superfactions (protestant/catholic), which means it's all propaganda to me.

I haven't watched news since 2013, but I browse them online, about once a week, just to know how close the big one is. Also there's some fun and intelligent journalists on YT.
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Nefastos
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Re: A New Approach to News Medias

Post by Nefastos »

Benemal wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 12:41 pmDid anyoone else start to feel, last year, that the daily corona statistics became a prayer, of the new inescapable viral religion?

Not exactly. While it has been quite interesting (and sometimes unpleasant) to note how the pandemic pressed some new cultural consensuses into very dense quality, I wouldn't call this a religion. Perhaps because to me religion is always everywhere where there are human beings, and it doesn't ring in any way false or despotic by definition.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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Benemal
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Re: A New Approach to News Medias

Post by Benemal »

Nefastos wrote: Wed Sep 29, 2021 8:58 am Perhaps because to me religion is always everywhere where there are human beings, and it doesn't ring in any way false or despotic by definition.
I don't know what you mean. Then the Catholic church isn't a religion? Since it's false and despotic.

I guess I've told you about my theory of everything; Everything Is A Religion, including all the atheistic ideoligies, like political. It's massively simplifying things, but that's how I find the truth (whether true or not, is beside the point). Also it's just a working hypothesis, and it becoming my religion would be stupidity I want to avoid.
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Nefastos
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Re: A New Approach to News Medias

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Benemal wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 9:30 amI don't know what you mean. Then the Catholic church isn't a religion? Since it's false and despotic.

Well, one could argue that. It's actually not a bad way to think this: one could say that the Catholic church stopped being a religion and chose to be a mundane power some 1700 years ago. Just yesterday I came across this:

"As a Christian I have to share the burden of my brother's wrongness, and that is most heavy when I do not know whether in the end he is not more right than I. (...) Every totalitarian claim gradually isolates itself because it excludes so many people as "defectors, lost, fallen, apostate, heretic," and so forth. The totalitarian maneuvers himself into a corner, no matter how large his original following. I hold all confessionalism to be completely unchristian. (...) Whoever talks in today's world of an absolute and single truth is speaking in an obsolete dialect and not in any way in the language of mankind."
– C.G. Jung: Why I Am Not a Catholic (Collected Works 18 p. 645)

However, that's not what I meant here. Instead I thought that you meant that the news media had become like a religion because it forcefully sought to create a consensus on things unseen. That is how the word religion is often seen used nowadays, that it's something that seeks to gain power over people's mental states. But like you said, everything is really a religion, atheism included. Everyone beileves in something, and everything one does or says is aspectually also a religious statement because of that. This makes impossible the statements which would not have any kind of faith behind them, i.e. which would not seek to confer to others some kind of spiritual sentiment. (Seemingly antispiritual is just one kind of spiritual, because it is ultimately based on absolute faith on sensory organisms, which and whose functioning & reasoning upon which are all already objects of faith and intuition.)
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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Benemal
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Re: A New Approach to News Medias

Post by Benemal »

Well, it was the most powerful political and capitalistic organization ever, so that has nothing to do with Christ. But it's a religion to the poor common people who eat biscuits and drink symbolic blood.

I did mean the mainstream media outlets each represent a certain atheistic religion. The authorities there being similar to priests centuries ago, who would tell you, if you don't accept what we're offering (and pay), you're probably gonna burn. I could go on about the factions, but people on this forum probably know exactly what I mean.
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Nefastos
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Re: A New Approach to News Medias

Post by Nefastos »

Benemal wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 11:42 ama certain atheistic religion

This is our contemporary religion. It is not the healthiest think one could imagine, not by far, but it is still healthier than fundamentalist religions of the old. Which also try to make a comeback.

But these are still the regular bad news we all know and don't love. What do you (you plural) think about my idea about counterbalancing bad news about good news which should be actual news, not artificial hype or something that tries to make a sociological point? And giving these good news so abundantly that one could actually understand the cope of normal things happening in the world all the time?
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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Smaragd
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Re: A New Approach to News Medias

Post by Smaragd »

Nefastos wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 12:12 pm What do you (you plural) think about my idea about counterbalancing bad news about good news which should be actual news, not artificial hype or something that tries to make a sociological point? And giving these good news so abundantly that one could actually understand the cope of normal things happening in the world all the time?
It's a thrilling idea and I would take upon the inspiration if I were a journalist. I'm already getting these sorts of mildly hopeful or neutral viewpoints from some science discovery news that are adding to the insight of existence and perhaps having potential to give answers to current global problems. I'm reminded of my civil service time (in Finland you have to do it or go to jail, if you refuse to be a pawn in a war machinery) which included a course on non-violence, the history and philosophy of it. There we were given examples how almost certain war situations had been avoided by talking, and the unfortunare fact how these important historical examples had not made it to our curriculum in schools. Similarly, as news become history, I would agree that the true accomplishments would be really important to be noted within the news as in the history books. There is no less sentimental value and reaction to be fished by the slimy journalists, and there is no less interest for the people when they get to read well written nuances of events where something heroic, near miraculous, has been done to which they can mirror their own daily struggle.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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