Philosophy Now Forum

Peter Benson sees a prophet’s message come to fulfilment through net and cell.

http://philosophynow.org/issues/87/Mars ... bile_Phone

The author of this article thinks "television technology provides no means for us to have an effect on the situations we see." He thinks that television is no match for the two-way communications of the Internet or cell phones for changing things, like we have seen in the Mideast.

However, Marshall McLuhan thought television could effect the situation and have an impact on the world. In his day television created a mass audience like never before imaged, an audience that was receptive and engaged. Now, as for effecting the situation, television greatly effected the civil rights movement that was occurring in America, a situation McLuhan was privy to the 1960s. That movement found its traction, support and motivation in what people saw on television, such as the harrowing images of African-Americans being mistreated, segregated and denied equality in their own country. Those pictures, on the mass scale television presented them, had a tremendous impact on the situation, mobilizing thousands of people across a wide spectrum to demand change. Television gave Martin Luther King, the civil rights movement chief spokesman, a sizable platform on which to expound his dream for a better America to millions of viewer. His words and oratory on television added further gravitas and urgency to the images people saw on TV, making the situation all the more poignant and need of change.

I think the role of the internet in, say, the Arab Spring can be over-stated.

The problem is that the internet is too decentralised. It wouldn't do any good if everybody on Facebook decided to organise their own demonstration - in the end people have to sacrifice their 'internet autonomy' - their equal placement as a 'peer' - and use the internet as a source of information, of telling them where to assemble, where to protest. The internet either becomes a one-way 'broadcast' or the whole thing would fragment.

Of course the internet is far more resilient that TV - it is easier to 'mirror' a web-site than to build a back-up TV station. It may be harder for 'the establishment' to demolish the medium of the WWW than to close a TV station or break up some printing presses, but I don't think the internet was a 'sine-qua-non' of the Arab Spring and it's hard to know how much it contributed to its organisation once the protests began. In Libya the overwhelming impression was one of chaos, and people seemed to rely more on firing AK47s in the air to get their point across than writing blogs.

I am thinking of this article in conjunction with another article on the index: Are Philosophers Responsible for Global Warming?

I am thinking, even if philosophers had been warning us about global warming they were up against a formidable opponent: television. Philosophers were no match or hadn't a chance against the cajoling, persuasive powers of television. Television persuaded us to be mass consumers, persuading us to buy cars, appliances and bigger houses that consumed great amounts of energy, energy mostly made from polluting fossil fuels. And consumers easily obliged.

Marshall McLuhan was a philosopher of sorts. He said the message is the media. Little did he know that the message was to pollute and the media was in cahoots.

keithprosser2 wrote:

The problem is that the internet is too decentralised. It wouldn't do any good if everybody on Facebook decided to organise their own demonstration - in the end people have to sacrifice their 'internet autonomy' - their equal placement as a 'peer' - and use the internet as a source of information, of telling them where to assemble, where to protest. The internet either becomes a one-way 'broadcast' or the whole thing would fragment.

Is it possible the internet is too undisciplined? We, each in our own way, try to share our knowledge with others, but many factors - time, disposition, and linguistics among them - influence our success. So far, the internet just reflects our attempts to communicate as undifferentiated noise. The internet offers the promise of improving knowledge and understanding, but it will not until some site separates the wheat from the chaff. It was my hope that a university would see the wisdom of providing such a capability, but that hasn't happened - yet.

Fred Gohlke

spike wrote:Marshall McLuhan was a philosopher of sorts. He said the message is the media. Little did he know that the message was to pollute and the media was in cahoots.

Good point!

The media plays a very valid and useful role by providing an outside view of those in power.

What's not usually recognized is that the media is a very powerful entity in itself, and there really is no organized effort to provide an outside view of them. And yes, it is valid to talk about "the media" as almost all significant media outlets share the same fundamental agenda crucial to their survival, ad revenue.

Whenever Anderson Cooper says "We're keeping them honest" I yell back at the TV, "Who's keeping you honest???"

almost all significant media outlets share the same fundamental agenda crucial to their survival, ad revenue.

I wonder it that is entirely true. A great deal of the media is ideologically motivated - some people are prepared to pay big money to own a newspaper or a TV station and the ad revenue may not their main objective in doing so. Sometimes the media seems more like a propaganda machine than a commercial enterprise. Does Al Jazeera make money? Does Fox News? And if they didn't, would their operators necessarily close them down?

I am sometime upset at how hard it is to find objectivity in the media - even on the web it seems every blogger has an agenda. The truth, they say, is out there. Well, so it might be, but where out there?

I am sometime upset at how hard it is to find objectivity in the media -

The objectivity comes in the huge number of media sources now available. Every point of view is being articulated by somebody.

The points of views vary widely, but the business model does not. That's the real bias, imho, the bias for drama, driven by the need for eyeballs and ad revenue.

In the end, we are the problem. We watch and listen to whatever is the most dramatic, and wind up getting the media we deserve.

Think about the content of the message from the media. Most of the content is just about saying something and just filling in time, filling the airways. Look how the media goes on about the Republican candidates. Most of the stuff is meaningless, because most of the candidates are vacuous and shallow. Nearly all of them don't have a chance in hell of winning the leadership or presidency. Yet the media has to tell a story, entertain and make a horse race out of it. And people suck it in.

Talking about content, just look how much is written in magazines and books just to fill space. Some writers get payed by the word so they are going to write more than they have to. Often one has to read and wade through tones of stuff just to get a morsel of significance information. The media is not parsimonious or brivitious. That would kill it.

As for objectivity in the media, well, there is another can of worms. But I have read a lot of objective pieces. But do you think most people read them? No!

spike wrote:Think about the content of the message from the media. Most of the content is just about saying something and just filling in time, filling the airways.

The primary function of the content is to keep us connected to that channel until the next ad. This is the business the media is in, selling ad space.

Thus, the question becomes, what will keep us connected?

Thus, the question becomes, what is it exactly that we want?

Sometimes, it's pure information, like a weather report.

Most of the time, what we want is stimulation, distraction, entertainment. And so, the media delivers what it is we really want. If they didn't, whoever will give us what we really want will take their audience.

If we were as a group to change our minds, and really want in depth objective level headed thoughtful analysis of important public issues, we would get that.

A huge media industry has become very sophisticated about what we really want. They have to be realistic, or their business dies. So when we turn on our TV, what we see is a longstanding well developed survival of the fittest environment, where only those shows that deliver what we really want survive.

The media is a mirror. And we often don't like what we see in this mirror. So we yell at the mirror.

The primary function of the content is to keep us connected to that channel until the next ad. This is the business the media is in, selling ad space.

This is too cynical for words.

Where does the income generated by most media channels come from? Who is their real customer?

In free media, the real customer is the advertiser.

In subscription media, the real customer is you and me the consumer, and maybe an advertiser also.

Most media is free media, thus the customer being served most of the time are advertisers, not you and me.

Spike wrote:

This is too cynical for words.

Cynical, perhaps, but accurate.

Fred Gohlke

What makes it seem cynical is that we have bought the story the media tells about themselves. You know, that their purpose is to serve us.

Most of them believe this story too, after all, it's quite flattering. The exception may be the folks who work on the business end, who know who is sending the checks to the media corp.

I don't mean the media is a big evil conspiracy. I just mean they have an entirely legal agenda, which may conflict with what we wish our agenda was.

We wish we were interested in accurate objective in depth public policy information but really, as a group, we are interested in reality TV, the OJ trial, car chases, skimpy outfits and so on.

If I'm being cynical, it's mostly about us, the viewers. We want crap. The media will serve us anything we really want. Thus, we get what we really want, crap.

I'm not even cynical about us wanting crap. I'm cynical about the self delusion, the idea that somebody else is making us eat it.

Cynical, perhaps, but accurate.

NO!

Who mentioned objectivity? That is not objective.