A lot of media reports on wealthy companies, AIG, JP Morgan, Citi, spending money on jets and corporate bonuses. I have to think that the focus is a consequence of the election of Obama. Obama stood for taxing the rich. The media interprets that as the general sentiment of the country at this moment in time. To make money the media sells stories which coincide with popular sentiment. If the popular sentiment is tax the rich, then the media sells stories on the greed and excess of the rich ie coporate bonuses, jets, etc.
Media stories are like films or literature. They have motifs. Some may be the braveness of the common man, like we saw after 911. Some might be the greed of the wealthy, like we see now. As popular sentiment becomes known, the media will write stories whose motifs will capture the attention of the people sharing those sentiments.
Also like any other art there are the leaders and the followers. There are the ones who lead the way like the Beatles, the Chuck Berrys, the Picassos, and there are the ones who follow in their footsteps, the rolling stones and the jackson pollocks. News writing and reporting is no different. One guy will write a story. It will become popular and other writers will copy and come up with similar stories.
What is profound about this is how significantly reporting, an art form, can take one writer’s view of the world and make it everyone’s view of the world.
yes, weak minds are easily swayed to believe just about anything; the determining factor isnt how outrageous or extreme a particular belief is, but how often the message is forced into their subconscious.
at some point, it becomes automated and they incorporate the belief as their own. quite pathetic, when you think about it, but also basically just psychological human nature.
something to be aware of, and, by virtue of this awareness, to try our best to overcome.
But it is true for just about anyone that we are more easily convinced of that which we already wish were true. And that is what much political news coverage is all about. In Boston, there is a conservative and a liberal daily. I have seen, many times, the same wire story in each paper with wildly divergent headlines. Those headlines pan out very different spins on an identical story. And it’s those headlines that sell the paper on the newsstand - by appealing to readers of different mindsets. Equally weak minds. Or equally strong.
This is where I disagree. There may be differences at the surface because one paper is democrat and the other is republican, but just the fact that they report the same story is what is significant. They both deem the same event is worth your attention, which is how the media shapes reality. They decide what is important by deciding what to write about. The fact that they report on the president, whether good or bad, is significant because they agree that the president is worth your attention.
If you ever read the Onion it crystallizes this point. They report mundane things like man gets out of bed, man missed work again, and area man thinks it’s getting cold. It’s ironic and funny because it points out the arbitrary nature of news. Anything can be deemed important.