The Glade 4.0

First of all: no.

Second: No one fits completely into the "general public". It is a term used to describe an average, in terms of popularity of a specific issue. People may well be in or out of the general public on any given issue, including myself. Therefore, I consider myself "enlightened", and outside the general public where I disagree with the populus at large. I happily include myself within the general public when it agrees with me.

Third: I find it amusing that you would chastize a group of people (how many of you...) for thinking they are enlighted, and then go on to say how you are more enlightened.

Arathain:

I don't think I'm enlightened at all. I just know I'm part of the general public.

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Unless you have information that the general public does not have, you are not "enlightened".

Lex! Shhh, you know we're not supposed to talk about that to the general unwashed natives, err, public.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

The great flaw in this theory is that it implies (by your blaming of Capitalism and Market Driven economies) there is no demand or desire for unfiltered and unbiased information.

A market system simply delivers (through the profit mechanism) the goods that people most highly regard. It is not the fault of the market system that what is desired is misinformation, propaganda and this so-called info-tainment.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

I came to that conclusion because that's what people in the thread appeared to be contending, and you seemed to be refuting, despite spurious word choice.



Are you really asking this question, or trying to be a smartass? Because the interest the government has in relations with, influence of, and control over a major modern communication and networking venue appears pretty self evident to me.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Do people really forget how Mussolini got so powerful?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Oh there is some demand for it, but it's not as great as the demand for entertainment.

I don't really view it as "the fault" of a market system, so much as the obvious result of a market system in the hands of the American populace. I suspect that other countries have similar problems, I just am not familiar with them.

Aizle:

Why is it you are so quick to blame the general population for the failings of government?

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So you subscribe to the tinfoil hat theory of the goverment controlling the media organizations?

It isn't a ridged totalitarian control, Aizle. I think that's where people are getting their signals crossed.

The largest possible single source of income for any company is the United States Government, and as we've fallen farther and farther away from a free-market system, and as the government has become more and more willing to subsidise various industry players, companies have started to market themselves to government far more than they market themselves to any other consumer because the rewards are bigger. Corporations like GE, who earn most of their money in technology, have acquired or created media outlets which they use as private propaganda outlets to varied degrees, because in doing so it makes them a more attractive customer to government because:

a) when a government decision is being made as to where to direct public funds, those funds will generally go to non-hostile, pro-government entities.

and b) the general public has been persuaded that this is a good and proper relationship between government and business, and are less likely to rally to suspend this type of public subsidization of private profits.

The government doesn't have to strong arm anyone, or have a hard handed control over media outlets (even though there are countless examples of incidents where this has been the case, and even wholesale legislation like the Fairness Doctrine), they simply let the media markets do it themselves, producing the exact same results. It's a soft control.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Since you are the first one to bring up this theory, why don't you explain it to us?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Rynar:

While I can see that in some situations (defense contractors, maybe some construction firms), I really haven't seen anything credible yet that leads me to believe it's anywhere are widespread and effective as some of you are claiming. Can you provide sources for these claims?

Ahh, I see, it was just a straw-man.



It has been shown multiple times in this thread that corporations receive billions of dollars from the gov't, that the gov't controls many aspects of their means of doing business, and that some of the heads of these corporations are direct advisors to the heads of the gov't. What more would you like to be provided?

How about logic?

The government controls trillions of dollars for which these corporations compete. In the interest of profit (which both yourself and Arathain have repeatedly stated is the prime motivator for these corps) why not skew a story a little this way or that?




What logical basis would these corps have not to do this, as until recently, the "general populace" has shown very little desire to demand news with a high level of journalistic integrity and autonomy?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Sure some corporations receive lots of money from government contracts.
Sure most all of those government contracts have rules around them for THOSE CONTRACTS.
Sure some corporations consult for the government.

However, what hasn't been shown or proven is that there is a direct tie between GE's dealings with the government in its other companies and the "news" that NBC puts on the air.

Ok, so if I have this right, you believe that the government provides subsidies and threatens fines to encourage CNN to run these and stories like these to ensure control over other media sources? Do you think there is some sort of secret meeting where government agents meet with representatives of CNN to talk about what stories to run about Facebook? Then wink, wink, nudge nudge, maybe you'll get a subsidy?

You really don't think it's more likely that CNN reported on Facebook because the populus is interested in Facebook, and it's an opportunity to potentially discredit a competing media source?

I do not believe that the government is the largest source of revenue for any company. You folks are lumping tax dollars all together and splitting markets. You're considering me and the millions that buy a product separate, but considering my tax dollars as lumped in with everyone else's.

What generates greater profit to CNN, readers or the government? It's readers. In fact, the fewer readers, the less they'll get from the government also.

It is all about readers. What do the readers have an interest in?

So, let me get this straight - Facebook is a government plot to monitor borderline social interactions and track down the more moronic criminals out there?

Brilliant. The guy that thought that up deserves a bonus. Getting fools to testify against themselves, provide leads for the police to track down, and monitor the sick weirdos legally, mostly without having to leave the station and run up a huge gas bill.

Got to hand it to them, some times the Government does come up with a good idea.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

GE has recieved almost 2 trillion, with a t, trillion, dollars in exclusive wind farm subsidies and contracts from the federal government. On the heels of these contracts, at a GE share holders meeting, Immelt instructed MSNBC to "go soft" on the Obama administration.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

People don't demand "greater integrity" from news organizations because they either don't know the agencies are being deceptive, or think the deception that exists is unavoidable. Most people recognize some bias, but say it can't be helped because it's people writing the stories.

There's also the uncomfortable fact that mass media tends to define reality. First, when one deals with humans, the credibility of the source increases as the amount of money spent to broadcast said source increases. The more money you spend broadcasting your lie, the more true it becomes. Second, the average person can't tell fact from fiction ahead of time. Think about it for a second. How do you really know anything if the mainstream media doesn't tell you? Unless it's your field of expertise, you have no ability to differentiate between the "bloggers" (by this I'm talking about any non-mainsteam information source) that are making everything up as they go along and the ones that really know what they're talking about.

The average person, for example, has no ability to refute the assertions made by the moon landing hoax conspiracy theorists. His belief that it must be a hoax comes from the media, and his evidence comes from the same place. It's not a topic you can really research to truly figure it out for yourself, you will not understand what you are reading unless you have an engineering degree. Any "proof" you have is secondhand at best, and probably third-hand. (some news agency reporting on what they say an expert said) So in 2004 when the mass media ignored the economists spouting dire warnings, their message got ignored because the public simply can't tell the difference between them and some other guy trying to run a pump-and-dump scam.

So what's the solution here? We can't rely on the big media companies, because they can't be trusted. But we also can't rely on small-time sources of information, because they're also untrustworthy, anyone can start one and spread whatever to further any agenda they want. You also can't trust independent agencies that rate the quality of the "news" coming out, big or small, as they're subject to the exact same problems as the news sources themselves.

Nobody is even remotely suggesting that. The Facebook article, which may have been the catalyst for discussion, is being held out as a red herring to distract from the real discussion because the position: the "news is free market" is logically unsound, and has been found to be indefensible.

Money = influence, and the gov't spends a shit-ton of our money.To paraphrase what a rational man once said: Those who would be the first to suggest that corporations can buy gov't influence refuse to believe that the reverse is true.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Actually, the "news is a free market" is a red herring that nobody is even remotely suggesting. Reread.

Yes, the government influences the media, nobody's questioning that. What we're questioning is the assertion that it is bought by the government to such an extreme that a report about Facebook is motivated not by the desire to make money, but by the government.

And? Are you suggesting that anyone thinks that MSNBC isn't in the pocket of the Obama administration? Does this somehow mean CNN reported on Facebook only because they criticized Obama? How does that explain the fact that they reported on the same story relating to a republican and Amadinejad?

That's just plain sad.








No one but you, and possibly Aizle, is making that assertion.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Link?