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Also with algorithms the Google search algorithm is not as biased as what Twitter or Facebook use to feed you news which both absolutely create an echo chamber. But if you're in the Google ecosystem those searches feed into their advertisements and news feeds and that also creates an echo chamber.
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Dec 16, 2021 23:40
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Twitter is great still because you can see literal billionaires getting into fights with leftist shitposters at 3am. It also helps knock a lot of public intellectuals down a few much-needed pegs because they don’t have the self control to not tweet out every dumb idea they have, or become incredibly thin skinned the moment they face any pushback. It’s been an amazing tool to dispel the mystification of the meritocracy by being flattened. When you call Neera Tanden a barred out freak and she blocks you? You know she saw that. It’s a time of wonders that if you’re even a little savvy you can personally insult a White House muckity muck, an NYT columnist, a Hollywood pervert from the comfort of your home and have decent odds that it’ll land over the target. It won’t last, hell it’s not even as good as it used to be, but Twitter democratized media in an immense way.
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Dec 16, 2021 23:51
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Probably Magic posted:If I were a professor, I would not respond to any concern of my student with an aggressive and snide, "Didn't you read my syllabus?!" and then just do that repeatedly, but that's me. I have apparently surprising news for you about one of the greatest complaints among teachers in higher education. Additionally, fool of sound posted:The following primer was prepared by Discendo Vox, and I strongly suggest make a point of reading it before getting too deeply entrenched in this thread.
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Dec 16, 2021 23:52
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Gumball Gumption posted:Also with algorithms the Google search algorithm is not as biased as what Twitter or Facebook use to feed you news which both absolutely create an echo chamber. But if you're in the Google ecosystem those searches feed into their advertisements and news feeds and that also creates an echo chamber. I think it’s far easier to moderate your consumption on Twitter and even Facebook if you’re a media literate person capable of curating your sources and clicking the “sort by most recent” button every now and again. The recommender system you might call “the algorithm” doesn’t really come into play.
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Dec 16, 2021 23:53
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selec posted:Twitter is great still because you can see literal billionaires getting into fights with leftist shitposters at 3am. It also helps knock a lot of public intellectuals down a few much-needed pegs because they don’t have the self control to not tweet out every dumb idea they have, or become incredibly thin skinned the moment they face any pushback. Yeah, I don't know if it's good or bad but giving everyone a street corner and an apple box sure has changed things. Say what you want about Twitter but it's had an impact mawarannahr posted:I think it’s far easier to moderate your consumption on Twitter and even Facebook if you’re a media literate person capable of curating your sources and clicking the “sort by most recent” button every now and again. The recommender system you might call “the algorithm” doesn’t really come into play. Yeah, I'd agree with that though it does seem like part of this thread is the differences between how someone media literate and not media literate are going to consume media and all of the major social media outlets (Google is one, just in a weird way) are a firehose of stupid if you're not media literate. But yeah, if you're media literate Twitter makes it easy to curate what you want to see and then it's up to you on if you're putting yourself in an echo chamber or not. You can make your feed many diverse voices, a few specific voices, and any range of credibility. Gumball Gumption fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Dec 16, 2021 |
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Dec 16, 2021 23:54
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Probably Magic posted:This is a very rosy recoloring of how the news was reported back in 2002. The news agencies weren't just duped, they allowed themselves to be duped. It didn't take much research to throw doubt over known antagonist of Saudi Arabia Saddam Hussain making deals with an Al-Qaeda organization largely funded by Arab sources. Keep in mind Iran was thrown in as a collaborator in all this despite them being Shiite (something the CIA does to this day!) It was a very questionable framework for work that the news media simply did not question. There's a reason for that too - in the documentary Control Room that was mainly about Al-Jazeera, you can find interviews from non-Fox News correspondents bemoaning that Fox News got exclusive access to Bush administration briefings etc. even during the war. That was the MO for the Bush administration in general, and all the other companies were desperately prostrating themselves to buy back in to that kind of access. Actually questioning the war got people fired. That's a bit more than just, "Well, the CIA told us one thing, and what could we do, get our own people to verify that was a lie?" It specifically eliminated criticism of the invasion. I wasn't talking so much about what the news media actually did as I was about what they potentially could have done. I'm trying to cover the actual availability level of evidence, to back my overall point of "there is literally no such thing as credible info on this subject". And I'm doing it in great detail, because every time I say "no, it's actually literally impossible to find a credible source on this subject within this time period", at least one person responds with a variation on "well, what source should I get info on that subject from instead?????". Yes, the American news media handled it irresponsibly; as I pointed out, there's numerous institutional reasons for them to trust the government case on things like that. But I'm trying to drive home "there is no good news source in foreign policy, and anyone who says they know with any certainty what's going on in a secret military base or an ongoing civil war is wrong or untrustworthy", and that's something that goes above the level of individual actors or organizations in one particular incident! Lib and let die posted:Given their performance over the last even 5 years, I don't think it's outrageous to entertain the notion that some of the most disgustingly rich motherfuckers in America have investments in lockheed martin. These are some of the richest people you can conceive of, with the most hyperconnected of financial advisers looking for advantageous market trends - any fiduciary not advising their client to invest in defense companies while the US and its media mouthpieces saber rattle for war simply isn't acting in their client's best interest. I simply don't see it as a stretch for someone like Bezos or Zucker to be enriched through this way when America goes to war (even more, because we've never not been at war as long as I've been alive) There's a far simpler explanation, with plenty of historical context behind it: warmongering is culturally popular and drives up readership. That's why journalists have been implicated in warmongering for more than a century. Hearst and Pulitzer weren't writing more and more sensationalist stories advocating for war against Spain for the sake of defense industry investments. They did it because sensationalism drives anger, and anger sells papers. You should recognize that principle well, because it's exactly how modern media functions, with the same principle of sensationalistic ragebait being the engine that drives the success of clickbait, social media algorithms, and outright propaganda. How common is this practice? Well, just above, I mentioned a guy named Pulitzer as an example of extreme hyperbole and sensationalism? Yes, it's the very same Pulitzer that the Pulitzer Prize is named after. But really, even aside from the sensationalism thing, the government and journalism have always had a close relationship when it comes to warmongering because it's mutually beneficial, especially in the modern era with powerful intelligence agencies. The government needs a cooperative media in order to create public acceptance for war, and the media can get lots of info and opportunities only if it maintains a friendly relationship with the government. It's a similar dilemma to access journalism: that source might not be telling the truth, but if you ignore them completely, your rivals and competitors might be the ones to get not only that scoop but also future potential scoops that person might be willing to give to journalists. Of course, there's also the fact that journalists tend to come from upper-class circles themselves - not necessarily part of the top 1%, but still well-off, highly-educated, and used to rubbing shoulders with the upper-middle class - and absorbing many of their cultural beliefs. Take, for example, Tucker Carlson. While Tucker was attending the most prestigious private grade school in the area, his dad was using his position as a broadcast journalist to out individual trans people in the community. While Tucker was attending a prestigious private boarding school (that's where he developed his love of bowties), his dad was marrying a wealthy heiress and climbing the executive ranks at a bank owned by one of Ronald Reagan's best pals. While Tucker was off at an expensive private college, his dad was serving as director of Voice of America under President Reagan. That's plenty enough reason for him to end up a conservative racist warhawk, we don't need to throw in wild speculation about stuff that we assume must be true despite the absence of any actual evidence supporting it. Hell, his dad spent the 2016 election cycle writing satirical fiction about Hillary Clinton. That's not the act of someone who's in it for the money, that's a true believer right there.
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Dec 17, 2021 00:04
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Gumball Gumption posted:Yeah, I'd agree with that though it does seem like part of this thread is the differences between how someone media literate and not media literate are going to consume media and all of the major social media outlets (Google is one, just in a weird way) are a firehose of stupid if you're not media literate. But yeah, if you're media literate Twitter makes it easy to curate what you want to see and then it's up to you on if you're putting yourself in an echo chamber or not. You can make your feed many diverse voices, a few specific voices, and any range of credibility. From a practical perspective, the best way I have to gather news is to collect RSS feeds for everything I want to keep tabs on and use my own judgment to figure out what to read and how many grains of salt to take. This way I get important news from slower-moving channels like the Institute for Supply Management and don’t get too bogged down in sifting through the daily cruft. I’ve gotten better at glancing over the “cruftier” high-volume sources and picking out what’s worthwhile, and I can follow sources I wouldn’t typically follow without completely ruining my web browsing experience. I’m worried more places will phase these feeds out but they’re still mostly functional (but missing more summaries these days). It’s refreshing to see a list of news that can be sorted on the merits of their headlines, summaries, and sources rather than ~tha algorithm~. Right now I use an online feed reader called inoreader (which appears to support Twitter but I haven’t tried that yet) and would recommend it to anyone willing to put in the small amount of effort (and possibly money) to set up something that works for you. If anyone has similar practical advice on how to apply a media-literate perspective to daily news consumption I’d like to read about it. mawarannahr fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Dec 17, 2021 |
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Dec 17, 2021 00:15
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selec posted:I started by following celebrities I found interesting (this was long ago) and since just find people who post interesting things. I have a few famous and non-famous people from other ideological tendencies than my own that I follow just to keep up on what the temperature is over there, but a lot of my curation is for locals and informative or interesting (usually) leftist or nerdy posters. By and large, you yourself choose what you see on Twitter, which means you pick to read things that appeal to your emotions positive or negative. This is different from reading, say, the front page of a newspaper or looking through an issue of a periodical, where someone else chooses what things appear in them. In other words, this post you tried to smugly dismiss is correct: raminasi posted:Twitter’s entire technological thesis is to present content in a way that maximizes the magnitude of its reader’s emotional reaction. That’s the furthest thing possible from “just an index.”
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Dec 17, 2021 00:19
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Main Paineframe posted:I wasn't talking so much about what the news media actually did as I was about what they potentially could have done. I'm trying to cover the actual availability level of evidence, to back my overall point of "there is literally no such thing as credible info on this subject". And I'm doing it in great detail, because every time I say "no, it's actually literally impossible to find a credible source on this subject within this time period", at least one person responds with a variation on "well, what source should I get info on that subject from instead?????". I mean, fair enough that no source is completely credible, and I haven't disagreed with your takes on that, I was more advocating for a source to be offered because, well, this thread seems awfully invested in extremely undercutting sources of anyone who wanders in, and doing that while offering up no sources you ostensibly halfway trust feels like arguing in bad faith. You need to have some skin in the game to play in it, right? But yeah, internationally speaking, it's hard to ascertain things. Having said that, I would say betting against America's official position ends up being correct more often than not. We're really shameless. quote:There's a far simpler explanation, with plenty of historical context behind it: warmongering is culturally popular and drives up readership. That's why journalists have been implicated in warmongering for more than a century. Hearst and Pulitzer weren't writing more and more sensationalist stories advocating for war against Spain for the sake of defense industry investments. They did it because sensationalism drives anger, and anger sells papers. You should recognize that principle well, because it's exactly how modern media functions, with the same principle of sensationalistic ragebait being the engine that drives the success of clickbait, social media algorithms, and outright propaganda. I wouldn't say it's necessarily either/or. Hearst and Pullitzer had plenty of investments, and assuming they wouldn't profit from the war is not an assumption I'd necessarily make. I will risk being called a conspiracy theorist here to make a point, but I will anyway: This past election, the news did not really attempt to make things a horserace. They have with every election since I've been alive, and judging by the existence of the term "October surprise," have since before I was born as well. They try to pin scandals on both guys, regardless (and this is important) of the substance of those scandals, be it swiftboating or Obama hanging out with the Weather Underground guy, etc. Yet with plenty of mines to pin on Biden to "tighten things up," liberal media largely didn't report on them, be it Reade or Hunter's laptop or such. "Well, those aren't real stories." Again, whether you believe that or not, that's not important. Those stories were buried when they weren't for Obama, Kerry, etc., people the liberal media largely liked, but, y'know, ratings. This time, nothing, exclusively negative media about Trump. Trump and Bush had about the same abusive relationship with the media, so that wasn't the deciding factor. What was different, though, was Trump pissing off the MIC. This is not to paint Trump as a dove, but it's how he ignored security briefings, fired the generals he hired for his cabinet without much ceremony, talked poo poo about the veterans, etc. And I think the media's relationship with the military, the access they brought, the contractors that advertised for them, all of that, altered their coverage in ways unusual for them. Did that affect the election? Probably not much, many of those October surprises of years past didn't dent presidential campaigns either. But it did show between ratings and relationship with MIC, the media picked the latter. I feel that's very telling. This is, of course, my supposition. The simple fact is, though, war is not just profitable as an attention-getter, it also makes those in charge rich. Pulitzer had enough money to throw around for his prizes, and Hearst, well, he had a drat castle. These people weren't just invested in their papers, they were invested in capitalism period. Capitalism in this country thrives on imperialism.
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Dec 17, 2021 00:21
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:By and large, you yourself choose what you see on Twitter, which means you pick to read things that appeal to your emotions positive or negative. This is different from reading, say, the front page of a newspaper or looking through an issue of a periodical, where someone else chooses what things appear in them. I mean…so what? Editors are not good at deciding what’s important information for me either. There’s this whole section in most newspapers called “Business” and it’s a whole bunch of information relevant to the people exploiting workers, and literally nothing useful in there for those same workers, no Labor section. It’s pretty obvious what ideology almost all editorialized publications subscribe to and their built in prejudices and assumptions from that ideology make their news products pretty useless and oftentimes more emotionally charged reading for me than Twitter is, where I consume news, but also joke around with friends. I would in no way say I’m underinformed, I still read stuff from mainstream publications, but do you think the news about millionaire weddings means the NYT is somehow more credible, editorially speaking? I sure don’t. It’s news for rich people and it’s pretty useless to me by and large as a news product as given. It produces useful news, sometimes, but that’s an isolated incident compared to the vast amount of propaganda they publish daily, like those millionaire wedding stories. selec fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Dec 17, 2021 |
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Dec 17, 2021 00:41
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Main Paineframe posted:I wasn't talking so much about what the news media actually did as I was about what they potentially could have done. I'm trying to cover the actual availability level of evidence, to back my overall point of "there is literally no such thing as credible info on this subject". And I'm doing it in great detail, because every time I say "no, it's actually literally impossible to find a credible source on this subject within this time period", at least one person responds with a variation on "well, what source should I get info on that subject from instead?????".
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Dec 17, 2021 06:58
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selec posted:There’s this whole section in most newspapers called “Business” and it’s a whole bunch of information relevant to the people exploiting workers, and literally nothing useful in there for those same workers Jesus Christ, really? You really think a worker could find nothing useful in the business section of a newspaper? Nothing at all? Not even from a "know your enemy" perspective? For reference this is the business section of my city newspaper and I can see a few stories that a worker might find useful. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Dec 17, 2021 |
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Dec 17, 2021 08:08
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selec posted:I mean…so what? Editors are not good at deciding what’s important information for me either. There’s this whole section in most newspapers called “Business” and it’s a whole bunch of information relevant to the people exploiting workers, and literally nothing useful in there for those same workers, no Labor section. Not really endorsing Vox's abysmal OP, but this is why learning to read critically is useful. Much of the reporting that is relevant and useful to people exploiting workers is also relevant and useful to those workers. Both because both sets of people need to live in the same reality, and because people will speak freely in forums they think are aimed in their peers in ways they will not in more combative forums.
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Dec 17, 2021 11:11
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Cease to Hope posted:Not really endorsing Vox's abysmal OP, but this is why learning to read critically is useful. Much of the reporting that is relevant and useful to people exploiting workers is also relevant and useful to those workers. Both because both sets of people need to live in the same reality, and because people will speak freely in forums they think are aimed in their peers in ways they will not in more combative forums.
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Dec 17, 2021 14:04
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Cease to Hope posted:Not really endorsing Vox's abysmal OP Why exactly is the OP "abysmal"? What have you contributed to this thread? Nothing. What's your reason for barging in here and immediately making GBS threads on the work someone has done?
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Dec 17, 2021 19:33
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selec posted:I mean…so what? Like, do you genuinely not care that social media algorithms are working ceaselessly to confirm your biases and keep you angry? I disagree with you a lot, but I don't think you are a stupid person. I am sure that you understand how these algorithms work in effect and why that's, in the abstract, dangerous. I do genuinely understand, personally, that anger is addictive and feels good. I would just caution you, genuinely, about leaning into it like this. It's not good for you. It's not good for anybody. It's manipulation by silicon valley techlords, it's not the clear unvarnished truth that the Mainstream Media doesn't want you to see. e: genuinely! I genuinely use this word too much 
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Dec 17, 2021 19:43
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It's true, only through algorithms would the average American be angry right now.
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Dec 17, 2021 22:38
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Probably Magic posted:It's true, only through algorithms would the average American be angry right now. Nobody said this or implied anything like it.
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Dec 17, 2021 22:42
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e: You know what, dropping it, I can put in more effort than this and just get in dumb slapfights. Again, assuming that the mainstream media and Twitter are completely separate entities is behind the times, plenty of established journalists use Twitter even for initial reporting. Some use it for promotion, but I would greatly disagree that promotion is in a completely different galaxy than publication. People follow journalists individually more and more, which is part of why the Grayzone discourse leaves me a bit shrugging, because I'm invested in one of those guys, not all of them. So too am I invested in individual journalists who do reporting through multiple channels. This is modern media, so denying this seems... very out of date and a very emotional reaction to the idea of algorithms. That's not all Twitter is. People who are making it out that way in this thread sound like they don't know what they're talking about. Probably Magic fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Dec 17, 2021 |
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Dec 17, 2021 22:49
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Probably Magic posted:Wanna call me a liar some more? You aren't a liar, and nobody called you one as far as I can tell, but you certainly seem to lack reading comprehension; that quote you cited doesn't say that the average American is angry only because of algorithms. Maybe you meant to quote a different one?
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Dec 17, 2021 23:02
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If something keeps you angry, the implication is you wouldn't be if you didn't have something keeping you angry. And I was called a liar. Please don't do this overly dense thing, I want to move on. Anyway, my own experiences with Twitter's supposedly hyper-sinister recommendation system is... it's not very good at indoctrination? Like, if I post on a Joy Ann Reid post making fun of her, it'll recommend I follow her. It's not a very smart algorithm, and I'd argue it doesn't have the same distressing effect as Facebook's algorithms because Facebook links you to communities and groups that then become reinforcement. So too does this site. Twitter kinda does that by trying to link you social networks, but, again... this site does that too. I can get directed to anything and I only put in a little more effort than Twitter just recommending things to me that 70% of the time I ignore. The bigger problem then becomes moderation because some communities you don't want people connecting to, like fascist ones, and then Twitter has been very reluctant to ban people who do that poo poo and then end up banning anyone who gets aggressive with them which... happens here sometimes, though the fascists are generally stamped out. That's where I'd identify Twitter's problem, is that it presents itself as ostensibly liberal but it's so valueless, like most moderation of large communities online, that it ends up tilting towards the conservative instead. That was a problem before 2021, though, so what event could've precluded that this thread just had to be invented to counterbalance all the misinformation out there... oh, the election of Joe Biden, I see.
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Dec 17, 2021 23:09
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Probably Magic posted:e: You know what, dropping it, I can put in more effort than this and just get in dumb slapfights. You have a pattern of misrepresenting people who disagree with you, usually by claiming they are making a categorical claim. This ruins your ability to engage honestly with others. Probably Magic posted:Again, assuming that the mainstream media and Twitter are completely separate entities is behind the times, plenty of established journalists use Twitter even for initial reporting. Some use it for promotion, but I would greatly disagree that promotion is in a completely different galaxy than publication. You are wrong. Ignoring the mediating effects twitter has on its contents is not an insight. Conflating promotion with the actual contents of journalism just means you read, and know, less about the subject. Probably Magic posted:People follow journalists individually more and more, which is part of why the Grayzone discourse leaves me a bit shrugging, because I'm invested in one of those guys, not all of them. So too am I invested in individual journalists who do reporting through multiple channels. This is modern media, so denying this seems... very out of date and a very emotional reaction to the idea of algorithms. That's not all Twitter is. People who are making it out that way in this thread sound like they don't know what they're talking about. You did not know what a media effect is, or how twitter works relative to search engines. You really need to take a step back and reevaluate your level of confidence about this subject.
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Dec 18, 2021 00:17
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Probably Magic posted:If something keeps you angry, the implication is you wouldn't be if you didn't have something keeping you angry. Well, yes, normal people aren't angry all the time. They might be bitter, or annoyed, or disgruntled, but anger specifically is an emotion that encourages action, i.e. what the platforms refer to as "engagement". That's what their algorithms are optimized for.
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Dec 18, 2021 00:37
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Probably Magic posted:That was a problem before 2021, though, so what event could've precluded that this thread just had to be invented to counterbalance all the misinformation out there... oh, the election of Joe Biden, I see. This was a bit too snotty and I'm not happy with the tone I'm taking increasingly in this thread even if I stand by my points. I'm going to take responsibility for that and leave this thread because I don't have a lot of trust in this community and if that's the case, then I shouldn't be arguing with them. I want to highlight a good post though: Yeah, there's definitely something to this and kind of what I wish this thread was, because I think the way media affects our cognition is a legitimately fascinating discussion. To pile on Twitter a bit, does its concision end up creating a shortness of attention-span? People do long-form articles on Twitter, but by its very nature it has to keep each point within a tweet, making it harder to create a longform supported point. That taps into what Main Painframe was discussing about people's tendency to want information now... does the brevity of our sources, the format of them, force us to think in abbreviated terms? Will that affect how we process history and the like? How has television in general affected our processing of history and conditions? That's why I entered this thread, and less to debate source criticism, which is, especially now, an unwinnable fight. That's not what this thread seems to want to be about though, and I should respect that and move on. Forcing my vision on a thread is inappropriate. Discendo Vox posted:You have a pattern of misrepresenting people who disagree with you, usually by claiming they are making a categorical claim. This ruins your ability to engage honestly with others. A singular media effect? There's a lot of media effects, DV, you shouldn't be so categorical about it. Your framing of Twitter shows you don't really know what's on Twitter, which I've attempted to illustrate multiple times, but you're in too much of a rush to tell me I haven't read your posts to bother to read mine. Journalists, blue checkmark and with establishment backing and all, do Twitter threads with reports in them. I don't think that's an effective use of the platform, which goes back to my points about how media affects cognition, and I don't usually bother with those. But they exist, and also from other experts in their field. Also, journalists use promotion to articles and interviews on multiple outlets. You seem to be under the assumption I am saying to just stay on Twitter and never click on anything. To repeat, I called Twitter an index. To say it is inherently harmful to follow Liz Bruenig on Twitter and interact with her podcast, her articles in the Atlantic, her freelance articles in other outlets, her appearances on Left, Right, and Center, etc., and that doing this instead of religiously cracking open the Atlantic in the vain hope she has an article every issue is a very strange assumption of the media. I did say I wouldn't engage with you again, so I guess you could say I'm misrepresenting myself, because here I am like an idiot doing so again, but I want to make a concluding remark to you: I don't think you're stupid, Discendo Vox. I don't think you know nothing. I'd love to pick your brain on things. But I would need to do that as an equal. I'm only not in academia because of money issues, not any lack of effort. It'd be in Creative Writing, which is no Media Criticism, but there's such huge correlations between those studies in terms of interacting with audiences, framing subjects, etc., that I hope you can appreciate the closeness of our interests. No, my problem with you is you repeatedly, repeatedly frame your responses to people as if they're your inferiors. It's a lot of accusatory language of "You are this, you are that," when buddy, you don't know me. It's a lot of references to your own authority, and in an impatient way at that. "As we've already discussed-" "We already covered this-" I cannot emphasize enough that is not how I would treat anyone who wanted to learn something from me. I can't wait to repeat myself for someone's benefit. I can't wait to share what I know instead of snap at them to go read something I posted before. I generally want people to know what I know, and I genuinely would love to learn from them. I genuinely would love to learn things from you. I have no patience for being treated like an idiot. When I've tried to de-escalate with you, you have only gotten more snappier, as if you want me more upset, need me to be. I am not your marionette. My idea of a won argument is one where I and my opponent have both relaxed, shared information, and come to an understanding. I carry doubts that's yours. If you'd like a trophy, here it is. Have your fiefdom. It should bother you to run off someone who was willing to engage with you. I doubt that it does. It would, if I were an instructor, deeply bother me. Probably Magic fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Dec 18, 2021 |
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Dec 18, 2021 01:13
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...none of you are experts in this are you?
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Dec 18, 2021 01:19
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Thorn Wishes Talon posted:Why exactly is the OP "abysmal"? if the art is lovely i'm going to call it lovely even if i can't paint myself (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 18, 2021 02:07
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Probably Magic posted:That was a problem before 2021, though, so what event could've precluded that this thread just had to be invented to counterbalance all the misinformation out there... oh, the election of Joe Biden, I see. I mostly lurk here, but I wanted to point out that this thread is ultimately a fool of sound project, I believe? Not to put words in their mouth, but I recalled fool of sound posting this in the last feedback thread: fool of sound posted:I am a swing state NoJoe who is thoroughly pessimistic about electorialism, fool of sound posted:I am a communist, albeit of the depressed variety who thinks that the conditions for creating a communist state don't currently exist in the developed world and the best we can hope for it to make do for the foreseeable future. so I kinda doubt the purpose of this thread is to run interference for media saying negative things about Joe Biden. You might ask the OP what motivated them to start this and request Discendo Vox write up a bunch of stuff.
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Dec 18, 2021 05:47
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Raskolnikov38 posted:if the art is lovely i'm going to call it lovely even if i can't paint myself The chart is, for the record, straight out of the source book. Tbf the authors (Shannon I think? idk) probably drew it by hand; it was like 1947.
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Dec 18, 2021 05:53
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I might be misconstruing the conversation but I don't think "the art" was referring to the diagram used in the post, but was a metaphor for a piece of media which someone may not have the ability to make but may be able to criticize regardless.
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Dec 18, 2021 07:25
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mawarannahr posted:
I actually have an antiquated method of media management for a few different sources that feels too basic to describe. On Mondays, an alarm in my calendar reminds me to check gao.gov and crs with some keyword searches relevant to my profession. Similarly, I spend about 15 minutes skimming some other reliable sources once a week regarding professional interests. I haven't done that with general consumption, but honestly I'm starting to think that building my own little managing by searching relevant sources is actually the most safe and reliable way to consume media, especially if you're looking for rigorous but poorly optimized sources such as academic sources or government reports. Edit: and the why! It skips the filter of presentation. We all want fancy evolutions of RSS to screen for us, but maybe going to the source is the best.
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Dec 18, 2021 07:26
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Ruzihm posted:I might be misconstruing the conversation but I don't think "the art" was referring to the diagram used in the post, but was a metaphor for a piece of media which someone may not have the ability to make but may be able to criticize regardless. 
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Dec 18, 2021 07:29
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Thorn Wishes Talon posted:Why exactly is the OP "abysmal"? I don't think telephone line noise was a relevant metaphor for misunderstanding even in 1948. The Shannon model is popular with people who want communication and miscommunication to be a mathematical process, but it's a blinkered view that didn't reflect philosophy of language and communication even at the time. You can see how useless it is in the absolute howler of a GJB example. Any guide to understanding media that does not talk about framing is worthless, too. It's useful to think about sources and intent, but without also understanding how (for example) you can be primed to agree with the speaker through neutral-sounding language, you're always going to be led around by the nose. I will give it one thing: it does warn you to be suspicious of the motives and methods of anything you find agreeable. If you don't similarly apply that lesson to Vox's guide, then you failed the test! As for why I don't help improve it or whatever, I don't really want to. This thread's well is hopelessly poisoned, and I feel like holding myself out as an authority would be hypocritical anyway. PS probing Rask there was a stupid move. He said what I did in fewer words. Tearing down something that sucks and is making everything worse is good, even if you recognize you aren't the one who can build something better to replace it. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 12:52 on Dec 18, 2021 |
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Dec 18, 2021 11:36
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Cease to Hope posted:I don't think telephone line noise was a relevant metaphor for misunderstanding even in 1948. The Shannon model is popular with people who want communication and miscommunication to be a mathematical process, but it's a blinkered view that didn't reflect philosophy of language and communication even at the time. You can see how useless it is in the absolute howler of a GJB example. From the OP, in the very first paragraph: quote:(Note that this is a model of communication. This material will have a few models; the thing about models is they're simplified representations that explain one set of relationships by sacrificing detail elsewhere. I am also simplifying these models, as many of the real ones get very complex.) Cease to Hope posted:Any guide to understanding media that does not talk about framing is worthless, too. It's useful to think about sources and intent, but without also understanding how (for example) you can be primed to agree with the speaker through neutral-sounding language, you're always going to be led around by the nose. From literally my first post in the thread, immediately visible on the first page: Discendo Vox posted:A lot of the priming research turned out to be unreplicable, or downright fraudulent, but it's a decent concept. A broadly related concept from rhetorical theory is "framing", a subject about which suez-blocking amounts of ink have been spilled. Goffman wrote the main book on framing, it's one of the subjects I wound up excluding from the intro materials because I couldn't make it even remotely engaging. [edit: that's a crappy scan, I'll try to find a better one at some point, I don't have my copy of the book anymore to make one of my own] If you want a discussion on framing as a concept and how it can be employed, you can ask. Hell, I'll spend another ten hours and write another effortpost on it. But you, explicitly, are here only to sabotage discussion. Cease to Hope posted:As for why I don't help improve it or whatever, I don't really want to. This thread's well is hopelessly poisoned, and I feel like holding myself out as an authority would be hypocritical anyway. If the "well is poisoned", it's because there's a constant flow of people who come here to poo poo in it and tell everyone how worthless it is. I have a lot less material in this thread, and the thread's had much less actual discussion, because a bunch of assholes keep alternating between attacking it without reading it here and making poo poo up about it for each other elsewhere. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Dec 18, 2021 |
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Dec 18, 2021 16:46
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Cease to Hope posted:As for why I don't help improve it or whatever, I don't really want to. This thread's well is hopelessly poisoned, and I feel like holding myself out as an authority would be hypocritical anyway. You say you aren't going to hold yourself out as an authority, then in the next breath you assert that "tearing down" this thread is good because it "sucks and is making everything worse."
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Dec 18, 2021 19:32
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If you want to discuss other or better ways to criticize media, do so. If you want to complain about the thread existing to cover for state media or other stupid conspiratorial poo poo stop posting here. This is the last warning on this, I'm exhausted of it.
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Dec 18, 2021 20:04
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I'm just confused why people couldn't just look at the conspiratorial bullshit the greyzone puts out and simply agree its trash and shouldn't be used as a source? The evidence was already there in the tweets made by the Grayzone founder and journalists.
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Dec 18, 2021 21:33
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Pharohman777 posted:I'm just confused why people couldn't just look at the conspiratorial bullshit the greyzone puts out and simply agree its trash and shouldn't be used as a source? It wasn't even that, the initial post about Greyzone was someone simply asking them to use some scrutiny with them due to their anti-vax activities then several people went on the attack.
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Dec 18, 2021 21:41
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So, ignoring the current fight in the thread, I want to ask a question: What's a decent way to analyze/figure out when a less than honest or useful framing or fallacies are used in live media? I'm thinking about live cable news or a livestream or something like that. I know that transcripts or going back through it later can help with analysis, but are there techniques or methods to use in the moment? The only example I can think of is live fact checkers, but it isn't like that exists for everyday tv or a lot of media that gets shared on Whatsapp or whatever. If it's already been posted, then sorry for missing it, a lot of the information here is a bit dense for me 
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Dec 18, 2021 23:06
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devildragon777 posted:So, ignoring the current fight in the thread, I want to ask a question: What's a decent way to analyze/figure out when a less than honest or useful framing or fallacies are used in live media? I'm thinking about live cable news or a livestream or something like that. I know that transcripts or going back through it later can help with analysis, but are there techniques or methods to use in the moment? The only example I can think of is live fact checkers, but it isn't like that exists for everyday tv or a lot of media that gets shared on Whatsapp or whatever. If it's already been posted, then sorry for missing it, a lot of the information here is a bit dense for me Are you talking about a livestream of an ongoing event, like for instance a military action or the January 6 attack on the capitol, or something else?
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Dec 19, 2021 00:55
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Thorn Wishes Talon posted:You say you aren't going to hold yourself out as an authority, then in the next breath you assert that "tearing down" this thread is good because it "sucks and is making everything worse." You don't have to be an authority to tell when something smells. You cannot be an authority on everything happening everywhere, so you're going to have to learn to identify useful and informative writing. And unless you trust the writer's intentions fully, you're going to have to learn how to read past the fact that their intentions may differ from your own. That applies to the Economist and it applies to this thread's OP, both the same. In this case, I don't think the OP has very much at all of value! It's a large and complex topic and attempting to simplify and condense it is treacherous even with the best of intentions. I'm not enough of an authority to teach people to understand how to engage with media without letting it affect them against their will, or understand the difference between bias and intentionality, or identify the biases and intent of an unknown speaker, or understand when unknown facts are being omitted. However, I do know enough to tell when someone has failed in their own attempt to do so. I don't think any such authority is participating in this thread, and I don't think this thread's culture is likely to produce by synthesis a work greater than any single participant could make on their own. I think it's much more likely one person will badger everyone into accepting their authority and drive off anyone who disagrees, because I believe that's what has happened in this thread. Discendo Vox posted:From the OP, in the very first paragraph: It's good to acknowledge the flaws of your work, but it's just a start. And I don't think you've fully acknowledged those flaws, but rather added qualifiers that you think shield you from my criticism. They do not. I don't think that the problem with the model you're using is that it's simplified; I think it's because it's simply not representative of reality. It does not offer any useful insight into understanding the sources of misunderstanding at all. The Shannon model is attractive to people who want language to be mathematical even though it is not, and I feel that you have fallen into that trap. Regardless of your reasons, though, it's still useless. I'm glad you agree with me about framing. And I'm glad you're familiar with Goffman, since Frame Analysis is a pretty important book on the subject. But you still did omit it except in passing in a later post. The way that a subject is framed is much more important than "noise," especially when you're talking about political reporting. The ways people are pushed into understanding a topic are much more important than the ways they might misunderstand! It's as though you wrote a guide to the functioning of a car focused on the windshield wiper switch and door locks, and mentioned in a later post that the engine, drive train, and wheels are important too but you couldn't find an interesting way to talk about them. Condensing a topic requires a strong understanding of what's important, and I feel you lack it, judging by what you've written. The well is poisoned because so many people, you included, have decided that any criticism is "making GBS threads on the work someone has done" or part of "a constant flow of people who come here to poo poo in it and tell everyone how worthless it is." Although it isn't the point I was originally intending to make, these are prime examples of Thorn Wishes Talon and you poisoning the well against any criticism of your work. I did read the OP, and I do think it contains very little of worth. If you've already decided that me telling you that what you've written is worthless is on its face a worthless comment -- and have mods here to make sure to back up that sentiment with probations -- then how do you ever hope to have any productive discussion with anyone who doesn't sandwich every criticism in compliments? You have an echo chamber where agreeing with you is "contributing" and "participating," and criticism is "poo poo". In any case, what I originally meant was that I don't think this thread is well-suited to the discussion in the abstract. It's going to be constantly derailed by people who want to argue about the quality of trash like Grayzone's war reporting or fight about whether CNN's reporting has any value, and interrupted by the mods deciding they suddenly don't like the tone of people who are too critical of the OP. This thread is chiefly a proxy war over what sources are allowed in D&D and by extension how D&D should be moderated, and that's inevitably going to swallow any subtler discussion whole. To admit fault would be to give ground in that partisan clash over how D&D should be run, and I don't think anybody's willing to do that. I think if you (or anyone else) can't see any criticism except in the frame of that proxy war over moderation, than any discussion at all is liable to be worthless. If that partisan slapfight has convinced you that there's a shadowy cabal that's conspiring to "[make] poo poo up about [this thread] for each other elsewhere," then, well, at least you could be more humble about holding yourself out as an expert on identifying conspiracy theories! I don't think these problems are fixable, and I'm not interested in making myself indefinitely available for badgering. I do read this thread occasionally, though, so there's always the possibility that I'll be surprised. Unrelated, split-quoting is annoying to read and reply to. It tends to lead to discussions where people try to reply to only part of what other people are saying rather than the totality of it. It's a bad habit, if one's goal is to eliminate misunderstanding. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Dec 19, 2021 |
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Dec 19, 2021 04:38
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