Media Analysis & Criticism

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fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Over the last decade the internet has increasingly morphed, twisting itself around the weighty presence of rapidly expanding content aggregators and social media and, with the ease of access provided by these services, the societies of the developed world are increasingly online. Traditional media sources have been forced to adapt to this new environment and worse, have been forced to compete with new breeds of competitors suddenly made viable thanks to websites driven by user generated content. Together, these changes have transformed the already hectic news cycle into a constant deluge and, coupled with ever falling standards, deliberate misinformation, and an appalling lack of media literacy, it is increasingly difficult to assemble an accurate picture of any major news story.

This thread is intended for goons to cooperatively improve their ability to navigate the fraught modern media landscape; assisting one another separate fact from editorial, guiding each other to quality information, and teach each other to avoid the pitfalls of confirmation bias.

This thread will be strictly moderated. To an even greater degree than most other threads, you are expected to read entire articles, think about them critically, and make thoughtful, earnest posts. Remember: bad articles aren't necessarily propaganda, and 'universal skepticism' is frequently just as intellectually lazy as credulity.

If you want to dunk on outright obvious garbage, consider instead posting in the Right Wing Media thread. This thread is for analysis and potentially debunking of competently constructed articles.

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.

fool of sound fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Apr 28, 2021

# ¿ Apr 28, 2021 01:26

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 03:49

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Discendo Vox posted:

Part 1: What is media literacy?

Let's start from the beginning.

This is the Shannon and Weaver Communication Model.

(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.)

Shannon and Weaver is a classic. It�s the foundation of entire fields of theory. But let�s put some flesh on these bones. Why do we care about this?

Example 1
DnD mod GreyJoyBastard loves classic film The Princess Bride, and has always thought it deserves more appreciation. He writes a long, meandering OP in CineD discussing his love of the film, and promoting his idea, an HD re-release shown in theaters.

GJB has a message he wants to convey, but he can't just beam it into people's heads- he has to encode it into a message into a form other people can translate. This post passes through the channel or medium of the forums.

Unfortunately, this medium has a source of noise, or distortion, that warps or limits the content of the message. All communications have sources of noise, but SA has an especially bad one: radium�s code. The post that is ultimately displayed is scrambled.

Several users see the new thread. Among them is Jeffrey of YOSPOS, who sees the post and reads it, decoding it in the context of some�detailed�children's cartoon fanfiction GJB had been posting earlier. He decides he's had enough. GreyJoyBastard is demodded and permabanned.

What have we learned?
First, what you mean isn�t the same as what you say, or what your audience hears. Your ideas or beliefs or intentions have to be converted into a message, which travels through a medium that further distorts its content, and then has to be interpreted by the recipient.

Second, to communicate your meaning, you have to think about how the message will be received. It�s not enough to care passionately about your beliefs. Hell, caring passionately can make it harder to communicate! You need to be able to anticipate how your message will be mediated to construct your message so that it conveys your desired idea and your audience will understand it. GreyJoyBastard didn�t have too much of a chance because of radium, but if he�d included a short message at the top of his post saying �I understand this is not like my usual posting, but I promise this thread is not related to my collection of My Little Pony alternate universe harem novellas��it might have helped. He needed to think about how the forums could screw up his message, and how his target audience doesn�t share his well-known love of 1980s camp cinema and costumed horse romance.

If you don�t actively think about how your message will be mediated and received, and how it relates to your goals, you�re talking to yourself, not others. You're masturbating, not communicating. DPPH is closed. We try to discourage that practice these days.

Third and most importantly, all messages are mediated.
When we usually think of media, we think of getting information from an outside source, like a newspaper, that �mediates� the message. But every medium, every source, selects and influences how a message is shaped and ultimately received.

What�s more, messages are mediated many times over. When you see and post a tweet that contains a link to a news story, the reporter is a mediator for the message- but so is the source for the story, and the way they talked to the reporter, and the editor, and the newspaper�s social media account, and the person who retweets it, and the twitter format�and so are you, the person who posts that tweet on the forums.

When we think of media literacy, then it�s not just about understanding how the �news media� operates. We get information in all kinds of ways, and very little of it is only mediated by reporters. Media literacy is about understanding how the process of communication affects the messages we receive, and how we can better participate in communication, as message creators and receivers.

fool of sound fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Apr 28, 2021

# ¿ Apr 28, 2021 01:26

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Discendo Vox posted:

Part 2: The Rhetorical Situation
One useful way to understand any given media source is a framework called "The Rhetorical Situation". This framework was developed to develop and analyze persuasive messages, but it's also great for just improving critical thinking about media. In any situation where communication is happening, each person communicating has three factors to consider.

Exigence (i.e. goal)
The speaker has a particular goal in mind. This goal could be specific political reform, the overthrow of the capitalist state, feeling better about themselves, getting laid, anything. The important thing is that, as covered in the first part, the goal is not the same as the message. When a right-wing pundit wants to fearmonger about a minority, they rarely say �you should be afraid of this minority�. They tell a story about some made-up atrocity that motivates that fear in their audience.

Your goal is not the same as what you are trying to communicate, and it�s not the same as what you want your audience to believe, nor is it the same as the text of the message you send (yes, this is the same lesson as in Part 1).

Audience
Messages need to be written in terms and forms that convey their intended content to a specific audience. If you�re speaking to one person or to a well-defined group and the situation is simple, you can �tailor� your message specifically based on what you know about them. In most situations, though, there are multiple audiences, including both intended and unintended audiences whose response still matters and can influence whether or not your goals are achieved.

Balancing how different audiences will respond to a message becomes more difficult as the number of audiences becomes more diverse. Coded language (like racist dogwhistles, speaking in Spanish, or references to the specific slogans of a protest movement) let the speaker try to split their message�s interpretation for different audiences. Most of the time, though, they�re stuck crafting a message that will offend or appeal to some set of different audiences, and try to reach a balance of different statements, appealing to different audiences, such that their general goals are achieved. If a speech seems tone-deaf, well, it may just not be tuned for your ears. That doesn�t mean it�s necessarily badly composed.
All of this is made infinitely harder by the fact that almost all audiences are now mediated; audiences they are only getting message after it passes through someone else�s hands.

Constraints
Mediators (like the press) are one example of constraints on a message- limitations of format, sources of noise (another concept from Part 1) or misinterpretation, limited time or money or access, that can restrict the speaker�s options. Each of these constraints can screw up an otherwise well-designed message, but the biggest constraint, the greatest restriction, in most modern communication settings, is attention. Everyone involved in communication is trying to figure out how to get their audience to read, to click through, and to share- and that distorts both the initial message, and every other medium or media that it passes through. It�s incredibly hard to get nuance or details through to an audience that isn�t somehow motivated to stick around- and right now most online media just intensifies this constraint.

Exercise 1
Here�s a practice problem to get a feel for what this entails.

Congratulations. You�re Joe Biden. You have to give your first state of the union speech, and Peter Thiel just drained all the blood out of your speechwriter. It�s all on you now, and your speech is in an hour. What�s your goal? What are your different audiences? What are the constraints on your speech? What do you say?

�Why am I not hearing about x?!�
Politicians do not actually control the media- and media attention is an incredibly fickle constraint. There is a constant churn of attempts to get and maintain media attention, and the media ecosystem is more fragmented than ever. The vast majority of press announcements, even from the white house, do not get billing even in conventional press. Mediated, self-reinforced selection newsfeeds like twitter give an even more limited picture. When you blame someone for �not talking about� something, bear in mind that they may actually be talking about that thing- you�re just not hearing about it because your sources of information aren�t providing it to you. If you find yourself asking this question, check to see if the politician or- well, let�s be real, it�s usually the democrats that get blamed for this- the democrats are actually talking about it, and it�s just not getting covered. And understand that �well they should talk about it more� usually means they get to do, or even just talk about, other things less�and you�re not the only person with the only priorities that they need to reach. Good governance does not attract attention like a fat man riding an escalator does. Find better, more direct sources that will tell you more about what is going on. Stop watching the fat man on the escalator.

Consider the message creator�s rhetorical situation
If you think someone is doing or saying something horrible and insane, ask yourself why they are doing it. People are rarely completely irrational, especially in communication. There is usually some motivation, even if it is self-interested or unethical. If your answer requires a conspiracy or some sort of global all-encompassing evil, or if you just don�t have any information that tells you why, your understanding of the situation is incomplete- and the current information source you are using to understand the situation is probably misleading you. Maybe the speaker can�t talk about the subject of a deliberation without derailing it, or there�s a liability issue. Maybe they�re trying to reach out to someone who doesn�t share your values, but whose support is vital to their goals. Maybe they are monstrous and psychotic, but they�re usually gonna have some underlying reason beyond their psychosis! Putting yourself in the shoes of the speaker and thinking through their rhetorical situation will let you start to view any message they put out more critically.

fool of sound fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Apr 28, 2021

# ¿ Apr 28, 2021 01:27

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Discendo Vox posted:

Part 3: Things to consider in modern media
What�s a Lede?
The lede is the main point or draw of an article- the material that is often converted or summarized into the headline. The lede is what drives attention- it is sometimes the only, single new piece of information in the article. Everything after the lede is intended to contextualize that information and help the audience process it. Depending on editorial practices, it is often normal to expect an audience to read the later material. This expects the audience to recognize when the contextualizing material changes how the lede should be interpreted- especially where the lede is a quote about someone claiming something. It�s good practice to put as much immediate context for a lede statement as possible as close to the top of the article as possible, usually in a �nut graf�- the most important context in a nutshell.

�Cletus safari� stories (stories interviewing people with offensive, �backwards� views) are frequently just rubbernecking at bigotry, but often they provide context that is intended to explain how the Cletuses involved arrived at their position�.and some of them are actually designed to be stories about how the original source is a piece of racist garbage with no excuses or redeeming qualities. A media source, especially a print one, expecting their reader to read the entire article is not inherently bad media.

Alternately, lovely media will bury contradictory information in the supporting material in order to promote the idea that the lede is true. This is usually easier to determine on close reading, but a lot depends on your willingness to spend the effort to apply scrutiny- even if the story �feels� true and supports what you were already thinking.

Track cited sources
Media should provide sources. Often if it�s not anonymous, they even give links back to their original source- and even if they don�t, they may give enough context that you can try to find information about that source. Get in the habit of checking the original source, and using that source (which often has much more context) when trying to understand an article.

Interpret usage of sources
When reading any message, ask yourself: Who are the sources? What order are the sources presented in? How do decisions about what sources are quoted, and how, influence my perception of the claims in the story?
This recent story talking about how the US is withholding the AstraZeneca vaccine from other nations is citing entirely to AstraZeneca spokespeople. This tells you something about how the story was formed and how it may be biased.

Authors do not write titles, and titles change
In almost all outlets, a separate staffer writes an article�s title, and nowadays the title may change based on A/B testing (different people get different titles, and eventually the editor takes whichever title was most popular and applies it to all copies of the article). This goes septuple for social media posts. Always click through and read the article. The title is often inaccurate if not misleading- and that�s due to the perversities of the mediating source, not the original text.

"is this an ad"?
Some media, especially online only media, operates principally or in part by reprinting source material from PR wires. This is easy to check. Is it about a new product or study? Does it extensively quote people tied to the subject, and it seems weird that this outlet would have an exclusive interview?

This sort of reporting isn�t inherently unethical, if the PR material is contextualized, or reported as PR material. The new study or product may be news! It�s not propaganda, it�s mediation- hearing about these things, even if they�re promoted, is a part of what you use media for. A large part of what is �news� is reporting what people are doing or saying, even if they�re doing or saying it for money or for press attention.

You�ve got some tools together now, let�s see what you make of them.

Exercise 2
This intercept article came up recently in another thread. Spoiler alert: it is completely full of poo poo. At the same time, it�s very possible that you find its basic message appealing (which is why it showed up in the first place). It makes for a great practice dummy, though, because it�s short and it hyperlinks its sources. So: can you identify the lede, the nut graf, and the twenty-odd ways that it�s misleading nonsense?

This is the basic set of skills you need to practice to parse most media on a surface level. Your goal should be to do it habitually, even when the article doesn't hyperlink its sources or its message just seems obvious.

In the next part we'll get into some of the specific ways that we understand or misunderstand ideas, and how to read the individual sentences and claims of an article in much, much greater detail.

fool of sound fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Apr 28, 2021

# ¿ Apr 28, 2021 01:28

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Discendo Vox posted:

Conclusion: Applying critical thought to media, for goons
You are media
When you post on the forums, you are communicating. The posts of others are also communication. Most of the important parts of the material here applies to you as much as to any conventional media source. You can be a channel through which good information enriches the forums, or a stream of unfiltered bullshit and/or propaganda. Hopefully if you�re the latter, as moderation improves, your posting also improves. Or you�ll get banned.

�Think for yourself� doesn�t mean rationalize more
A core issue with many people�s approach to media literacy is they think of it as finding a single, true lens through which to understand information and the world- a rule or worldview or rubric that they can use to decide what sources are good or bad. This is often couched in the language of universal skepticism, or seeing through the �mainstream media.� �I�m skeptical of every source� and "all media is biased" is bullshit. No one can be skeptical of every source equally, and all too often it means rejecting good sources that are just communicating challenging or unappealing information. Taking these positions actually makes a person even more vulnerable to disinformation, because disinfo campaigns actively target such individuals and prey upon their biases. The Intercept article I cited above OANN will both tell you- they will give you the stories no one else will.

Similarly, a single theory (including, or even especially, �crit� theories that provide an overarching narrative telling you what sources are good or bad) will instead steer you toward messages that appeal to you for all the wrong reasons. There�s a reason these posts are a bunch of material pulled from different sources- a toolkit will make you much more intellectually versatile than a single mythological correct way to understand media.

If you agree with something, look harder
You need to apply much stronger criticism to messages that tell you what you want to hear. This includes �Those people I hate are doing things I hate!� messages. You are a target for misleading information, and you are not automatically more resistant to that information just because you believe you are right or rational or a good person. Meaningful messages and statements are richer in information, and leave themselves open to scrutiny. Finding weaknesses or bias in a source doesn�t make it worthless- but it means you have tools to better evaluate it in context. A claim that appears to have no basis for scrutiny, that seems to you to be absolutely and unambiguously, obviously self-evidently true�is bullshit. And a source or ideology that gives you that level of moral certainty will just make it much harder for you to critically evaluate other information with the baggage it gives you.

Don�t read in a comedy way
Media literacy and critical thought is not about becoming a better arguer or finding a position that�s easier to defend. If anything, it�s the exact opposite- it�s about being able to take a position that is more reliant on facts, on details, on nuance, and more amenable to change. Literacy in media requires an understanding of specific outlets and authors, different sources of information, their methods, strengths and weaknesses, so than you can interpret them with greater nuance. These nuances, these specific details, will in turn give you more tools to read media and evaluate sources critically.

Oh my god, log off of Twitter
Are you and your friends getting your news from twitter? You�re hosed in the head. No, seriously, it has hosed you up on levels you cannot recognize. Twitter is brain poison, and the medium is taking every bit as smelly a dump in your brain as every internet-poisoned racist or hot take artist you�ve ever encountered on there. The comedians you follow aren�t more insightful, the journos you follow aren�t giving you inside scoops, and the information you�re getting is virtually never reaching you before everyone else.

The power of twitter to gently caress up brains is not just that it gives you material that you agree with, or makes you angry at things you disagree with. Twitter makes the information it gives you seem as if it reflects the world. Feeds are fishbowls. The tiny, myopic, ultratailored worldview that twitter gives you fills up your vision and gives you the illusion of understanding much larger, more complex issues. That�s the real danger of social media - not just being wrong, but being certain. If you get your information from twitter, if you have an account and log in and use it regularly - or even if you just socialize with a set of people who pass you information from the site, well, they�re just mediators for the exact same phenomenon.

The only solution- the only solution- is to log off. I mean it. Get other sources of information. Actually subscribe to a newspaper, and read parts that aren�t about today�s memes or what other people are discussing in your favored discord server. (I am not going to tell you that you have to read nonfiction books from outside your usual worldview; ask Hieronymous Alloy in TBB for some recs if you want to really excel.) Read about subjects that you know nothing about and that don�t map onto any part of the prior political identity or culture of social media. Develop expertise, and a more nuanced understanding of the world. This is the only thing that will make you even resistant to the epistemic closure that social media encourages. Resistance to propaganda requires a mental framework and ideological underpinnings that are complex and idiosyncratic enough that no propagandist can tailor a message that can pierce all the experience and tools and perspectives you've learned.

fool of sound fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Apr 28, 2021

# ¿ Apr 28, 2021 01:30

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Discendo Vox posted:

As it came up earlier and I'm desperate to spend less time at the Omaha Zoo's latest exhibit, here's a shorter effortpost on general sourcing and attribution policy terms. fool of sound, this should be uncontroversial so if possible please link it in the OP.

Sources and attribution: the basics
Understanding the conventions of how professional media characterize sources of information can help provide useful context about the intentions of sources and the purpose of a given media message. The below are the common terms in use in the US, and what they generally mean, with examples and some caveats. There's a lot more to cover here, this is just to get us started.

On the record. Directly quotable with attribution, by name. This is functionally the default if you're talking to a reporter, but competent journalists who aren't trying to immediately wreck a source of information are going to usually be more explicit about when they are on the record, unless the interaction is adversarial.
Example:

On background. The source name isn't used, but some sort of other conditional information about the source is provided. (The AP, as a wire service, basically never uses sources on background.) Depending in the circumstances, this can be very useful in determining the motivations of the source. With a great deal of experience with individual authors or outlets, it's possible to narrow the likely set of sources or at least identify common sourcing from particular outlets (for example, the new york times has a fat pipe to several law enforcement agencies in NYC).
Example:

(someone remind me to use this piece to illustrate bad faith and framing effects for the thread at some point)

Deep background. The information can be used but it's never attributed to a source with any detail. This is an extremely ethically risky form of attribution that reporters are usually not supposed to accept; in practice the reporter, aware of the information, is going to use their awareness of this information to find other corroborating sources, or is really willing to go out on a limb.
Example:

You will also see this if a mediator is unable to immediately confirm the source but is confident that it's true and the story is white-hot, such as in disaster reporting. This shows up in the On the Media active shooter handbook for a reason!

Off the record. Not for use in any publication, ever, and usually understood to not even be used in other reporting. This does not mean "quote me anonymously", even if it gets presented that way in popular media! Unsophisticated, abusive sources sometimes try to poo poo in the pool by asserting that something explosive they've revealed is off the record, with the goal of preventing the reporter from ever reporting on it. This one weird trick doesn't work very well.

As mentioned above, reporters with information gained off the record on on deep background are encouraged to get confirmation from alternate sources. With explosive or inflammatory claims that have no on the record sources (and with litigious subjects), the reporter will often get as many sources, with as much attribution as possible, to both protect their original sources and defend the story from attack. This hit absurd heights during the leak-heavy, pushback-prone Trump administration.

Caution:
From my dealings with the press, the above are indeed the normal ways that these terms are used, but there can be significant variations, and truly scummy mediators may not follow ethical policies at all, even if they have them posted. If you're interacting with the press, then understanding and negotiating attribution is very important. If you're working as a mediator with people who like abusing the press, then you can expect them to claim their interpretation of these levels of attribution are different, or even gaslight you about how attribution was negotiated.

If a reporter truly thinks it's worth ruining their reputation over, they can, of course, lie about protecting attribution. At this point, though, there's little keeping them from just lying about what their source says- and if the fact that they've done so is revealed, the journalist will usually find themselves completely unemployable.

More info:
I've primarily used policy materials from the AP and the Washington Post for this post (as I stated elsewhere, these policies are public and actively maintained, which is a good sign about these organizations). Both linked sites have much more contextual detail about their sourcing and quotation policies; this is just to provide some basic vocabulary. At some point in the future I'll go into citation effects and networked mediation, strengths and limitations of standard journalistic attribution practice which are also addressed in these policy sections.

fool of sound fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Jun 28, 2021

# ¿ Apr 28, 2021 02:17

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Inaccurate or deliberately false information leading to good outcomes is, at best, a product of prudent guesswork. Correct information is an inherent good regardless of which filters it has been run through by the time it gets to the recipient. Your example doesn't bear out your thesis, the actual outcome as it affects peoples' lives is unchanged regardless of the recipient's presumption of what the factual statement indicates about future action or lack thereof. You then go on to undermine your own point with discussion of serious people making claims about Iraqi WMDs; those were deliberate falsehoods that directly contributed to a bad outcome!

In any case, the primer explicitly talks about the importance of identifying the nature of mediation and how it is distorting the presented information.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2021 04:14

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Bel Shazar posted:

What exactly makes correct information an inherent good? Best I can come up with is it can allow one to come to more accurate solutions and take more effective actions

You have correctly identified why it is inherently good.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2021 14:49

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Josef bugman posted:

But that isn't inherently good.

Let's say that I am building a people thresher, which is like a combine harvester but for people, and want to make it the most efficient people thresher it can be. I look at the best and most effective information to build something that is truly awful, and that people have great difficulty in avoiding and getting killed by. Is the truth, in this instance, an inherent good? Because it allowed me to build a machine that is at the upmost effectiveness for killing people?

This same example supposes that it is impossible to know if having higher brain functions is good or bad because they sometimes allow people to do bad things. Everything that is consistently effective to any end is a product of the availability of accurate information and it's bizarre to me that several people are unable to immediately discern the difference between ability and motivation.

Generally if people have decided that they are opposed to truth that is deleterious to their ideology they should probably stay out of this thread and preferably subforum.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2021 15:17

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

The point of the OP is not that media used to be better, it's that the business landscape surrounding it is different and how people relate to media has radically changed, and that changes the nature of how and why bad information reaches people.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2021 16:06

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

I feel that when a news seeker actively looks at a news aggregator or Twitter or news website that there is an implied initial communication to the effect of "i would like to learn true information"or "please tell me things that affirm my worldview" or some combination thereof.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2021 16:18

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

The driving factor being profit motive is obviously true but also uselessly reductionist. The way media companies generate revenue and the sorts of completion they have to deal with have changed quite rapidly and traditional outlets have struggled to adapt to the new marketplace.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2021 17:52

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Hey Red and Black, for the benefit of the discussion, could you outline the frameworks that you think are useful to media criticism?

# ¿ Jun 18, 2021 16:18

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Yeah I don't this argument is particularly productive. Manufacturing Consent is indisputably influential and much discussed, and people disputing it need to debunk, not dismiss.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2021 19:15

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

I reads more as a critique of the lack of falsifiability of the misuse of the framework tbh. When you have to jump through that many leaps to sustain the theory it's probably not actually a quality argument. Misuse of a theory isn't evidence against it.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2021 23:56

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

I really don't read the people in this thread arguing in defense of MC as doing so to pull a rhetorical trick, though certainly it has a reputation for that elsewhere. Criticism of media doesn't imply that the critiqued media is entirely or even predominantly valueless and I don't think any posters at present are trying to argue that in MCs case it does so.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2021 21:23

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Your research paper example is only valid if the papers were pulled for poor scientific rigor or something else that calls the process into question; coming to an incorrect conclusion from valid inputs is only indicative of where Chomsky's ideological leanings are (if anyone wasn't already aware), and his work should at least be discussed with the authors' positions in mind.

Sekhem posted:

I would be very happy if this discussion went in the direction of methodological critique of Chomsky & Herman!

I think this would be an interesting line of discussion though.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2021 00:27

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Vincent Van Goatse posted:

Shouldn't repeated denial/downplaying of actual literal genocide by Herman count as an equivalent to "poor scientific rigor or something else that calls the process into question"? I mean if ignoring or minimizing genocide doesn't qualify as a serious mistake in the social sciences, what in God's name does?

Although I don't know Herman's exact position, I did some reading last night on Chomsky's idiosyncratic use of 'genocide', and my understanding is that Chomsky ironically enough buys into the Holocaust-uniqueness framework that is frequently used in pro-imperial rhetoric. Basically, if it isn't a deliberate campaign of extermination by a de facto state actor against an ethnic minority, Chomsky prefers other terms, though when asked about this in an interview about Rwanda he claims that he doesn't have a serious issue with others choosing to use the term, and he doesn't deny the factual atrocities. To be clear I don't think that this distinction is worth the argument, but I guess Chomsky is a linguist and has opinions about the use and misuse of terms, but I also don't think that he's 'denying' genocide in the sense that, say, Holocast deniers do; he's making a fussy little point about terminology.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2021 15:36

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Epinephrine posted:

So, if as claimed by some here, the Propaganda Model "cannot be used to predict whether an individual news story is true or false," then it is useless for the purposes of this thread.

Understanding biases in reporting is a valid topic for the thread, though I agree that there are serious flaws in how MC is applied, and I've been pretty blown away by its misuse by its own authors.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2021 18:38

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

I would really like it if people would respond to the criticisms of the model itself as laid about by Discendo Vox instead of continuing to focusing on genocide denial angle. We'll have a much more productive debate if the focus in on the utility or lack thereof of MC, rather than the moral standing of its authors.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2021 00:51

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Epinephrine posted:

There are other models out there that don't wind up being used to let people deny genocides like the MC/PM does; perhaps we should consider those instead.

Can you put forward one of these models so we can compare then?

# ¿ Jun 27, 2021 19:48

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Antifa Turkeesian posted:

Instead of posting original responses here, is there a peer-reviewed article or two someone could post that addresses the problems with Manufacturing Consent? That would clear up some points of contention here and make the debate less personal. Like maybe something that would be assigned in an intro-level grad course, like a methods class you�d take in your first year?

This would also be helpful. But we are done with discussing the genocide denial angle now. It's been going nowhere for days now.

I'd also really like people to respond to Disvox's post.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2021 23:22

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Instead of debating one anothers motivations for posting in this thread, lets try to please have a productive debate.

Sekhem, can you lay out what you believe the specific utility of PM is, compared to other frameworks?

# ¿ Jun 28, 2021 16:11

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

This is not a productive avenue capt obvious

# ¿ Jun 28, 2021 21:46

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Spoiler posted:

On some level you're the audience for this thread, where are you falling right now in terms of how useful the PM is?

It's hard for me to say exactly, since it was formative in my own political awakening and more or less introduced me to the idea of bias in media beyond simple party alignment. The idea of corporate/political/media interest overlap still informs my approach to media criticism, so as a layman on the topic I have a hard time believing that MC has nothing useful to say. That said I think it does a much better job of presenting an explanation for identified bias, rather than a toolbox for identifying the bias in the first place. I imagine for someone who already has a degree of expertise in media criticism, it comes off as extremely basic, maybe even overly simplistic. It certainly sees a lot of misuse among certain groups of leftists who seem to consider it the first and last word in media criticism, and who routinely misapply it to justify universal skepticism. I think my position could be summarized as "important to read, but also important to make it not the only thing read".

# ¿ Jun 28, 2021 22:40

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Yeah Red and Black I think you need to drop this angle.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2021 02:59

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

This isn't really the thread to detail exactly how evil the US Intelligence apparatus is, though it is valid to point out that someone who has spent most of their adult life in their service is probably going to seriously slant their media career.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2021 18:17

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Stop slapfighting. Reset the conversation and reiterate your specific points please.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2021 15:56

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Discendo Vox posted:

The structure of these gaps, the difference between the information you have and know to be true, and what you represent in discussion, is the space between good faith and bad faith.

If a poster sincerely 'knows something to be true' and misrepresents it, then that is intentional bad faith. Having a different interpretation of some facts, that Probably Magic has supported with effortful arguments, is a valid avenue of discussion and I'd appreciate it if you would refrain from declaring some sort of crypto-bad-faith when a poster doesn't immediately accept the facts and interpretations of those facts as you have presented them.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2021 00:18

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Discendo Vox posted:

Well, I listed a bunch. They repeatedly misrepresented the article and misrepresented specific, factual elements of my posts in objectively identifiable ways. The whole thing about bad faith (and why I'm going to have to dig through some Sartre when I write it up): if grounded in ideological frameworks or assumptions, it can be unknowing. It still has the same effect of paralyzing discussion.

I understand your position, and I don't think you were acting in bad faith either. I'm just asking you to refrain from arguing that another poster is operating in bad faith in thread; send a report or if you feel more context is needed, a PM, to whichever mod you prefer instead please.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2021 00:46

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Cut the petty sniping.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2021 18:30

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

How is this line of discussion relevant? The epistemological one I mean.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2021 17:25

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Nix Panicus posted:

Thats not a question this thread is equipped to answer.

Landing on the moon was an obvious PR victory for the United States, so any article or evidence in favor of the moon landing has to be subjected to extra scrutiny. Why does the US want you to believe they landed on the moon? Why do you want to believe the US landed on the moon? Who is telling you these stories about moon landings, and why do you trust them? Would you be equally open to information saying the US didnt land on the moon? Would you be open to information saying Russia landed on the moon? Does the US have a history of making extraordinary claims for PR purposes that are not backed by evidence? Do you think the US did not trade arms for hostages with Iran? You have to critically examine your biases whenever confronting fantastic information, such as the moon landing.

If you're unwilling to accept the preponderance of evidence on a topic because it clashes with your worldview, then you can't have a productive conversation on any topic.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2021 21:26

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Nix you're not responding to arguments that people are actually making, and clearly trying to lay performative zingers on people. Don't post in this thread again.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2021 23:05

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Nix, conflating "attempting to shape the narrative and push focus where they want it" with "everybody involved is a corrupt piece of poo poo" is a mistake. The former is a part of the core idea of mediated messages, the latter is a rhetorical escape hatch that runs afoul of the same sort of behavior you are bemoaning in the rest of your post: that the level of perceived trustworthiness is directly proportional to the degree to which the observer agrees with the reporting.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2021 19:38

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

It seems to me that if, theoretically, the DNC were to provide evidence that a particular piece of the leak was falsified, then the counter-narrative would just end up being "well clearly all the other pieces aren't falsified, or they would have proven it", which would go believed by most of the people who want to believe the leaks are genuine anyway. The whole point of the Glomar response is to avoid this whole worthless exchange.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2021 00:54

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

ram dass in hell posted:

It seems like that response fails utterly, then, because it only avoids this whole "worthless" exchange among people who don't need to be convinced. A better way to avoid the exchange, IMO, would be to have proper security on your email servers, or, even better than that, to not write things in your emails about your conspiracies to rig your own party's primary election and attempt to influence the other party's primary.

What you're saying is, effectively, we just have to trust the DNC that some of the leaks may have been altered, on their word. Unsurprisingly, not everyone values the word of the DNC to the same degree that you do. That doesn't make an exchange on the topic worthless. That makes it a debate!

You sure are asserting that I hold a bunch of beliefs that I have not claimed. My point is that there is no way of determining which parts of the leak, if any, are falsified. If the hack only managed to get fairly innocuous stuff, then the GRU would have motivation to falsify some more sensational materials. If the hack was 100% genuine, then the DNC has motivation to insinuate falsification. The same holds true with greyer interpretations as well. The reader's response is strongly, if not completely informed by ideology: which party does their pre-existing worldview tell them they should trust.

I have no trouble believing that the DNC was actively working against the Sanders campaign and/or actively supporting Clinton. That is consistent with my views on them as an organization. That doesn't mean that I have any particular reason to believe that the leaks were or were not partially doctored, and I don't think that Kingfish's suggested course of action would have changed that.

The Kingfish posted:

Why not just provide evidence for all of the consequential emails? There were only a few dozen of them.

I�m not particularly convinced by hypotheticals where the DNC could disprove the leaks but is choosing not to. I don�t believe the DNC is entitled to that much good will. I frankly doubt you would give many other organizations the same benefit of the doubt.

What evidence could be considered convincing? How do you prove that an email was never written/was written differently when you control the servers in question and could easily lie about it?

fool of sound fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Oct 13, 2021

# ¿ Oct 13, 2021 01:16

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

ram dass in hell posted:

I completely agree with all of this. I also think that everything you said here applies equally to, say, the new york times, the washington post, MSNBC, and so on. Do you agree?

It is always important to keep in mind the motivations and worldview of a source, yes. All the big name outlets put out plenty of slanted, poor, or unverified reporting. Trying to identify that is the purpose of this thread.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2021 01:32

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

ram dass in hell posted:

That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, for example, Washington Post: this is an outlet owned by an oligarch. The second-richest man in the world's privately-owned propaganda paper. This does not mean to me that their reporting will just be skewed or poor or unverified, it means to me that even in cases where the reporting looks "good" to me, I cannot evaluate the truthfulness of the reporting, cannot factor in the impact of lies by omission in what goes unreported, cannot rely on any of the work published for anything except for perhaps, as an indicator of "this is what the world's second-wealthiest oligarch wants us to pay attention to", in the same sense as you're saying that the DNC email leaks were an indicator of what Vladimir Putin wants us to pay attention to (instead of the access Hollywood tape, in that instance).

"The Washington Post is owned by an oligarch, and sometimes it puts out material that seems suspiciously misleading or slanted in favor of him and his interests" is one of the things that should be kept in mind when evaluating the Washington Post, yes. Similarly, "the New York Times editorial board has consistently supported US warfare" (among other things) should be kept in mind when analyzing their reporting where that might be relevant. Neither of those things being true means that all of their reporting can be dismissed out of hand, or worse, that reporting that the viewer dislikes can be selectively dismissed.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2021 01:44

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 03:49

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Ultimately, all reporting is conducted by people being paid for by someone else, or by people who have sufficient motivation to do so for free. Identifying this and reading their work with this is mind is part of proper analysis. It does not mean that the reporting is tainted and useless.

ram dass in hell posted:

I don't understand why you don't think this applies to Wikileaks?

"Neither of those things being true means that all of their reporting can be dismissed out of hand, or worse, that reporting that the viewer dislikes can be selectively dismissed."

That's exactly what's being done by the OP and multiple mods itt? It's just different because it's Russia-adjacent?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm consistently saying that I distrust both Assange and the DNC, and do not see any particular evidence to believe one more strongly than the other. I generally believe that the DNC was biased against Sanders and towards Clinton, as the leaks suggest, but I acknowledge this is in large part a product of my support for Sanders and dislike of Clinton.

fool of sound fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Oct 13, 2021

# ¿ Oct 13, 2021 01:49

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