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Popping in to say there's some discussion of this thread's place happening in QCS. If you like the thread, be sure to make your voice heard. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3989859. You can also PM me if you'd prefer not to post there.
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Jan 5, 2022 02:56
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Cease to Hope posted:I'm not worried about ideal truth, just the idea of an error-free message. Errors can be objectively measured in transcription or literal encoding of a piece of text or sound. But I don't think it's possible to know even one's own perfect, error-free message. It's an outdated idea, one that was refuted by turning it inward. All of the tools we have to attempt to separate meaning and message are themselves as entangled into the speaker's thinking and manner of speaking and manner of understanding -- as chock full of noise, to use the OP's metaphor -- as the entangled message to be interpreted. There's no error-free description of the process to separate error and message. It's a dead end, a hammer that cannot forge a hammer. It's been pointed out to me that Vox has never claimed an ideal truth, nor an error free message, nor any other perfect state was required for media criticism as he describes it. And, if this argument takes the form "because media criticism cannot be perfect, it shouldn't be attempted at all," that would be an example of a perfect solution fallacy. So I'd like us to avoid that. I'd also like to remind everyone to make sure what they're saying is fresh, and they aren't trying to hammer on the same point they've made before in order to achieve victory.
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Jan 14, 2022 20:42
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Cease to Hope posted:I'm arguing that the model Vox described in the OP and the post I replied to there implicitly relied on the idea that messages as true objects that we fuzzily relate to each other through processes of encoding and decoding. (Not that the messages are true, but that they truly exist.) Error is only meaningful in relation to an error-free perfect interpretation, even if you think that perfect interpretation is strictly hypothetical. Mm, well, I don't feel I fully understand this, and I haven't read the OP, so all I can say is to ensure you're not making the same argument against the OP over and over.
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Jan 14, 2022 23:49
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Discendo Vox posted:
While I don't have any major problems with these two models, the M1 step seems to be getting into conspiracy theory territory, and to me made the model more difficult to understand. Since this step is secret, it's a presumption that a certain clandestine action was intentionally taken by a party based on the ultimate results and the fact that we don't like them, as per a conspiracy theory. It may be better to say P chooses a P2 that has some form of legitimacy and already believes the message without even worrying about where the message came from. Discendo Vox posted:I’m not conflating the two. I laid out the scope very clearly in the first post on this subject, I encourage you to read it more carefully. Cease to Hope posted:You are. A problem here seems to be that including "misleading" information in our definition of disinformation propaganda broadens it considerably. To determine whether it's falsifiable we would have to look at not only the arguments presented in the propaganda themselves, but also the conclusions they lead us to, and be in agreement about what those conclusions even are. For example, (and bear in mind I'm not familiar with him beyond this thread), Rall makes a cartoon with the implication that we should stop sending aid to Ukraine. There are no falsehoods in the cartoon itself. This would not meet the definition of disinformation propaganda Vox laid out. Though it could still be considered in bad faith if Russia paid him to make the cartoon, depending on your definition of bad faith.
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Nov 6, 2022 17:26
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Discendo Vox posted:It's not conspiracy because it's a known thing. Rall works directly for Sputnik, and Sputnik is a propaganda outlet by any definition one might use. Sputnik may not pay all the other people who appear on their programming, but they do to Rall. The million mile wide gulf between Rall's stated beliefs and the agenda he's promoting, coupled with the fact that he's a propagandist, ought to make him a good example. In many other cases, we don't immediately know this, or its presented deniably. It's possible to identify that legitimating source obfuscation is happening by applying scrutiny to the mediating source and to the methods of the root source- and, of course, because other people also do the work and you can read their material. To be clear, what I'm saying is not that Rall isn't influenced by Russian state actors. I'm saying that it requires conspiracy theory logic to claim that they are the ones who implanted whatever ideas he's spreading that are favorable to them, because the ostensible action is happening behind the scenes and all we have to go off of are the ultimate results matching what we believe the entity's goals to be, and our belief that the entity is unscrupulous enough to engage in this.
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Nov 6, 2022 19:42
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Bear Enthusiast posted:Seems like an unnecessary and rude accusation of bad faith. Yes. Because there's an ongoing interesting discussion I won't probate this time, but will if it happens again. However, please report posts that break the rules such as this rather than bringing them up in thread.
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Nov 6, 2022 19:53
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Discendo Vox posted:Rall is employed, directly, by the propaganda source, to produce material on behalf of that source. He didn't go on their radio show a couple times, he's worked for them and produced content for them for more than a decade. You do not need to go further than this. The idea that you need to somehow prove the propagandist truly believes, or doesn't believe, the misleading arguments they are making, while in the employ of a propaganda agency, to call their arguments disinformation beggars belief, and misses the point. I didn't say you have to prove what the propagandist does or does not believe, but only that the M1 occurred, and the message was secretly transmitted. It would not be unreasonable to infer this in certain circumstances, but it still seems to require a certain conspiracy theory sort of logic definitionally, because it's dealing with something hidden. I've understood the definition of conspiracy theory to be taking motive and opportunity alone to assume guilt, because finding evidence is not possible due to the secretive nature of the conspiracy, and that would apply here. Sharkie posted:This is a good example that helps me understand this concept in a concrete way, thank you. I think that would fall into the category of deflective rather than legitimating, because the military is not (as far as I'm aware) taking the extra step of screening the movies they assist with, or otherwise presenting them as evidence that their goals and methods are legitimate.
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Nov 7, 2022 04:21
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Sharkie posted:Do you mean screening as in "showing for an audience" or "reviewing before release" because it seems like they do both, but the process of how exactly they control movie production is somewhat secretive. I mean showing to an audience. Reviewing before release wouldn't make a difference in which type of propaganda mediation it is. But yes, if they are showing it to soldiers to make the military seem more legitimate, and making it seem as though the movie is a work that springs naturally and honestly from the artistic impulses of a director rather than having been influenced them, then that would seem to fall under legitimating.
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Nov 7, 2022 04:44
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Discendo Vox posted:It does not, because whether it's Rall or any of the other examples, we can in fact find the relevant evidence. What would you consider to be hard evidence that the P2 believes something as a result of the secret M1, as opposed to coming to the conclusion on their own or hearing it from some other source and then the P1 realizing that they can use the P2 for their goal because they already believe it? The only thing I can think of is timing, i.e. the P2 doesn't start advocating a certain message until immediately after they meet P1 or come into their employ. Discendo Vox posted:Rall works for RT as a propogandist, and Rall's output both in RT and outside of RT does not disclose that he works for RT. This sort of information is discoverable, and can be further inferred where the practices and elements of the construction of the messaging correspond to the practices of the propagandist source. I've provided other examples of this with Russian outlays already. Couldn't that also just mean that he's embarrassed by it?
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Nov 7, 2022 04:58
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Discendo Vox posted:We don't know when Rall started working for the Russian government. However, Rall's messaging routinely changes at the same time that other Sputnik messaging changes. An example of this is the column he wrote from a sudden trip to Moscow a couple months ago in which he declared, in the space of a single column, that Western sanctions on Russia were futile, that they were harmful, that they were having no impact on the Russian economy, and that the Russian people were happier and freer than Americans. Or the whole shift in focus, with specific matched messaging, that has occurred both times Russia invaded Ukraine. Ah, that makes more sense then.
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Nov 7, 2022 05:12
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