The Media Controls Your Mind

sus

Moderator
Your average American liberal believes that Fox News manipulates its viewers using all the above tactics, but also that their preferred news outlets are neutral voices of truth. Coincidentally your average American conservative believes the same thing about liberal media. "Subliminal messaging," were it even possible, is completely unnecessary.

The same is true of social media platforms. You hear really funny takes about how Facebook and YouTube "algorithms" are splintering the mainstream narrative, as if that mainstream 'consensus reality' weren't a top-down construction of 20th C media monoculture. (Surprise surprise, the news stories pushing this take are coming from traditional 20th C media platforms—more boring manipulation)

People similarly will swear up and down how Facebook "algorithms" favor their opponents' politics, a stack of citations ready. No, Facebook just shows people things they want to see and what people want is to have their worldview affirmed i.e. they want to be manipulated and misinformed, because reality by definition is more complex than any worldview and will therefore constantly contradict it / surprise you
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
other/alternative media formats exist

eg black folks are very popular in advertising currently as if the agencies running capitalism’s pr engines have had to open the valve upon realising their survival depends on some form of pc representation, even if such actions only change the lot of black actors jobbing for advertising gigs

where does advertising situate itself in media? its funding underpins masses of it, so, buy the world a coke just do it domino-ho-hoes mmmm Danone (or something)
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
every now and then i come across someone in real life who starts talking and its obvious that they've gone down some kind of internet rabbit hole, spent too long with some podcaster or another in their earbuds, got locked into a particular subreddit, latched onto a powerful idea or worldview. i've done it myself obviously a few times. i think it reveals a sort of lack or a kind of sadness. some libidinal need that the ideas are filling. one thing that does seem quite empowering for loads of people is the discovery that some of the things they are experiencing on a day to day basis are i) shared by other people and / or ii) not their fault, ie are some kind of 'structural' force that they are subject to. for me reading k punk on the wounds of class helped me understand a lot and was genuinely helpful. i see a lot of women benefiting from a similar thing when feminism dawns on them. it seems like a clear parallel. but it comes from a hurt place. and then of course one thing that absolutely everyone is doing is going overboard into these realizations and having their wounds soothed by them at the expense of a less self-centered worldview
 

version

Well-known member
every now and then i come across someone in real life who starts talking and its obvious that they've gone down some kind of internet rabbit hole, spent too long with some podcaster or another in their earbuds, got locked into a particular subreddit, latched onto a powerful idea or worldview. i've done it myself obviously a few times. i think it reveals a sort of lack or a kind of sadness. some libidinal need that the ideas are filling. one thing that does seem quite empowering for loads of people is the discovery that some of the things they are experiencing on a day to day basis are i) shared by other people and / or ii) not their fault, ie are some kind of 'structural' force that they are subject to. for me reading k punk on the wounds of class helped me understand a lot and was genuinely helpful. i see a lot of women benefiting from a similar thing when feminism dawns on them. it seems like a clear parallel. but it comes from a hurt place. and then of course one thing that absolutely everyone is doing is going overboard into these realizations and having their wounds soothed by them at the expense of a less self-centered worldview

I reckon it's important to keep some distance from things, specifically in the sense of not taking on too much of the language and jargon of others. There's something off about people who hammer you with a load of neologisms and buzzwords they've picked up from theory and social media.
 

sufi

lala
every now and then i come across someone in real life who starts talking and its obvious that they've gone down some kind of internet rabbit hole, spent too long with some podcaster or another in their earbuds, got locked into a particular subreddit, latched onto a powerful idea or worldview. i've done it myself obviously a few times. i think it reveals a sort of lack or a kind of sadness. some libidinal need that the ideas are filling. one thing that does seem quite empowering for loads of people is the discovery that some of the things they are experiencing on a day to day basis are i) shared by other people and / or ii) not their fault, ie are some kind of 'structural' force that they are subject to. for me reading k punk on the wounds of class helped me understand a lot and was genuinely helpful. i see a lot of women benefiting from a similar thing when feminism dawns on them. it seems like a clear parallel. but it comes from a hurt place. and then of course one thing that absolutely everyone is doing is going overboard into these realizations and having their wounds soothed by them at the expense of a less self-centered worldview
I reckon it's important to keep some distance from things, specifically in the sense of not taking on too much of the language and jargon of others. There's something off about people who hammer you with a load of neologisms and buzzwords they've picked up from theory and social media.
there's still a gap between internet reality and reality, so it's hard to talk irl about yr internet experiences - some discordance or awkwardness saying things out loud that you have read online,
but maybe that's diminishing and maybe gone already for youngers who have never not been online? or who form their relationships as hybrid on/offline rather than one or the other
 

version

Well-known member
there's still a gap between internet reality and reality, so it's hard to talk irl about yr internet experiences - some discordance or awkwardness saying things out loud that you have read online,
but maybe that's diminishing and maybe gone already for youngers who have never not been online? or who form their relationships as hybrid on/offline rather than one or the other

I remember someone saying "lol" in an irl conversation when I was in Year 10 or 11 and everyone was sort of rocked by it for a second and it was a little story that went round.
 

version

Well-known member
It's a loop, like Burroughs says. We're bounced between the most extreme messages and examples of any given group and it can lead to a warped, hysterical view of the world. Some of the people working in media perhaps being the most hysterical of all as they spend their lives totally immersed in it and the model necessitates living on a knife edge.

There's a textbook example of this passing through social media today. A Guardian article's been published with the headline: "Gen Z boys and men more likely than baby boomers to believe feminism harmful, says poll". It's generated thousands of comments across multiple Reddit threads and yet, if you actually read it, it says "On feminism, 16% of gen Z males felt it had done more harm than good. Among over-60s the figure was 13%." Not exactly the alarming uptick the comments and headline might have you believe.

And before someone brings up the Gender Wars thread and that FT article. Yes, yes, we all get sucked in from time to time. And that one's about a gender-based split between liberalism and conservatism rather than feminism, although it obviously plays a part.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
lol at biscuits referencing Poppers falsification principle, time for him to attend church on Sundays methink.
 

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
I reckon it's important to keep some distance from things, specifically in the sense of not taking on too much of the language and jargon of others. There's something off about people who hammer you with a load of neologisms and buzzwords they've picked up from theory and social media.
These people are called 'progressives' and they are always one neologism ahead of your lexicon.
 

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
I remember someone saying "lol" in an irl conversation when I was in Year 10 or 11 and everyone was sort of rocked by it for a second and it was a little story that went round.
The Dutch have long been using 'voor de lol'. In fact it pre-dates the internet and Holland could be said thereby to have been running an offline internet in meatspace for decades.
 

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
lol at biscuits referencing Poppers falsification principle, time for him to attend church on Sundays methink.
I'm a Feyerabend fellow, thank you very much. In fact, I base my entire worldview on him...if anyone brings up something he hasn't covered my response is a strict 'no comment'.
 

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
People who downplay the existence of subliminal effects online are taking a very restricted view. For instance, there are many aspects to UX that work on subliminal principles - one nutty thing is the use of invisible flicker to bring unconsciously to attention chosen website elements.
 

germaphobian

Well-known member
People who downplay the existence of subliminal effects online are taking a very restricted view. For instance, there are many aspects to UX that work on subliminal principles - one nutty thing is the use of invisible flicker to bring unconsciously to attention chosen website elements.

It's not wise to disagree with Professor Griff.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Praise be to Allah.
Are horoscopes haram?
Astrology , horoscopes, superstition and fortune-telling are all actions of ignorance which Islam came to show as false and to explain that they are acts of polytheism. This is because they involve depending on something other than Allah and believing that benefit and harm come from something other than Him, and believing the words of fortune-tellers and soothsayers who falsely claim to have knowledge of the unseen in order to cheat people of their money and change their beliefs.
Evidence for prohibiting zodiac signs in Islam
The evidence for that is the hadith narrated by Abu Dawud in his Sunan with a sahih isnad from Ibn 'Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him), that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “Whoever learns anything of astrology has learned a branch of witchcraft (al-sihr)…”
Al-Bazzar narrated with a sound chain of transmission from ‘Imran ibn Husayn that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “He is not one of us who practises augury or has it done for him, who tells fortunes or has his fortune told, or who practises witchcraft or has that done for him.” Whoever claims to know some matter of the unseen either is a fortune-teller or is acting like a fortune-teller in some sense, because Allah is the only One Who has knowledge of the unseen. Allah says (interpretation of the meaning);
“Say: ‘None in the heavens and the earth knows the Ghayb (Unseen) except Allah…’” [al-Naml 27:65]

 
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