Americanisation of the English Right

[Mr. Tea]

The internet seems to have collectively decided that Gregg Wallace is soon to be offered a role as a presenter on GB News.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Another hapless victim of the Wokerati and their cancel culture! 😡

 

[mixed_biscuits]

You can't take something like the response to the Jaguar ad in isolation because of what you're saying in your last paragraph. Yeah, the media don't need to say anything negative for people to find it irritating, but that irritation's partly down to their audience having been primed by years of hysterical coverage. They create their viewers to a certain extent. Someone gets pulled in due to agreeing on a particular issue or just being entertained, then, as they spend more time with it, they begin to be shaped by it and take on more of their viewpoints.

I'm not claiming the media can make absolutely anything they want stick 100% of the time or that it works on everybody, I'm claiming prolonged exposure to negative coverage can influence some people's opinions. This is what I was referring to with the Fox comment. They've spent decades conditioning their audience to be furious and unreasonable and it works. There are plenty of Americans who'll tell you how their parents started watching Fox and ended up at a point where they spend all day in front of it and can no longer hold a sensible conversation.

I think it's because the left wing hold to the blank slate theory of mind and personality that they believe in these indoctrination conspiracy theories, and think also that their critics are only critics because they've been indoctrinated and the solution to their indoctrination is being indoctrinated in some other way. Good luck with the indoctrination. You'll need it.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

@versh I asked for a description of the radicalisation you claim, with reference to attitudes changing over time, but all you did was repeat the hand-waving and clichés.

As I said, there are academic studies of attitudes.

 

[version]

I think it's because the left wing hold to the blank slate theory of mind and personality that they believe in these indoctrination conspiracy theories, and think also that their critics are only critics because they've been indoctrinated and the solution to their indoctrination is being indoctrinated in some other way. Good luck with the indoctrination. You'll need it.

How does such a blanket statement line up with my deliberately using words like 'can' and 'some' and emphasising that I don't believe it applies to everyone or works 100% of the time? Very reductive interpretation of what I said. The blank slate thing's a mischaracterisation too as I explicitly stated these networks are building on people already agreeing with them on some issues.

@versh I asked for a description of the radicalisation you claim, with reference to attitudes changing over time, but all you did was repeat the hand-waving and clichés.

As I said, there are academic studies of attitudes.

I'm not an academic, this isn't a forum for academics and academia isn't the be all and end all. I'm not going to stick a note after every single sentence of a post stressing it's a thought or opinion.

 

[version]

I find it difficult to believe you wouldn't hold American liberal media at least partly responsible for 'TDS'. You don't need academic sources to sense that people's opinions can be influenced by the information they receive and the way in which it's communicated.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

How does such a blanket statement line up with my specifically stressing words like 'can' and 'some' and making a point of saying I don't believe it applies to everyone or works 100% of the time? Very reductive interpretation of what I said. The blank slate thing's a mischaracterisation too as I explicitly stressed these networks building on people already agreeing with them on some issues.



I'm not an academic, this isn't a forum for academics and academia isn't the be all and end all. I'm not going to stick a note after every single sentence of a post stressing it's a thought or opinion.

If they already subscribe to Fox values where is the indoctrination? Fox is just bringing latent potential.

Which particular values or attitudes have changed among America's conservatives during Fox's existence?

 

[mixed_biscuits]

I find it difficult to believe you wouldn't hold American liberal media at least partly responsible for 'TDS'. You don't need academic sources to sense that people's opinions can be influenced by the information they receive and the way in which it's communicated.

But I do need actual examples of this radicalisation of the right.

 

[shakahislop]

But I do need actual examples of this radicalisation of the right.

you!

 

[Benny Bunter]

I wonder what GB news and Talk TV viewing figures are compared to the BBC's.

In the US, independent shows like Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carson were smashing the fuck out of the big mainstream channels (including Fox, I would imagine) in terms of viewing figures on YouTube during the election. It's a real crisis over there.

I know it's not directly comparable, but still.

 

[version]

If they already subscribe to Fox values where is the indoctrination? Fox is just bringing latent potential.

Which particular values or attitudes have changed among America's conservatives during Fox's existence?

I never used the word indoctrination, you did. What I've repeatedly stressed is that Fox and similar sources are intensifiers. They prod at people's existing discomforts and frustrations in an effort to direct their attention to particular issues.

As for attitudes, again, it's not that particular values have changed. It's that the overall temperament of their viewership seems to have intensified. They're angrier, less trusting. That's partly down to material conditions having worsened for some people, partly down to some things the Dems do being genuinely fucking annoying, but it's also down to being exposed to nonstop negative coverage and propaganda.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

If conservatives stick to their guns and liberalism gets increasingly permissive, then the gap widens anyway since the latter is certainly true.

 

[version]

I wonder what GB news and Talk TV viewing figures are compared to the BBC's.

In the US, independent shows like Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carson were smashing the fuck out of the big mainstream channels (including Fox, I would imagine) in terms of viewing figures on YouTube during the election. It's a real crisis over there.

I know it's not directly comparable, but still.

I imagine all of them pale in comparison to podcast and social media engagement. The figures re: Sky vs GB News are in the tens of thousands.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

For simplicity, let's just say the conservatives have traditional Christian values. Although their values may not have changed, they correctly see their society becoming ever less trad Christian. This brings about frustration and an intensification of attitudes against the people and ideas they consider to be blockers. Liberals are conceding less and less to Christians so what do they expect?; these religions have been around for millennia with minimal change whereas the latest set of liberal practices has been around for a mayfly's fart.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Fox would be as it is, even if it's just a reflection of their viewers' mood.

 

[version]

For simplicity, let's just say the conservatives have traditional Christian values. Although their values may not have changed, they correctly see their society becoming ever less trad Christian. This brings about frustration and an intensification of attitudes against the people and ideas they consider to be blockers. Liberals are conceding less and less to Christians so what do they expect?; these religions have been around for millennia with minimal change whereas the latest set of liberal practices has been around for a mayfly's fart.

Right, but a lot of the information they're receiving that isn't coming from direct experience is coming from heavily skewed media with an agenda other than simply informing their audience. Look at the kind of reporting I've singled out in this thread, the segment on Starmer being a 'weirdo' turning on some Christmas lights. This stuff seems as though it has a cumulative effect despite not really being based on anything solid or about anything particularly important.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn there's a bunch of people who weren't keen on Starmer and Labour in the first place and who now despise them because they've been fed a steady diet of scare stories designed to play to their biases.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Why does anyone "need examples" of stuff? Just chat and have a nice time.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

I think the main problem that being attached to a particular media strand is when they make stuff up or fail to report.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

PMs have so much influence over such a wide range of things that it's easy to find something over which to despise them.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

What Version seems to mean by radicalisation is an intensification of feeling but, taking radicalisation literally as rootification, the conservatives in the US should always already be radicalised, following the constitution and the Bible which are radicalising documents that themselves assert that they are always relevant and never to be superseded. In this sense of radicalisation there's nothing per se especially wrong with it.