Jungibaaz
RETIRED MOD
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2010
- Messages
- 8,756
- Reaction score
- 113
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Sure, media everywhere has its biases, some are encouraged and others naturally occur. But still free-ish media is better than state monitored media and systems where there’s frequent crackdown on dissenting political speech.
As for control in those free-ish democracies, any mainstream media company is influenced (or naturally inclined) to uphold and favour the same status quo that made it a viable and successful business in the first place, not rock the boat too much. It’s influenced by it’s advertisers, and those advertisers use its influence boost preferred narratives on people or to sell stuff. This bias doesn’t have to be overt, it’s not even a conscious effort on their part sometimes. Most democracies have an Overton window of acceptable political speech, and the media usually plays within the confines of that window. As for a better critique of modern so-called democracies and the freeness and objectivity of their media, the best critique on offer is IMO Chomsky’s manufacturing consent. Perhaps I don’t agree with everything he says and not to the same degree, but the facts he lays bare are pertinent in this discussion. Also it seems to me he views things too much from an economic lens and misses out other important aspects of culture, society and state in enforcing biases.
As for control in those free-ish democracies, any mainstream media company is influenced (or naturally inclined) to uphold and favour the same status quo that made it a viable and successful business in the first place, not rock the boat too much. It’s influenced by it’s advertisers, and those advertisers use its influence boost preferred narratives on people or to sell stuff. This bias doesn’t have to be overt, it’s not even a conscious effort on their part sometimes. Most democracies have an Overton window of acceptable political speech, and the media usually plays within the confines of that window. As for a better critique of modern so-called democracies and the freeness and objectivity of their media, the best critique on offer is IMO Chomsky’s manufacturing consent. Perhaps I don’t agree with everything he says and not to the same degree, but the facts he lays bare are pertinent in this discussion. Also it seems to me he views things too much from an economic lens and misses out other important aspects of culture, society and state in enforcing biases.
