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| Thread: Putin's n1 opposition gunned down in the streets. |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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blizzardboy
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posted March 06, 2015 01:20 AM |
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Probably.
Most people can't get away with completely making stuff up. Not even N. Korea necessarily does that. Most media disinformation is a result of the deliberate absence of stating certain information, rather than stating incorrect information. You report correct information, but then you purposely neglect reporting other information, possibly out of laziness, possibly as a genuine mistake, or possibly deliberately. It's passive lying rather than active lying.
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blizzardboy
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posted March 06, 2015 01:27 AM |
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@Galaad
No, it doesn't make it any better. It might even make it worse. Passive lying is a far more attractive option precisely because it's so much easier to conceal. I mean, if you report that Putin gunned down the Swedish prime minister in a Ukrainian gay bar, you're going to get called out. If you neglect reporting a few details that you would rather leave out, you can't really get pinned down for red-handed lying, even though that might have precisely been your intent.
Fortunately, there are thousands of independent media sources out there.
edit: Response got deleted.
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artu
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posted March 06, 2015 01:32 AM |
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blizzardboy said:
edit. Response got deleted.
...oooh, how does it feel, tell me how does it feel, to be on your own, like a rolling stone (fades out with organ doing blues moves)...
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blizzardboy
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posted March 06, 2015 01:38 AM |
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The added layer to this is that the journalists themselves might not realize that they are passively lying. They don't necessarily sit at their desktop late at night, pointing their fist into the air and laughing as they cleverly avoid stating certain things. They're tired. They're opinionated. They have deadlines. They feel sympathy towards the side that they agree with. The end result? They publish a piece that ultimately does a poor job of giving people a comprehensive, well-rounded analysis of all of the facets that make up the story. This is why much longer articles that end up getting published in accredited magazines & serials - articles which could take months of labor to produce - do a far superior job than your average headline news. It's like comparing greasy fast food to grandma's Jedi master cooking.
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Kayna
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posted March 06, 2015 02:21 AM |
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@Artu : As a victim of gang stalking since im 9 years old ( and still ongoing ), I don't consider myself "lucky" to be part of the western world. But generally speaking, yes, what you say is true.
blizzardboy said:
Most elsewhere in the world, you still have cultural bias, but this is also compounded with less historical experience in investigative journalism and/or a higher probability of pressure from government or non-government factions, even to the point of fearing to report certain things.
Not to mention less psychological-social studies to back them up ; their techniques to control the masses are no where near the super powers, especially America.
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blizzardboy
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posted March 06, 2015 05:34 AM |
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kay
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Zenofex
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posted March 06, 2015 07:02 AM |
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Western media has the advantage of numbers and the statistically increased chance to have a non-biased coverage of something compared to the... Eastern one where the reports are provided by fewer agencies which are usually under some sort of censorship. That's where the story ends though. When it comes to mainstream media and there are serious interests involved (not necessarily the state interests), the neutrality ends. You don't have to be as blunt as holding the writer of an article at gunpoint, in almost all cases it will be enough to imply that he/she doesn't have a future in the company if he/she doesn't write in a specific way. Then you have the prejudices (which, surprisingly, even the journalists have) which become much easier to exploit and amplify during a conflict. Then you have the paid articles with "analyses" of a situation which become far more common than needed. I remember for example one of my lecturers from the university who admitted that he was getting money to write pro-war "studies" when NATO was bombing Serbia (which more than 2/3 of the people here were strongly against). Then you have the technique of telling part of the "truth" and deliberately skipping facts that might change opinion - not really lying but just putting the emphasis exclusively only on one side of the story - something not that unusual even during peaceful times... A mixture of all these produces a near-mirror image of the state-controlled media which very wide spread at the moment.
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artu
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posted March 06, 2015 07:37 AM |
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Edited by artu at 13:21, 06 Mar 2015.
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Sorry Zenofex, you have a point but you carry it to an extreme that results in ignoring progress actually achieved through centuries. You have your own bias and subjectivity that you mistake for alertness. First of all, some will not prefer a future in a company that pays extremely well and keep writing independently on blogs or alternative press, in first world countries that's still quite a managable life and it is nothing compared to the intimidation or poverty they'll put you through elsewhere. Secondly, let me give you an example, when the bugged phones of the now president, then prime minister Erdogan hit the internet here, we listened to him calling one of the mainstream national news channels, a big one, and not even one that was overwhelmingly infamous for backing up the government. Turns out Erdogan put a man in there just to pass his orders through, in the recording he was telling the man to call the producer and remove one of these text bands sliding beneath the broadcast that was giving info about the speech of an opposition party leader. That was it. It wasnt any bad news about him, he was just annoyed that another political party leader's news was a text band. He was asking for it to be immediately removed and he was getting a "yes, sir" as an answer.
All of this has been outed. He didnt resign, he is the president now. That man he called quit his job but the tv does well and the paper belonging to the group with the same name still sells well, none of the big shot writers resigned, the editor in chief didnt resign, he said they were just handling Erdogan and that's the way things are done in this sector.
Now, no amount of rhetorical twist will convince me that this can be compared to the bias or peer pressure in, say, Germany or US or Canada... Take your pick.
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Zenofex
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posted March 06, 2015 08:14 AM |
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It's not quite like that. Of course there are decent journalists and decent coverages, I'm not denying that and that's not my point at all. What I'm talking about is journalism in times of conflict, like now. You however rely too much on the "traditions" of journalism but frankly the more or less objective coverage of something is something that appeared in XX century - before that you had the civilized Europe, the not-so-civilized European colonies and the wild whatever-there-is-left (publicism is something else, depends on what sort of political movement is fashionable at a given time). Wherever journalism developed into something closer to its alleged ideal, it didn't do it in vacuum and it didn't crystallize into something perfect that can't be shaken by anything. States have traditions too, they are much older than journalism and typically don't take ethics into account where it is not convenient.
Of course it's not possible to control every single form of expression, especially if the government is more or less liberal, but it's also not needed. In the US for instance, it takes a very slight push to "remind" the general population how evil Russia is (really, they don't have to try hard at all, read a random forum on something political and you'll see "commies" everywhere). It's quite similar in the UK. Poland doesn't even need to be mentioned. Germany and France are more leaning toward balance but the Cold War is not yet fully over there as well. This creates a climate where you don't have to broadcast images that glorify the genius leader and the infallible party to "convince" people that they are on the side of righteousness. In the other Ukraine thread I mentioned that the propaganda methods that Russia uses are very inferior to these which are used in the West exactly because they are blunt and fairly unsophisticated. In terms of efficiency, it is far easier to manipulate someone by making him reach a conclusion "on his own" than forcefully planting some idea in his head via countless repetitions.
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artu
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posted March 06, 2015 09:13 AM |
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You are being overselective, the propaganda type news you talk about, I also look at their reader comments. About half of them are as you say, commies, evil Putin etc, but the other half is like, "wow, this is so retarded they must have 5 year olds in mind to brainwash" or "yeah, Putin is evil and Bush was an angel" or similar sarcastic stuff, just check the reader comments of the Guardian link you gave the other day.
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Zenofex
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posted March 06, 2015 10:11 AM |
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artu
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posted March 06, 2015 10:28 AM |
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Dude, I know things are exxagerated to the extent of him getting demonized but there is good reason why Putin is not very popular around the world. He is a very authoritative, ambitious figure. Right after this murder, I watched some street interviews from Russia and Russians themselves were speaking of their fear of fascism. I dont understand what you expect, for him to be popular like Mandela or something?
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Zenofex
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posted March 06, 2015 10:44 AM |
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Hardly, but he wasn't anything different before March 2014, was he? Authoritarian tendencies in the Russian politics are pretty much its normal state since forever, they came with the Medvedev-Putin castling, political opponents have been disappearing for more than 10 years, criticizing journalists have been silenced since Putin's first presidency and whatnot but suddenly now he loses his popularity drastically. Even the Georgian conflict didn't result in anything like that.
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artu
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posted March 06, 2015 11:02 AM |
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Because right now, the conflict he is part of is more global. If we have a crisis with Greece because of Erdogan's personality, same thing would happen to him. I dont understand how that seems out of norm to you.
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markkur
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posted March 06, 2015 01:46 PM |
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I'm probably a bit outta sorts but I don't believe there is much difference in world governments anymore. i.e. Bush Sr. was ex CIA and Putin is ex-KGB. right? On both counts?
Well, <imo> secret service organizations don't exactly make sweet fertile ground for transparent peaceful leaders of "the People" wherever those people may be. 
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Zenofex
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posted March 06, 2015 08:51 PM |
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artu, frankly I don't see your point. You say yes, the Western media exaggerates, yes, it nitpicks, yes, it spares inconvenient facts and is quite diligent in stressing the convenient ones, yes it presents a black-and-white picture but it's generally better? Where does the "better" part come from? Because it doesn't take orders directly from the government? The idealism of a few journalists isn't enough, really, and it shows.
Of course it is the norm to depict the "enemy" as the devil but that's my whole point - that the treatment that the Russian government is getting by the allegedly "evolved" Western media isn't any different than the treatment which the US or the current Ukrainian government, etc. are getting from the Russian media. For each article of some alleged specialists that tries to be balanced you can find five which say more or less than Putin is to blame entirely for what's happening in Ukraine. There is a near complete silence on topics discrediting the people in Kiev and the non-Russian foreign involvement but literally every few days someone reminds that Russian troops are present among the ranks of the separatists or that the Baltic states are threatened by some plane that is flying on its own side of the border or that Putin spoke some time ago how bad it was from geopolitical perspective to let the USSR dissolve (which is technically correct) and whatnot and these reminders receive broad coverage, usually with a few moral remarks. More than a few times the mainstream media pretty much copy-pasted some statement from Kiev or an Ukrainian journalist working on the field. If you search hard, you will find some "Well, the story isn't quite that simple" writings but most people won't search hard and that's easily exploited. At the end of the day you don't have some thugs beating the journalists into submission but the result is the same.
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artu
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posted March 06, 2015 09:05 PM |
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Edited by artu at 21:06, 06 Mar 2015.
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My point is:
a)It's's not just a few good men against an overwhelmingly crowded portion of propaganda machines. I wont be able to give you a ratio for sure but it's more balanced than that. As I said in the beginning, the propaganda stuff attracts the uneducated crowds who always have a tendency to wishful thinking much faster though.
b)Even the propaganda portion is not as blatant and one-sided if we skip the worst of the worst.. (But I do agree that's sometimes more decieving than stuff written for morons. Subtlety isnt exactly a pro when we talk about bias.)
c)You are assuming a symmetry that does not exist.
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Zenofex
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posted March 06, 2015 09:56 PM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 21:57, 06 Mar 2015.
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OK then.
A) Where are these many champions of objectivity to balance the popular opinion when there is a clear trend toward one-sided blackening of the Russian government? Why aren't they more vocal or why aren't their views or coverages getting more attention from the mainstream media? A simple example (one of many) - there was a German journalist who conducted an investigation on the events on the Maidan and radio conversations between the snipers working for the ousted Ukrainian government which more or less concluded - correctly or not - that there were unidentified shooters on site who were targeting both protesters and police. This story was "interesting" for 1-2 days, then it virtually vanished from public discussions or rather found itself under a pile of "Putin this, Putin that" news. Where were (and where are) the numerous supporters of objective journalism to demand or conduct deeper investigation and bring it to the public?
B) The propaganda doesn't have to be blatant to be one-sided. Frankly at the moment even the Russian propaganda that leaks in the media isn't Soviet style "we are the 101% right side", yet it is fairly easy to detect. Actually explicit, one-shot propaganda where complete nonsenses are claimed as truths is nearly extinct, although not completely, nowadays the focus is on creating trends and multi-layered pictures that add up with time. That thing also evolves.
C) I don't get that one.
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artu
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posted March 06, 2015 10:33 PM |
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A)Maybe, we have a different perception on this, since living with AKP press, I made it a habit to ignore propagnda crap and focus on the real investigative journalism. What do you think about the article I linked in here for instance, do you think it demonizes Putin?
C)I think Russia is more authoritarian than the West and it's propaganda is more one-sided. (Though, I cant speak the language and cant follow their sources first-hand, translated quotes etc makes me think so.) I think you are correct to point out that Russia (and by that I mean the Putin administration, of course) is demonized and shown more aggressive than they actually are but wrong to carry it to an extent where you suggest there is not much difference between the foreign politics of the West and Russia. If we put away the Middle East aside which is a very unique situation because of the radical Islam, West PREFERS applying soft power, negotiation and finance when it can. Of course, it's never as innocent as Blizz suggests but to help you understand better, I will express it like this: I stand somewere between the two of you.
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Zenofex
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posted March 07, 2015 10:12 AM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 13:33, 07 Mar 2015.
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No, the article which you posted earlier doesn't demonize Putin (although I don't agree with the analysis completely - Putin's no liberal in any way, his government is not that far from the Soviet-style oligarchy but with somewhat more decentralized "party"). How many people do you think will read such articles though, especially now? Yes, they are there, nobody's putting them down forcefully but taken as a part of the whole picture, such writing are just a faint noise. Nemtsov's already becoming a martyr in the West (check a random article on the matter in the NY Times, the Economist, CNN and other mainstream media - they don't pass verdicts but the styles are usually of the "Well... who else can it be but Putin?" kind) so the people who give a damn what sort of person he was or what ideals he represented in reality are a small minority - he got killed, most likely by a regime that everyone rightfully hates, ergo he's automatically winning 1000 saint points. That's typically how the propaganda works anyway - the voices or reason are overwhelmed by a greatly disproportional amount of selective, twisted, manipulated or directly fabricated half- (or less than half) truths that target not the logic and rationality but the prejudices and the emotions. As a result, even generally smart people can start talking rubbish which they would otherwise be ashamed of if they put their brains to work.
You seem to think that the democratic foundation of a country where the media operates from gives some sort of partial immunity to the worst sorts of manipulation and propaganda that can be produced and is being produced by the regimes that are more or less dictatorial. I already said that I'm willing to agree if we talk about quantity. Western media can objectively produce more reliable reports, investigations, etc. than the Eastern one because of the bigger amount of media agencies. However, there is something that usually eludes - willingly or not - the "pluralism" apologetics - the fact that the (dis)informational power isn't well-spread among multiple entities that have equal chances to compete but it's rather concentrated among a fairly small number of big players which have a near-monopoly over the opinion-crafting of some social group. When it comes down to depicting something controversial, a big news company is far more powerful and likely to influence the population than some outsider media with low financing but high ideals. For "some" reason at the moment pretty much all big news companies in the West are promoting anti-Russian rhetoric and for the last year have greatly reduced their quality standards (where they exist) for impartiality and showing both sides of the story. I gave examples, I can give more. The existence of some well thought out, balanced and unbiased analysis or coverage here and there hardly changes the big picture. There are also people in Russia who are against what's happening in Ukraine and they aren't exactly forcefully silenced but compared to hordes of Putin supporters, their voice means nothing (in Russia, in the West this is the voice of liberty or whatever). I can't really see much of a difference.
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