Media Meditation 7

I wanted to look further into Noam Chomsky's- Manufactured Consent after two things happened. I was introduced to the movie The Insider, with Al Pacino. I also learned of a new tool that Twitter users can look into called Klout. 

I found a great youtube video that gave insight into how this has become possible in what is suppose to be a nation of democracy. He talks about influencers like Walter Lippmann, and the work of Reinhold Niebuhr in Moral Man, Immoral Society. Lippmann, in 1913 founded the New Republic Magazine, and worked as an advisor to President Woodrow Wilson. Also was the first to bring in the term "cold war" during the writing of an also titled book in 1947. Niebuhr, a theologist, wrote about how we need to take down that which allows injustices. Realizing that rationality belongs to the "cool observer" stupidity of average man then creates and follows a naive faith, not reason. Then of course needing a "emotionally potent illusion" to then just really become marginalized and breed apathy. Thanks to the work of public relations and propaganda going off into the sunset. 

To relate to the movie we watched with Amy Goodman and Democracy now, I felt it was important to know where we have come from to know where we might be headed. I began to paint myself a better picture of what was happening in the United States and also in East Timor when in August of 1975 civil war broke up and mass killings were taking place. The Propaganda News Model appears. 

Followed by the startling realization that it is mostly aimed at only 20% of the population the ones who are "deeply" embedded into society, the teachers, writers, students...where as the other 80% of the population are more trained to follow orders, not to think. Then of course...

FAIR did the study above. 

The website is a great tool to learn more about censorship in the media. In the case in East Timor, and many examples even in today's conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan my government is not allowing me access to a moral obligation I have because I live in a democracy. Chomsky notes that your responsible for your actions and to forsee any consequences of those actions. I am directly involved then in what current situations my government is engaging in and they won't give me the floor or knowledge of human suffering, taking from me my chance to act and to fulfill my responsibilities!! 

My final thought on all this and to link it back to web friendly 2.0 Twitter/Klout is when we are forming short bits of concision, like saying something in 30 seconds on a tv commercial, or 140 words via Twitter we then are only leaving room within that constructed constraint for conventional thoughts. Narrowing the scope, like Klout.