Posted: Apr 11, 2012 7:03 pm
Loren Michael wrote:Jakov wrote:Loren Michael wrote:Jakov wrote:Can they really be said to be doing this willingly when they have almost no other source of information than the corporate-controlled media?Jeffersonian-marxist wrote:Perhaps "willfully" was the wrong word to use, but I agree that it is corporate-based media that ultimately wins the hearts and minds of the population regarding the relevant issues.
Do you to have any of the [citations needed] to make such assertions?
Given that the highest-rated cable news program, Fox News, has a viewership of less than 1% of the US population AND less than 1% of people who actually vote, I'm skeptical of those kinds of claims.
You take it for granted that we think Fox news is the only bad one. Our hypothesis is that all media subject to market pressures behave like this.
That includes supposedly liberal outlets like The Guardian newspaper.
I wrote some of my thoughts about this back in 2011 when I started to realise it.
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/news- ... 24772.html
I guess I should update it a little and rebutt some of the points.
I cited Fox News because it is the highest-rated of the cable bunch. If that single network's viewership is less than 1% of the US population/voting population, and it's the highest-rated, I'm thinking that suggests the others are also minuscule.
I'm also skeptical of the amount of "control" that business actually has over the media. Besides that though "...almost no other source of information than the corporate-controlled media" ignores vast chunks of the internet and social networks.
Loren Michael wrote:Warren Dew wrote:Loren Michael wrote:Do you to have any of the [citations needed] to make such assertions?
Given that the highest-rated cable news program, Fox News, has a viewership of less than 1% of the US population AND less than 1% of people who actually vote, I'm skeptical of those kinds of claims.
Most newspapers and broadcast television networks are owned by corporations as well.
Noncorporate news sources mostly consist of word of mouth, email, blogs, and discussion boards.
...and until I see evidence that most people are actually getting most of their info from TV and newspapers, I'll remain skeptical of that claim, and I think others should as well. Older people are likely still hanging on to old media, but they're adapting to the new media environment as well.
You're entitled to your skepticism about amount of control business has over the media it owns, but we've posted evidence in the form of my thread and that book.
If we were asserting this without evidence, you'd be welcome to be skeptical, but we've presented our evidence and line of reasoning so now it's your turn to either engage with it or post your own.
Isn't it true that newspapers, radio and television get virtually all of their funding from advertisers? Isn't it true that advertisers are big corporations which have their own interests (lower taxes, less environmental protection, higher profits.)
So where do you reckon people get information about the world from? How does the average person know about the unemployment rate, the rate of deaths at work, the average wage and how its changed, and all the other stuff they need to know if they're to participate in a democracy in a rational manner.
The internet and social networks are new, barely entering the mainstream 15 years ago. While printing and radio have been popular for more than a century. Everyone had a TV for the last 50 years.
Correct me if I'm incorrect, you have two arguments "corperations don't influence printing and broadcasting" and "the internet means most people don't get their information from printing and broadcasting".
These contradict themselves, if corporations don't influence printing and broadcasting, then why does it matter if most people use the internet instead?