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Six corporations control 90% of America media

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Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#111

Post by DSingularity »

guerrilla wrote: post #28
DSingularity wrote: post #21

In communist countries the party controls the media. In dictatorships the secret police control the media. In liberal democracies the rich control the media.

Since in "communist" countries, the party heads are rich and likewise in other dictatorships, I think we can just settle on the rich always control the media.

Yeah but there is a massive difference between money controlling the media because of their money and - for example - a dictator controlling the media because he’s got the guns.

The media will have a totally different tint: glorifying leader/ideology in the case of dictatorship/communism. What about our profit-oriented media? Remember how it beats the drums of war every single time? Who knows what interests they represent or whose agenda they are working for.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#112

Post by yann2 »

wombatmobile wrote: post #67
alexeldeib wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's less Orwell and more Huxley. This point comes up so often when discussing Orwell/1984 it's almost meta in itself. 1984 seems more scary to us for some reason, perhaps because it's more foreign/further from our reality than Huxley's fears/Brave New World?

Nobody wants to be controlled. Everybody wants to be entertained. In a democracy, this is a recipe for mediocrity, because reaching consensus and buy-in is so difficult, it is easier to ignore hard problems than to solve them.

Have you heard of Bounded Rationality? There is an upper bound on what the chimp brain can do. No big diff with a group of chimps. There is always an upper bound.

Pretending there is no bound leads to a big trap.

Its like telling second graders they can solve tenth grade problems. They cant no matter what they are entertained by, how well they built od consensus or how hard they work. All that it archives is make them feel useless or angry and plants the seeds for pointless blame games.

Huxley and Orwell are irrelevant as they focus on things beyond the bound. Naturally they have no workable solutions out of the trap.

Bounded rationality however does recommends a way out of the trap - work on simple problems. Thats how the ants thrive.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#113

Post by xrd »

throwaway277 wrote: post #94

Long time employee of one of those companies, here. To believe that there is some dictate about how a story is covered or why that comes from the top is to believe that we are way more organized than reality. Yes, some corporate-synergy exists to cross-promote, especially on morning shows, but when it comes to news, we are usually pushing so close to deadline there's no way to even allow for corporate control. That s…

My concern is not how things are covered, but what is covered. The article states that certain things (like the owner's dalliances outside his marriage) will never be covered at all. Chomsky and others talk about constraining the topics for discussion, and this seems the most concerning.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#114

Post by judge2020 »

mtnGoat wrote: post #69
wdr1 wrote: post #66

This doesn't seem to pass the sniff test for me. The six they list doesn't include YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc where a huge amount of media is consumed. And would they count YouTube as "one" outlet? I would argue I have greater choice of amongst YouTube creators than I ever did compared to, say ABC, in 1983. The analysis also seems flawed in that they evaluate movies based on box office sales. Which excl…

YouTube/IG/etc are not media creators per se, just aggregators. Thus, not including them on that list makes perfect sense to me.

Well, when you say "american media" then don't include all "media" sources, it just looks like clickbait.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#115

Post by ffffwe3rq352y3 »

mynameishere wrote: post #93
easterncalculus wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only people who worry about an axis of collaboration between corporations and government to create a surveillance distopia are conspiracy theorists pushing misinformation now. The president of the United States proudly admitted to alerting Facebook to "problematic" accounts just last week. Maybe that's justified, or isn't in service of a "surveillance dystopia", but the best light is "collaboration" between the…

I like the image of Biden being given a "super downvote" button on reddit, that like...counts as ten normal downvotes.

Instead of giving gold he has a "veto" award that removes all current upvotes and pushes it to the bottom

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#116

Post by HWR_14 »

easterncalculus wrote: post #64
motohagiography wrote: post #27

Should we be concerned about them using their media properties to push narratives designed to consolidate their influence, or ask whether some of the things we believe might be artifacts of that influence, or maybe what the sources and motives of those narratives might be? Kidding. This isn't the 90's. The only people who worry about an axis of collaboration between corporations and government to create a surveillanc…

> The only people who worry about an axis of collaboration between corporations and government to create a surveillance distopia are conspiracy theorists pushing misinformation now. The president of the United States proudly admitted to alerting Facebook to "problematic" accounts just last week. Maybe that's justified, or isn't in service of a "surveillance dystopia", but the best light is "collaboration" between the…

> Maybe that's justified, or isn't in service of a "surveillance dystopia"

For crying out loud, I oppose a surveillance dystopia as much as anyone and far more than most. But it's not a surveillance dystopia for the things you publicly say and have your name attached to as you publish it to be brought to the attention of the publisher.

If you wanna talk about censorship, we can talk. But that's a different concept often related.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#117

Post by colechristensen »

wdr1 wrote: post #66

This doesn't seem to pass the sniff test for me. The six they list doesn't include YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc where a huge amount of media is consumed. And would they count YouTube as "one" outlet? I would argue I have greater choice of amongst YouTube creators than I ever did compared to, say ABC, in 1983. The analysis also seems flawed in that they evaluate movies based on box office sales. Which excl…

YouTube, FB, etc. don't create content and you can choose for the most part, but they still significantly shape what gets seen.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#118

Post by commoner »

jim-jim-jim wrote: post #77
yogthos wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source platforms provide an alternative to corporate social media. These platforms are developed on a non-profit basis and are hosted by volunteers across the globe. A growing number of such platforms are available today and millions of people are using them already. Mastodon is an alternative to Twitter, and it’s currently home to over two million users. This was the first open platform to get serious traction,…

There's a bootstrapping problem to all these decentralized communities though. Because you need to be slightly technically adept to create, run, or even hear about such instances, all these platforms are innundated with psychotic nerds. I like free software, I think Marx was right about most things, but I can't think of a bigger waste of time than hanging out with a bunch of mentally ill furries and groomers.

> a bunch of mentally ill furries and groomers

That's an inaccurate and disgusting characterization of fediverse users. Many of these users are members of the free software community who do not fit your description:

https://mastodon.online/@FediFollows/106647703394010040

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#119

Post by nostrademons »

alexeldeib wrote: post #61
wombatmobile wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s less Chomsky and more Orwell. As Neil Postman pointed out, it's less Orwell and more Huxley. “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egois…

> it's less Orwell and more Huxley. This point comes up so often when discussing Orwell/1984 it's almost meta in itself. 1984 seems more scary to us for some reason, perhaps because it's more foreign/further from our reality than Huxley's fears/Brave New World?

It's beyond that. Arguably Huxley's vision of the future is closer to reality. The thing is Huxley's vision is ego syntonic - it's compatible with our self-conception. The characters in Brave New World aren't struggling against anything, their self-conception has adapted so much that they accept the brave new world as right and natural. Orwell's vision is ego dystonic - there is still a "me" in Winston that recognizes the world he lives in as corrupt and struggles against it. In that way the characters of Brave New World are farther gone than Winston and Julia. There is no need for a Thought Police in Brave New World, because everybody has so internalized the value system of the World State that it's not necessary.

Re: Six corporations control 90% of America media

#120

Post by h2odragon »

mynameishere wrote: post #93
easterncalculus wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only people who worry about an axis of collaboration between corporations and government to create a surveillance distopia are conspiracy theorists pushing misinformation now. The president of the United States proudly admitted to alerting Facebook to "problematic" accounts just last week. Maybe that's justified, or isn't in service of a "surveillance dystopia", but the best light is "collaboration" between the…

I like the image of Biden being given a "super downvote" button on reddit, that like...counts as ten normal downvotes.

"Some pigs are more equal than others"
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