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The Chinese media model

china-underground.com

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Re: The Chinese media model

#21

Post by DCKing »

happytoexplain wrote: post #10
taneq wrote: post #2

I'm always amused by the indignation expressed by people when some nation other than their own is shown to be using their resources to to exert international influence. The British Empire did. The USSR did. The United States does. Of course China does too.

I can't even begin to relate to this point of view. Why does everything have to be side-taking, where nobody is allowed to be accused of anything if somebody else, now or in the past, has committed even just the same genre of crime? And why the smug "amused" line? To me, it's all terribly demoralizing.

Contrarian viewpoints (i.e. "this is actually different", "this is actually not surprising") are very popular on Hacker News and upvote based internet fora. Many times they are actually low value, especially when they are not even particularly responding to a surprise in the original article, but to a surprise the poster initially had or an expected surprise the general audience should have.

You can have a discussion on whether this is a good thing or not, but being smug about how "we knew better all along" is very low value. The best comments I feel shouldn't be about the type of response you should have to the article, it should be about the contents of the article. Yet comments like these trigger something in people to upvote it anyway.

Re: The Chinese media model

#22

Post by mc32 »

tremon wrote: post #15
mc32 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right but not all reflect the same principles. If you want to jump on the China principles bandwagon that’s your right, but you have to realize the principles allow for different outcomes, some more or less universal or inclusive or exclusive. Put another way, would you propose the US (or Europe) adopt Chinese styled principles and use their influence to project them? Would that be a good thing?

The British' principles gave us the Kashmir/Pakistani conflict, and (coupled with France and various other European nations) numerous civil wars across Africa. The US' principles gave us decades of corruption and drug trade in South America. The USSR's principles gave us the iron curtain, and the Afghan and Czechen rebellions. I'm sure there's nuances all around, but let's not pretend the previous perpetrators were a…

It’s the potential the principles offer, the language they engender. Without these principles some ideas remain infertil.

Re: The Chinese media model

#23

Post by peter_retief »

Well the site is down for me, sort of seems to support the gist of the articles title (Got 521 error - Web site down), can ping the domain. Would "they" really bring down a site that is critical of "them" or is it coincidental?

Re: The Chinese media model

#26

Post by coldtea »

taneq wrote: post #2

I'm always amused by the indignation expressed by people when some nation other than their own is shown to be using their resources to to exert international influence. The British Empire did. The USSR did. The United States does. Of course China does too.

Exactly.

Ever since WWII the US had sponsored all kinds of media, funded opposition parties (of whole dictators, guerrilla armies, and so on), wined, dined and bribed foreign journalists, politicians etc to spread the stories they liked, runs thousands of cover publications, organizations, "NGOs", and media, including the more transparent ones, like "Radio Free Europe", and so on.

Others are doing it too? Cry me a river...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_influence_on_public_opinio...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28610.htm

https://www.aim.org/special-report/how-obamas-cia-manipulate...

https://arretsurinfo.ch/newly-declassified-documents-show-th...

https://www.wired.com/2011/09/cia-pitches-hollywood/

https://www.corbettreport.com/how-the-cia-plants-news-storie...

Re: The Chinese media model

#27

Post by peter_retief »

taneq wrote: post #2

I'm always amused by the indignation expressed by people when some nation other than their own is shown to be using their resources to to exert international influence. The British Empire did. The USSR did. The United States does. Of course China does too.

I hope we have moved on from slavery and colonization. Lets not encourage its return

Re: The Chinese media model

#28

Post by coldtea »

happytoexplain wrote: post #10
taneq wrote: post #2

I'm always amused by the indignation expressed by people when some nation other than their own is shown to be using their resources to to exert international influence. The British Empire did. The USSR did. The United States does. Of course China does too.

I can't even begin to relate to this point of view. Why does everything have to be side-taking, where nobody is allowed to be accused of anything if somebody else, now or in the past, has committed even just the same genre of crime? And why the smug "amused" line? To me, it's all terribly demoralizing.

>I can't even begin to relate to this point of view. Why does everything have to be side-taking, where nobody is allowed to be accused of anything if somebody else, now or in the past, has committed even just the same genre of crime?

Because when you criticize one side, you are side-taking. And everything you say or write is used to justify global politics (and is primed to do just that). There's no "impartiality" when you single out one side to criticize.

Either put it in context, or make a statement criticizing all parties doing the same. It's not really difficult to study and learn about things, and put them in perspective, instead of singling out a party as some unique "evil".

And it is doubly insulting to countries and peoples who have suffered your version of doing the same thing to see you point out others and demand their heads for it. It's adding hypocrisy to injury.

>To me, it's all terribly demoralizing.

To me people making accusations only for others, and neglecting their side's serious complicity in the same thing, is not only terribly demoralizing, not only hypocritical, but also strategic.

The 60s anti-culture movement could simultaneously criticize USSR, the Prague invasion, etc AND Uncle Sam and Vietnam. Not just in their media, even in a single song oftentimes.

Now it's 1000 articles criticizing one side as uniquely evil with not even a whisper of own actions, and 10 giving the internal perspective. Not exactly balanced (talking about foreign politics here. In internal politics, I guess it's more like "Hurray for the democrats/republicans establishment ideas, down with Trump" what passes for criticism of both democrat/republicans and Trump).

(And anybody attempting to correct that is hit with the thought-stopping accusation of "whataboutism")

Re: The Chinese media model

#29

Post by bsenftner »

jbob2000 wrote: post #20
justforfunhere wrote: post #17

I think Internet has become the easiest way to spread propoganda. China is not the only one doing this. It's so easy to spread ideas using Internet these days, that almost all business, political and social entities around the world are involved in the spreading whatever ideas they deem worthy. The bigger entities are able to spread them more effectively which is expected. Internet may eventually turn out to be a big…

Easy to spread but easy to ignore. The internet cheapened communications to the point where propaganda has about the same worth as cat memes.

Except people see them (political cat memes) and actually think they are true.

Re: The Chinese media model

#30

Post by PavlovsCat »

coldtea wrote: post #28
happytoexplain wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't even begin to relate to this point of view. Why does everything have to be side-taking, where nobody is allowed to be accused of anything if somebody else, now or in the past, has committed even just the same genre of crime? And why the smug "amused" line? To me, it's all terribly demoralizing.

> I can't even begin to relate to this point of view. Why does everything have to be side-taking, where nobody is allowed to be accused of anything if somebody else, now or in the past, has committed even just the same genre of crime? Because when you criticize one side, you are side-taking. And everything you say or write is used to justify global politics (and is primed to do just that). There's no "impartiality" w…

> There's no "impartiality" when you single out one side to criticize.

This "singling out" is a fabrication though, and that's the problem here.

> people making accusations only for others

Again, who's doing that? You use the people who do that as fig leaf to ignore the people who don't. You dodge the strongest interpretation in favor of a weaker position that is conjured before anyone even shows up who is actually holding it.

> neglecting their side's serious complicity in the same thing

Same here, just because some people are doing that, doesn't mean all do.

Either way, even the hypocrisy of that hypothetical person doing that would be utterly dwarved by the monstrosity of the atrocities the reaction to which is diluted by games such as this.

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