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> America and North Korea have both been doing it successfully for years. Much is lost in this comparison. The American media landscape is pluralistic. Take fo

by ysilver 11y ago

> America and North Korea have both been doing it successfully for years. Much is lost in this comparison. The American media landscape is pluralistic. Take for example our most popular news network: Fox News. Do they kowtow to the federal government? Russia + NK however, rely repressing dissent internally to retain legitimacy.

icebraining 11y ago
It's pluralistic inside a small window. They may be on opposites sides inside that window and tear at each other, but everyone tacitly knows where the limits are, and when you're off-limits. The underpinnings are absolute.
exelius 11y ago
Russia's media is also nominally pluralistic. They have been careful to permit the existence of dissenting media -- if for no other reason than to have something to discredit. The propaganda outlets are much better funded and organized though, so they can largely drown out the voices pushing an agenda that differs from the party line. The Russian masses (just like the masses everywhere else, including the US) are largely uneducated, xenophobic and easily influenced by nationalism. It's just far more effective to allow them to exist and attack them in the media (as happened to the reporter in the article) than it is to violently suppress them. The difference in the US is that the propaganda comes not from the government, but from the corporate/media machine -- which largely controls the government. American corporations now have such an outsized influence on American elections that it's hard to know who is the puppet and who is pulling the strings. Sure, you can go on TV and say whatever you want to say, but our system has become increasingly hostile to "real" investigative journalism (just look at our justice system's reaction to Snowden / Manning). They distract the public over trivial social issues (abortion, gay marriage, legal weed) while doing whatever they want. Or in other words, Obama gets to score points with liberal voters by blocking the Keystone XL pipeline -- never mind that he approved 6 other, similar pipelines in his last two terms. The difference is that the media simply chose not to cover them, so the blowback was limited.
- ysilver 11y ago
  > ...our system has become increasingly hostile to "real" investigative journalism... The burden of proof that there has been a degradation of information quality remains on your side of the court. This "lost paradise" argument may very well be right but it's far from evident to me. I would broadly characterize media quality as always having been low on average throughout history. We had a brief period of oligopoly after mass media (the networks) monopolized a lot of what we call news but that period was more of an exception to the rule (and it certainly had its own problems).
  - exelius 11y ago
    I'm not talking about media quality like it's something that has just recently gotten bad. I don't think it's gotten worse; but the mass media is also no less important now than in the past. I realize it's always been an issue; I'm just saying we can't act high and mighty relative to Russia because it's a problem here too.
    - ysilver 11y ago
      I think you're smart to try to test the validity of the converse of my claims. However, it's also important to acknowledge that there is enormous variation in the freedom of the media to operate across countries. There are highly repressive media domains where a single actor represses others and achieves a near monopoly. Could the US improve freedom of expression domestically? Yes. Do we systematically repress dissenters as is common Russia, Bangladesh, etc? No
      - tremon 11y ago
        > Do we systematically repress dissenters as is common Russia, Bangladesh, etc? Yes, you do. Every time an American uses "communism" or "communist" in a discussion, he is exploiting the systemic oppression of non-capitalist movements in the US. Your propaganda machine is quite effective in deriding any political view that clashes with the extreme right-wing capitalist view that keeps your power structures in place.
crdoconnor 11y ago
>Much is lost in this comparison. The American media landscape is pluralistic. No it isn't. It's all owned by about six companies. >Fox News. Do they kowtow to the federal government? Do they not put out propaganda?

by ysilver 11y ago

icebraining 11y ago

It's pluralistic inside a small window. They may be on opposites sides inside that window and tear at each other, but everyone tacitly knows where the limits are, and when you're off-limits. The underpinnings are absolute.

exelius 11y ago

Russia's media is also nominally pluralistic. They have been careful to permit the existence of dissenting media -- if for no other reason than to have something to discredit. The propaganda outlets are much better funded and organized though, so they can largely drown out the voices pushing an agenda that differs from the party line. The Russian masses (just like the masses everywhere else, including the US) are largely uneducated, xenophobic and easily influenced by nationalism. It's just far more effective to allow them to exist and attack them in the media (as happened to the reporter in the article) than it is to violently suppress them. The difference in the US is that the propaganda comes not from the government, but from the corporate/media machine -- which largely controls the government. American corporations now have such an outsized influence on American elections that it's hard to know who is the puppet and who is pulling the strings. Sure, you can go on TV and say whatever you want to say, but our system has become increasingly hostile to "real" investigative journalism (just look at our justice system's reaction to Snowden / Manning). They distract the public over trivial social issues (abortion, gay marriage, legal weed) while doing whatever they want. Or in other words, Obama gets to score points with liberal voters by blocking the Keystone XL pipeline -- never mind that he approved 6 other, similar pipelines in his last two terms. The difference is that the media simply chose not to cover them, so the blowback was limited.

ysilver 11y ago
> ...our system has become increasingly hostile to "real" investigative journalism... The burden of proof that there has been a degradation of information quality remains on your side of the court. This "lost paradise" argument may very well be right but it's far from evident to me. I would broadly characterize media quality as always having been low on average throughout history. We had a brief period of oligopoly after mass media (the networks) monopolized a lot of what we call news but that period was more of an exception to the rule (and it certainly had its own problems).
- exelius 11y ago
  I'm not talking about media quality like it's something that has just recently gotten bad. I don't think it's gotten worse; but the mass media is also no less important now than in the past. I realize it's always been an issue; I'm just saying we can't act high and mighty relative to Russia because it's a problem here too.
  - ysilver 11y ago
    I think you're smart to try to test the validity of the converse of my claims. However, it's also important to acknowledge that there is enormous variation in the freedom of the media to operate across countries. There are highly repressive media domains where a single actor represses others and achieves a near monopoly. Could the US improve freedom of expression domestically? Yes. Do we systematically repress dissenters as is common Russia, Bangladesh, etc? No
    - tremon 11y ago
      > Do we systematically repress dissenters as is common Russia, Bangladesh, etc? Yes, you do. Every time an American uses "communism" or "communist" in a discussion, he is exploiting the systemic oppression of non-capitalist movements in the US. Your propaganda machine is quite effective in deriding any political view that clashes with the extreme right-wing capitalist view that keeps your power structures in place.

crdoconnor 11y ago

>Much is lost in this comparison. The American media landscape is pluralistic. No it isn't. It's all owned by about six companies. >Fox News. Do they kowtow to the federal government? Do they not put out propaganda?