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Umm I don't think you are getting the fundamental logic here. America has pushed propaganda, but they also allow movies that make America look bad: botched CIA

Umm I don't think you are getting the fundamental logic here. America has pushed propaganda, but they also allow movies that make America look bad: botched CIA missions true or not, slavery, different look at revered historical figures, greedy American leaders/FBI/CIA or whatever. They don't purposefully stop what makes America look bad. China does, there is a huge difference in that. Secondly, the government itself doesn't control what gets pushed out (in very rare classified instances .001% they have before) the free market does. Some audiences love pro American movies, some love anti-American but it's capitalism not propaganda

thablackbull 9y ago
What you're witnessing is manufactured consent[1]. There is no need for the crude methods of propaganda here because it's not even necessary. Compare that with China; people there are fully conscious of government propaganda. From the SMH article, they expected the west to be a land of freedom and democratization of ideas, but what they end up finding is that it more or less is the same thing. > [2] "A lot of them are PRC students who migrated to Australia or come here to study. I think they are quite ambivalent about Australia, and China. Culturally and emotionally they still identify with China, but they don't like the corruption, pollution, propaganda or the regime. So they migrate here and they have some perception about this country, that it's beautiful, clean, prosperous, there is press freedom and the media is objective, not like the propaganda in China. "Here they expect the media to do a lot better than the media they're used to back there. When they realise that the media here is just as one-track mind about these things as the Chinese side but exactly the opposite, they find it really hard to reconcile with what they're experiencing." Personally, I find that even more worrying. People here seem to think they are free-thinkers not subject to propaganda when really, the more "oppressed" people have way more understanding of what's going on in the world. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent [2] http://www.smh.com.au/national/chinese-media-a-threat-to-social-cohesion-but-propaganda-overstated-report-20160908-grbp9j.html http://www.smh.com.au/national/chinese-media-a-threat-to-soc...
- propman 9y ago
  But in the West the media is not state run. The Chinese government decides what to run and clearly that is propaganda. In America the media is controlled by 2 political parties and they are either pro or anti government. The media in the West can run any content they wish and it is up to the free market to determine if they can survive. You can listen to whatever viewpoint or angle. CNN, Fox, Huffpo, Brietbart everyone is telling you different angles it is up to you to decide. This unbiased media you are referring to is an unachievable utopia. The Western system is far superior to state run propaganda and is the best system we can realistically have. If there were a better system, through the free market it will replace the old.
  - xfs 9y ago
    Far superior to state run propaganda as to what? Far superior for manufacturing consent? Sure. The western system of propaganda is far more competitive, innovative, or you can call it distributed in the way it hides its agenda in a network of proxies of capital instruments, which is exactly what it would evolve into with the free market. But what is dangerous about it is that this mode of propaganda is smarter than the people. In states with state-run propaganda, the people are smarter than the propaganda.
    - podviaznikov 9y ago
      This is a well put thought: > But what is dangerous about it is that this mode of propaganda is smarter than the people. In states with state-run propaganda, the people are smarter than the propaganda. Your own or inspired by some book ?
      - xfs 9y ago
        It had been my hypothesis. Julian Assange said it better: > The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction. Recently I found Slavoj Zizek had even better criticism: > The US doesn't treat prisoners as brutally – because of its technological priority, it simply does not need the openly brutal approach (which it is more than ready to apply when needed). But this is why the US is an even more dangerous threat to our freedom than China: its measures of control are not perceived as such, while Chinese brutality is openly displayed. In a country such as China the limitations of freedom are clear to everyone, with no illusions about it. In the US, however, formal freedoms are guaranteed, so that most individuals experience their lives as free and are not even aware of the extent to which they are controlled by state mechanisms.

thablackbull 9y ago

What you're witnessing is manufactured consent[1]. There is no need for the crude methods of propaganda here because it's not even necessary. Compare that with China; people there are fully conscious of government propaganda. From the SMH article, they expected the west to be a land of freedom and democratization of ideas, but what they end up finding is that it more or less is the same thing. > [2] "A lot of them are PRC students who migrated to Australia or come here to study. I think they are quite ambivalent about Australia, and China. Culturally and emotionally they still identify with China, but they don't like the corruption, pollution, propaganda or the regime. So they migrate here and they have some perception about this country, that it's beautiful, clean, prosperous, there is press freedom and the media is objective, not like the propaganda in China. "Here they expect the media to do a lot better than the media they're used to back there. When they realise that the media here is just as one-track mind about these things as the Chinese side but exactly the opposite, they find it really hard to reconcile with what they're experiencing." Personally, I find that even more worrying. People here seem to think they are free-thinkers not subject to propaganda when really, the more "oppressed" people have way more understanding of what's going on in the world. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent [2] http://www.smh.com.au/national/chinese-media-a-threat-to-social-cohesion-but-propaganda-overstated-report-20160908-grbp9j.html http://www.smh.com.au/national/chinese-media-a-threat-to-soc...

propman 9y ago
But in the West the media is not state run. The Chinese government decides what to run and clearly that is propaganda. In America the media is controlled by 2 political parties and they are either pro or anti government. The media in the West can run any content they wish and it is up to the free market to determine if they can survive. You can listen to whatever viewpoint or angle. CNN, Fox, Huffpo, Brietbart everyone is telling you different angles it is up to you to decide. This unbiased media you are referring to is an unachievable utopia. The Western system is far superior to state run propaganda and is the best system we can realistically have. If there were a better system, through the free market it will replace the old.
- xfs 9y ago
  Far superior to state run propaganda as to what? Far superior for manufacturing consent? Sure. The western system of propaganda is far more competitive, innovative, or you can call it distributed in the way it hides its agenda in a network of proxies of capital instruments, which is exactly what it would evolve into with the free market. But what is dangerous about it is that this mode of propaganda is smarter than the people. In states with state-run propaganda, the people are smarter than the propaganda.
  - podviaznikov 9y ago
    This is a well put thought: > But what is dangerous about it is that this mode of propaganda is smarter than the people. In states with state-run propaganda, the people are smarter than the propaganda. Your own or inspired by some book ?
    - xfs 9y ago
      It had been my hypothesis. Julian Assange said it better: > The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction. Recently I found Slavoj Zizek had even better criticism: > The US doesn't treat prisoners as brutally – because of its technological priority, it simply does not need the openly brutal approach (which it is more than ready to apply when needed). But this is why the US is an even more dangerous threat to our freedom than China: its measures of control are not perceived as such, while Chinese brutality is openly displayed. In a country such as China the limitations of freedom are clear to everyone, with no illusions about it. In the US, however, formal freedoms are guaranteed, so that most individuals experience their lives as free and are not even aware of the extent to which they are controlled by state mechanisms.