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It's not really opposites, though. Private media is highly centralized, and the people involved are also highly involved in politics (Rupert Murdoch, for instan

It's not really opposites, though. Private media is highly centralized, and the people involved are also highly involved in politics (Rupert Murdoch, for instance). In China, high up party members are generally very wealthy, and wealthy people generally are highly involved in the party, so it's the same politically-well-connected elite that would be involved in media in the west in any case - it's just backed up by formal censorship, explicit government rule, etc. China is more extreme, and more explicit about the link between politics and media, but it's broadly speaking the same system. PS: this is especially true of countries like the UK, where extremely stringent and abusable libel laws regularly cause financial troubles for small presses that upset powerful people.

secondaryacct 5y ago
What do you think of France where the media is highly political, but politics no bi-polarized (13 parties in big elections, 5 large movement/ideologies)? We even learn at school that no writing can be objective since humans write them but what matters is to identify ideological stances and read enough subjective angles to have at least an opinion on where stakeholders stand if not "the truth"?
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Sounds like a mature approach where many voices are heard and allowed to be shared and understood. France puts faith in citizens while other countries try to control those choices and voices.
- pasabagi 5y ago
  Sounds nice. One of the things I've been dwelling on recently is the degree to which economic geography creates the conditions for an effective press. Germany and France are both really regional, in the sense that you have loads of competing regional elites, each with their own take on things. In the UK, it's very centralized, so there's a much greater penalty to your career if you ruffle feathers, and the views expressed in the media are necessarily fairly narrow (for instance, Jeremy Corbyn, despite getting about 40% of the popular vote in 2017, had basically no positive media coverage throughout his tenure).
raincom 5y ago
In the west, governments collude with the media entities. This collusion is not discussed in the mainstream or in the academia that much, as the latter is part of that collusive cooperative. In China, CCP controls the media. The difference between China and the West is one level of indirection.
bobthechef 5y ago
Right. That something is private is by itself meaningless. This is a major problem in the West that many don't seem to understand, that the lines between the private and public sector are worthless and blurred if the private sector is powerful enough to function as a de facto arm of the government. Raw power is what counts. In terms of the media, CNN, MSNBC, NYTimes, WaPo, Fox, etc, are all de facto regime media outlets (Google and Facebook fall broadly into the same camp because they control the flow of information). The same oligarchic milieu that influences or runs the government influences or runs the media. They all go to the same schools, live in the same neighborhoods, go to the same parties, etc, etc. You don't need a Legion of Doom to orchestrate anything or any planning. Common interests and a similar lust for power causes a coincidental synthesis of mutually constructive arrangements that the same group finds beneficial. It happens naturally, as it were. Another threat is foreign ownership of media. In Poland, where public media is explicitly controlled by whatever ruling party happens to be in power, there was recently a big media circus around introducing some media investment restrictions by foreign companies. Over 80% of Polish media are foreign owned, much of it in German hands, but not only. Best of all, it's not presented as representing the interests of those countries or groups. That's a huge problem for national security and a symptom of the neocolonial control the country is under (Piketty once described Poland as "foreign-owned"). Recent media brouhaha was triggered by an American media company (owned by Discovery). It's one thing to read about another POV. It's another to have foreign interests presented as your own and concealing their true nature. The Western media meanwhile routinely convince the Western public that anything against Western oligarchic interest in that region is fascist and other favorite epithets. They groom the public to view what's happening in a way that is untrue and benefits oligarchs. Colonialism still exists. We just call it other things now. Also, divisiveness is not the primary problem, but downstream. If we focus on division, we risk throwing truth under the bus, especially in this climate of subjectivist "narratives". We are vulnerable to saying "to heal divisions, we must accept a common narrative". Heh, sorry, nope. That's the tyranny of the lie and the narrative makers (hence the foaming at the mouth by those who are losing control of the "official narrative"). The only thing worth uniting around is something true and something capable and worthy enough to function as a unifier. You need enough in common to create a workable society where coexistence and cooperation are possible. If we can't find something like that, then sorry, but you have no viable society.
WalterBright 5y ago
> Private media is highly centralized, and the people involved are also highly involved in politics Do you really think that people who write about politics can ever resist the urge to try to shape politics? Why would a government journalist be any better?
powerapple 5y ago
I think news in west is starting to see some direction for news in the future, the weight of main stream media is going downwards. It has created some problem to force them moving towards the extreme of political spectrum to be honest. News is not about reporting the facts only, it has influence and education value, it is like literature, I don't think everyone should be a teacher, and I don't think everyone should be a journalist. Especially many independent journalists would actually need to make a living with their reports, they are more likely to bend facts to please their sponsors.

secondaryacct 5y ago

What do you think of France where the media is highly political, but politics no bi-polarized (13 parties in big elections, 5 large movement/ideologies)? We even learn at school that no writing can be objective since humans write them but what matters is to identify ideological stances and read enough subjective angles to have at least an opinion on where stakeholders stand if not "the truth"?

ipaddr 5y ago
Sounds like a mature approach where many voices are heard and allowed to be shared and understood. France puts faith in citizens while other countries try to control those choices and voices.
pasabagi 5y ago
Sounds nice. One of the things I've been dwelling on recently is the degree to which economic geography creates the conditions for an effective press. Germany and France are both really regional, in the sense that you have loads of competing regional elites, each with their own take on things. In the UK, it's very centralized, so there's a much greater penalty to your career if you ruffle feathers, and the views expressed in the media are necessarily fairly narrow (for instance, Jeremy Corbyn, despite getting about 40% of the popular vote in 2017, had basically no positive media coverage throughout his tenure).

raincom 5y ago

In the west, governments collude with the media entities. This collusion is not discussed in the mainstream or in the academia that much, as the latter is part of that collusive cooperative. In China, CCP controls the media. The difference between China and the West is one level of indirection.

bobthechef 5y ago

Right. That something is private is by itself meaningless. This is a major problem in the West that many don't seem to understand, that the lines between the private and public sector are worthless and blurred if the private sector is powerful enough to function as a de facto arm of the government. Raw power is what counts. In terms of the media, CNN, MSNBC, NYTimes, WaPo, Fox, etc, are all de facto regime media outlets (Google and Facebook fall broadly into the same camp because they control the flow of information). The same oligarchic milieu that influences or runs the government influences or runs the media. They all go to the same schools, live in the same neighborhoods, go to the same parties, etc, etc. You don't need a Legion of Doom to orchestrate anything or any planning. Common interests and a similar lust for power causes a coincidental synthesis of mutually constructive arrangements that the same group finds beneficial. It happens naturally, as it were. Another threat is foreign ownership of media. In Poland, where public media is explicitly controlled by whatever ruling party happens to be in power, there was recently a big media circus around introducing some media investment restrictions by foreign companies. Over 80% of Polish media are foreign owned, much of it in German hands, but not only. Best of all, it's not presented as representing the interests of those countries or groups. That's a huge problem for national security and a symptom of the neocolonial control the country is under (Piketty once described Poland as "foreign-owned"). Recent media brouhaha was triggered by an American media company (owned by Discovery). It's one thing to read about another POV. It's another to have foreign interests presented as your own and concealing their true nature. The Western media meanwhile routinely convince the Western public that anything against Western oligarchic interest in that region is fascist and other favorite epithets. They groom the public to view what's happening in a way that is untrue and benefits oligarchs. Colonialism still exists. We just call it other things now. Also, divisiveness is not the primary problem, but downstream. If we focus on division, we risk throwing truth under the bus, especially in this climate of subjectivist "narratives". We are vulnerable to saying "to heal divisions, we must accept a common narrative". Heh, sorry, nope. That's the tyranny of the lie and the narrative makers (hence the foaming at the mouth by those who are losing control of the "official narrative"). The only thing worth uniting around is something true and something capable and worthy enough to function as a unifier. You need enough in common to create a workable society where coexistence and cooperation are possible. If we can't find something like that, then sorry, but you have no viable society.

WalterBright 5y ago

> Private media is highly centralized, and the people involved are also highly involved in politics Do you really think that people who write about politics can ever resist the urge to try to shape politics? Why would a government journalist be any better?

powerapple 5y ago

I think news in west is starting to see some direction for news in the future, the weight of main stream media is going downwards. It has created some problem to force them moving towards the extreme of political spectrum to be honest. News is not about reporting the facts only, it has influence and education value, it is like literature, I don't think everyone should be a teacher, and I don't think everyone should be a journalist. Especially many independent journalists would actually need to make a living with their reports, they are more likely to bend facts to please their sponsors.