4 ms·

It's not an option for all situations, but I've found that photos and videos from events, taken with cell phones and shared online by relatively average people

It's not an option for all situations, but I've found that photos and videos from events, taken with cell phones and shared online by relatively average people who happen to be in the area, often offer a far more realistic and accurate portrayal of what's going on than the so-called "mainstream" media's coverage. For larger events or situations, it's often possible to get footage from numerous different sources, including from different physical angles, helping to corroborate and clarify what's actually going on. One example of this are the protests that happened in Canada during early 2022. The Canadian "mainstream" media, which is quite tightly controlled and close to the government, seemed to be portraying the protesters in a very negative light. On the other hand, there were also many photos and ample footage online, taken by various people walking through the protests, which showed very different views of the situation. The "mainstream" media's portrayal often didn't correspond well to what I was seeing from all of these other independent sources. I didn't particularly trust the Canadian "mainstream" media before then, but that situation really made me distrust them and their "news" coverage.

dredmorbius 3y ago
I've seen such crowdsourced or alternative footage abused, often by mislabling it. In one case, my YouTube addiction of watching Things That Go Boom paid off when I saw a video showing a huge refinery explosion reported as being in the Gaza Strip and recognised it instead as coming from a Pemex plant in Mexico: <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=0LD82y4ulds https://yewtu.be/watch?v=0LD82y4ulds> I posted evidence of the true nature and challenged the poster over the disinformation. They never issued a correction or apology, though the post disappeared some time later (months, as I recall). This is fairly common: actual incident footage from one context is portrayed in another. There's a classic cartoon illustrating this: two men running, one with a raised knife, though in the cropped framing of the television camera it appears that the fleeing man is threatening the attacker: <https://archive.org/details/The-Media-Shows-You-What-They-Want https://archive.org/details/The-Media-Shows-You-What-They-Wa...> Discussed on: <https://blogs.longwood.edu/visualrhetoricbadgley/ https://blogs.longwood.edu/visualrhetoricbadgley/> Another classic example of framing shows two soldiers around a prisoner, one holding a rifle to the prisoner's head, the other offering water from a canteen. Depending on how that image is cropped, very different narratives are created: <https://www.moillusions.com/media-manipulation-illusion-example/ https://www.moillusions.com/media-manipulation-illusion-exam...> My own preference is to attempt to source, view, and read information from multiple perspectives, whether that's video, images, or narratives/accounts. One lesson from our own senses is that we create the most accurate views of our world when relying on multiple sensory inputs. Our eyes, ears, and sense of balance can each fool us individually, it's much harder for them to be fooled collectively, or at least, the contradictions between inputs become apparent. This is a lesson well-understood by pilots, where the inner ear and actual or artificial horizon signals are often at odds (the "death spiral" in instrument conditions such as clouds, fog, or night flight is one tragic outcome, see JFK Jr.'s death). And of course there are artisans who do manipulate these senses, which we find in cinema and stage magic, though those also rely strongly on a single and highly-crafted perspective on the action.
ineptech 3y ago
Did the self-selected amateur news sources that seemed more accurate than mainstream news happen, by any chance, to align with your preferred narrative?
- hooverd 3y ago
  They usually do when your preferred narrative is something other than "police stenographer".
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

dredmorbius 3y ago

I've seen such crowdsourced or alternative footage abused, often by mislabling it. In one case, my YouTube addiction of watching Things That Go Boom paid off when I saw a video showing a huge refinery explosion reported as being in the Gaza Strip and recognised it instead as coming from a Pemex plant in Mexico: <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=0LD82y4ulds https://yewtu.be/watch?v=0LD82y4ulds> I posted evidence of the true nature and challenged the poster over the disinformation. They never issued a correction or apology, though the post disappeared some time later (months, as I recall). This is fairly common: actual incident footage from one context is portrayed in another. There's a classic cartoon illustrating this: two men running, one with a raised knife, though in the cropped framing of the television camera it appears that the fleeing man is threatening the attacker: <https://archive.org/details/The-Media-Shows-You-What-They-Want https://archive.org/details/The-Media-Shows-You-What-They-Wa...> Discussed on: <https://blogs.longwood.edu/visualrhetoricbadgley/ https://blogs.longwood.edu/visualrhetoricbadgley/> Another classic example of framing shows two soldiers around a prisoner, one holding a rifle to the prisoner's head, the other offering water from a canteen. Depending on how that image is cropped, very different narratives are created: <https://www.moillusions.com/media-manipulation-illusion-example/ https://www.moillusions.com/media-manipulation-illusion-exam...> My own preference is to attempt to source, view, and read information from multiple perspectives, whether that's video, images, or narratives/accounts. One lesson from our own senses is that we create the most accurate views of our world when relying on multiple sensory inputs. Our eyes, ears, and sense of balance can each fool us individually, it's much harder for them to be fooled collectively, or at least, the contradictions between inputs become apparent. This is a lesson well-understood by pilots, where the inner ear and actual or artificial horizon signals are often at odds (the "death spiral" in instrument conditions such as clouds, fog, or night flight is one tragic outcome, see JFK Jr.'s death). And of course there are artisans who do manipulate these senses, which we find in cinema and stage magic, though those also rely strongly on a single and highly-crafted perspective on the action.

ineptech 3y ago

Did the self-selected amateur news sources that seemed more accurate than mainstream news happen, by any chance, to align with your preferred narrative?

hooverd 3y ago
They usually do when your preferred narrative is something other than "police stenographer".
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]