So news will then just become what people want to hear... in other words, confirmation bias... it will confim there own bias and prejudice. What a mess. the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses.[1] It is a type of cognitive bias and a systematic error of inductive reasoning. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs.
Wot? Just as the psychedelic hippie movement was a counter-culture? But there is a serious point here. It is divisive and partisan, the break down of a rationality and a pre-existing political culture. That culture is about a modicum of unity and civility between a people, a country, a state.
There is a huge difference between alternative viewpoints fighting it out in the arena of ideas on the one hand and fake news / yellow journalism / propaganda etc on the other. As for confirmation bias - that's a tough one. We all suffer from that to one degree or another. Scott Adams recently did a fascinating thought experiment on how to discover whether you're part of a mass delusion. It is not as easy as you'd think.
The counter-culture is just a term for what exists in opposition to the prevailing culture. Today the dominant mainstream culture is liberalism. The counter-culture is conservatism.
You need to provide a model such as 'authentic news' in order to contrast it to 'fake news'. This would make the notion of 'fake news' meaningful. The danger is that without a proper criterion for what news is then suddenly all 'mainstream' news just becomes 'fake news'. This would be radical and revolutionary, and not at all 'conservative'. An authentic news would not be 'alternative viewpoints fighting it out in the arena of ideas'... it would be something much more..... passive than this. It would just be a general body of reported events, done at a level of professional journalism, i.e.; that avoids bias [a modicum of passivity is required for culture in order to counter-balance the activity of ideology]. This print [or digital] medium would provide a reading public with a modicum of shared culture. It aids in constituting a shared culture. This was the idea. Perhaps the internet has changed everything. If so, say goodbye to your democracy.... for it is reliant on such an idea of a reading educated public that shares some common 'values'.
Fake news is just the latest term for propaganda or yellow journalism. It is only the name that has changed. It is nothing new. Propaganda consists of creating or shaping the narrative (the "news") to conform to and advance a certain political agenda.
Could you explain this further? Would professional journalism not count as propaganda [propaganda has a specific meaning]? In rejecting 'mainstream' news, and creating your own 'counter-culture' news, how would this not be 'promoting your own political agenda' [the very thing being criticized about mainstream news]?
Sorry, which part? Propaganda in general or in what way Fake News is propaganda? No, not necessarily. The Fourth Estate has a very important role to play in society - to inform citizens and speak truth to power. It is only when journalism gets co-opted by the State and serves the interests of the State rather than the citizens does real journalism wither away and die. Fake news has two main components - manufacturing news (aka faking) and doing so in order to push a political agenda. Secondary to this is the pretense of mainstream news that it is unbiased. I prefer my news from sources that don't fake stories and are open about their bias and political preferences. That, for me, is honest journalism.
Yeah, it's an interesting one. I think this is where the 'suspension of judgement' part comes into professional journalism. Without this idea of 'objectivity', you end up with fragmented journalism... everyone [or rather, every consumer] will go to their particular 'bandwidth' where they get the 'honest' journalism that agrees with their own political views. Bracketing your political opinions for a moment, don't you see any problems of this... from the socio-cultural perspective??
I'm not sure why you conflate fake news and confirmation bias. They are entirely separate things. 1) I welcome Fake News being exposed and attacked. This is an incredible time in history where propaganda is being exposed in real-time. Sunlight being the best disinfectant... 2) People should be aware of confirmation bias and actively seek to challenge their opinions and assumptions about the world. Confirmation bias affects everyone regardless of gender, ethnicity, age or political affiliation
It's basically impossible to avoid bias with regards to news reporting. In some way or another, all news organizations have their own biased view of the news and using the powerful tool of mass media, and the tendency on the part of many in the public to outsource news from mass media organizations instead of conducting their own research, news organizations have the opportunity to advance their view as the "most objective, unbiased, trustworthy" viewpoint. Just look at CNN for example, it's rife with biased reporting so much so that one could formulate the idea that it's a news organization that is owned and controlled by the US government, seeing as it advances a lot of their interests based on their tendency to provide one sided narratives that ensures the interests of the establishment are prioritized. Therefore bias will always exist within any news organization.
The recent Project Veritas undercover video exposing the New York Times shows exactly that. Explicit liberal bias by journalists despite a clear statement of neutrality in their code of conduct. Far better to admit your bias up front than to pretend to be impartial until you get exposed.
Me too. IMO some persons wouldn't distrust the news as much if only, news providers transparently revealed their political leanings and biases.
There are two options here. Say everyone is necessarily biased [an 'objective' truth that would lead to relativism in practice]. Or there is a critical space [the idea of professional journalism] which restrains judgement/ bias [the suspension of judgement], so as to present the facts, and allow readers to make their own judgements. Is this really to be considered so absurd today?
As an aside - did you see the latest South Park episode? The children form a superhero group to make money from a Netflix show - and Jimmy, the ever-optimistic, comedic, handicapped kid, is Fast Pass. And he has genuine Flash-like powers in his wheelchair. It is very funny - and nicely unpolitical for a change. Plus Mark Zuckerberg gets a roasting...
No I haven't. That's pretty rare and when I say rare I mean a mainstream show such as South Park that tends to be political actually creating an episode that's not political. That's pretty rare.
It is absurd today, it was absurd yesterday and it was absurd the day before that. It will be absurd tomorrow... Whether you call bias - a preference or a viewpoint or whatever the absolute, perfect, impartial journalist whom you describe does not exist, has never existed and could never exist. Far better a journalist gets his or her bias out in the open.
No. I admit to being rather left leaning in my politics, but the left has windbags also, like Michael Moore. I find Moore's message more palatable, but I find his presentation distasteful in a similar way. Rush has the bonus of being just kind of shitty, prejudiced person
So on one level [at the 'cultural'], everyone is biased. And at the other, 'rational', there is the possibility of objectivity [if they only manage to understand the Austrian School of Economics]. Hmmm... now where did this idea of base and superstructure originate again?
