Infowars are so powerful, and we're so ill-prepared to meet them.
Yesterday, I was struck by how much media illiteracy reigns. How gullible we still are in every news cycle.
Is it genuine?
Or do people know full well what they're weaponizing?
That's the kind of despair infowars breed.
One no longer knows if one's neighbours are being honestly manipulated or eager participants in their own manipulation.
All one knows is that propaganda reigns, and has made the world unsafer yet again.
@MLClark I watched over the weekend a documentary about William Randolph Hearst. I don't think most people realize that the "fake news" from Fox and similar ilk are nothing new. Hearst was doing it 125 years ago.
As does Rupert Murdoch, Hearst didn't care who he hurt or what war he started, so long as he made money from it. Like #Trump, he was a sociopathic narcissist.
For those with an interest:
@MLClark American newspapers got their start around the turn of the 19th Century, supporting the early political parties. The Alien and Sedition Acts were passed by the Federalists to suppress criticism by the Democratic-Republicans.
You're right, the notion of an honest and accurate press is a fairly recent one. Murrow and Cronkite are venerated today, but even they made editorial choices.
We as a people need to do better about rational thinking and reasoned conclusions.
@MLClark BTW, Hearst was on my mind because we toured Hearst Castle a few weeks back. When I mentioned "Citizen Kane," the staff always wanted to change the subject.
There's very little negative about Hearst at the Castle. It's run by the State of California, but I suspect the Hearst family still has a say and some influence.
The veneration of Murrow and Cronkite also allows us to forget the environment that made them atypical - when that's really what we need to remember.
It's a bit like Western myths of resistance fighters during WWII: They did exist! But in small numbers, because most Westerners in occupied regions weren't willing to give up what comforts they had.
Meanwhile, in Eastern countries, there are fewer myths of plucky resistance groups, because resistance was a more overarching affair.
@MLClark I always laugh when the U.S. militia types think they're training for some sort of guerrilla resistance when the FEMA helicopters come for their guns or whatever. 99% of them are going to meekly surrender rather than give up their smart TVs and phones.
There was a 1984 movie, "Red Dawn," that posited a group of teenagers defending their town from a Soviet occupation. It would never happen, but even if it did they'd quickly give up rather than sacrifice their lives.
The funny/sad part about Red Dawn is that it was remade in 2012, in a context *completely* distinct from the Cold War pressures that informed the original. The original reflects a great deal of anxiety of its moment, and a proper remake would have had the wherewithal to reflect on how that moment has changed.
(Also cute/sad is realizing that a film like WarGames [1983] could never be made today - although I vaguely recall it being parodied in a recent TV show.)
@MLClark @WordsmithFL oh yeah. People forget that newspapers used to explicitly identify themselves as "Republican" or "Democratic" in orientation. And then there's the histories of the American West, where dueling newspapers were very common even in the smallest towns.
For all the complaints about social media, we forget that newspapers and tabloids and broadsheets spreading scurrilous and sensationalist information were common. Newspaper wars existed.
@joycereynoldsward I gladly shell out $72 every six months for Newspapers.com, an archive for thousands of newspapers around the world. Not only is it an excellent research resource, but it's also fun to go back in time and read how the news was reported. I couldn't have written my current history book project without it.
@WordsmithFL
As of late, there's been pushback on a myth around Hearst that also reflects the problem today. In modern histories, Hearst is set up as a singular purveyor of misinfo, because having one big puppet master absolves us of personal responsibility.
Unfortunately, the truth is that many journalists of the era were *very eager* to embellish to further their careers.
That there was ever an era of "good" journalism is a bit of a myth. Most of the time, we've been sifting through lies.