getting opinions from media
Tue, 2005-04-05 15:40
#1
getting opinions from media
I just wondered how many of us have opinions formed from what we have read in the papers, rather than from what we have experienced.
- My grandparents worry all the time about the affect of immigrants - yet they live in a predominantly white area of Norfolk near no borders/sea and the only non-white they've every met was in Brighton in 1974 at a pizza parlour (it was such an event, they even remember it to the day).
- My friend's doctor helped her through a traumatic miscarriage in various ways, including getting her into couselling early, and suggesting support groups. She was the first slagging of the NHS in a heated debate over pints of Adnams the other day.
- Many people imagine the 'youth' of today all scavenging around on the streets, shouting abuse, being cruel, hitting old ladies. But, if you go into schools you see projects on recycling, youth councils, Bills of Rights (as made by the children), gardening projects, volunteering a local old people's homes etc. Loads of kids still watch Blue Peter.
- When Rennee Zelwegger appeared in Bridget Jones, everyone talked about how she was 'fat', including characters within the movie. Compared to everyone I know she looked bloody normal, and in fact, if we really believed what the media told us about weight, most of us would never get to jump in the sack with a member of the opposite (or same) sex.
I am worried by how much are reality is shaped by a very small amount of people in the media.... Can't we all just reject it, and go by our own experience? The world would be much nicer.
fergal
Yeah... well the tabloids here are terrible... and the TV news is getting worse I think (other than Channel 4).
The American news on TV is quite shocking sometimes.
I think this is a very British thing at the moment, because we've got the election coming up.
I don't believe anything I read in the tabloid about 'groups' of people being responsible for things.
I read the Guardian on a Saturday because I like the Review and the Guide and the magazine (but I don't read the news section). I sometimes buy the Independent in the week.
I watch the Channel 4 news every other day or so.
I am well aware of the biases these sources probably have.
But really, I suppose, this thread was to get people wondering if there is anything they believe that in fact, they have ONLY experience through the media...?
Liana
I dont believe all I read in the papers, but everytime I see someone reading the Daily Mail I want to snatch it away from them and t.wat them round the head with it. The DM are responsible for so much hysteria and bigotry (imo).
My views on NHS by the way, are coloured by my own experience.
Radiodenver
Well, there's no doubt that American media has an American bias, which is true of any country though. I like to read other papers on the net, France, Italy, even Saudi, helps keep a skeptical eye on things. The problem is when opinion gets reported as fact..or...opinion is reported and it's not challenged based on the facts. People talking is not fact.
Another little thingy....you refer to "tabloids", tabloid is a format not the content. There are respectable tabloid papers. A tabloid paper is printed sideways and read like a magazine compared to a broadsheet. A tabloid will have two pages on one printing plate, whereas a broadsheet will have one plate per page.
fergal
Yeah - I don't mind people who form their opinions from their own experience. I suppose it was the shock at my grandparents fervour about immigration, when they haven't even seen, let alone met an immigrant, that made me think...
I hate the Daily Mail. I worked with two lovely women over Christmas who were both caring, interesting and kind to me and anyone who knew them. BUT, whenever the Big Issue seller outside our shop was there, they'd go, 'Bloody drug dealer,' or 'God, he ruins the quality of this arcade'... or if someone mentioned travellers they'd say, 'Bloody travellers. How come they get to live the way they want when the rest of us have to work for a living,' etc etc. It was funny, because they were so nice to people 'they knew', and the rest of their opinions came straight out of the newspaper they read every day. The Daily Bloody Mail.
Grrrrrrr.
Radiodenver
Newspapers are there to sell you things. Reporting the news is a side-business. Most papers are more concerned with the quality of reproduction of the advertising than the quality of the reporting.
Liana
Yes, my parents read the daily mail... I'm astonished. I try to stop them reading it when I go round there, pick it up and twa... no. I dont. But i do lecture them incessently on it. "look at THIS" I'll injuriously shout. "ANOTHER thing on how shit the children of single mothers are - thats ME theyre talking about, and YOU support them by BUYING this crap". My mum just looks hurt and says, all tremble lipped "But I like the crossword"
Dan
I believe all politicians disseminate and lie because I hear them doing it on the Today program every morning.
I buy newspapers for the crosswords so read a round selection of biases, the Guardian and the Telegraph are the most biased that I read, but taken together the one should hopefully cancel out the other.
Liana
I take the Observer and the News of the World for the same reason Dan... nothing like hearing who's poking who in the NOTW and then working your way through an article on grammar in the 12thC in the observer.
(have a look at that techie thread would you?)
fergal
Oh yeah, that's why I hate working in magazines.... it was all about slipping in the big advertisers into editorial, and I hated it. I would still love to work in something like what I used to do, but I want to be able to have some integrity.
Yeah, I know.
mississippi
My terrorst-in-law used to do some cleaning for a retired army captain that was related not too distantly to the wanky windsors, (I believe his wife was a cousin of that lot in Hatfield House) Anyway they read the heavies, but also read the Daily Mirror. She explained to the t-in-l that the upper classes ALWAYS read the working class papers in order to know what they were up to. Maybe working class people read the broadsheets for the opposite reason.
Smiley
"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past" 1984.
stephen_d
Some people i know believe everything they read in newspapers failing to realise that newspapers sensationalise and in most cases only tell one side of the story. Uk tabloids are amongst the worst media in the world and ceratinly inflame hatred and violence on to the streets.
smillieboy
Like Liana, I get a physical reaction to seeing people reading the Mail. The person behind me in the supermarket always seems to have a copy of it and insists on putting it down as their first item on the conveyor belt, adjacent to my food. I have terrible visions of beams of right wing bile emanating from the paper into my butternut squash and after I have eaten my squash bread, that I will feel compelled to tut at ethnic minorities and berate people for not being like me.
[%sig%]
emily yaffle
I far prefer the honesty of a News of the Screws, rather than the Mail which looks down its nose at the Sun and Mirror but peddles hatred. Did you ever read TVGoHome's Daily Mail Island? Cracking.
We all get lots of opinions from the media, the trick is to sample a lot of different media and weigh up their prejudices. I don't know anyone from Zimbabwe and I've never been - I strongly suspect that Mugabe is a deeply bad lot, but I can't really talk with authority about how much of what he's accused of in our papers is actually proven. If I was reading papers in South Africa, I'd have a different view, no doubt.
fergal
Radio - in this country there is no such thing as a respectable tabloid.
fergal
(I'm not stupid you know... I do actually know *some* things).
jude and google
I read the FT...partly because I work for them and partly because they are a business/ finance paper and so they don't need to sensationalise or exagerate non business stories (which they do cover) to boost sales.
I prefer to go on my own experience but there are always limitations...how could I know what is happening in another continent without media - perhaps not mainstream media but nonetheless
mississippi
Yuo'll find 'em all here, Andrew.
fergal
'our' reality, not 'are reality'.
maxwell eddison
Can't be doing with sensationalism, it's as irritating as loan consolidation adverts.
Radiodenver
The problem arrises when people believe everything they read. Reporters are no less gullable than you or me. Folklore, urban myth, chain letters, panicy rumor gets moved through the press at a faster rate than word of mouth, but it also gets debunked more quickly. Stick to trusted news sources and you'll at least get a fair shake with what you are reading most of the time.
Stay skeptical.
My favorite read...The Wall Street Journal. (seeing how I work there, and want to keep my job). We're actually a pretty reliable source of news.