This assignment calls to summarize two books that obligate us to take an introspective point of view on how we view today's mixed multi-media climate. it also forces us to give considerable thought to how we obtain, compile, and filter the various points made by what now seems like the endless mediums of news outlets. sifting through and being completely sure you not confusing a hypothesis with an opinion or an actual fact has never been more difficult than it is today.
Trust Me, I'm Lying is one aspect of modern-day publication study and the second part is a user tutorial. Through Ryan Holidays (author) experience in the real world along with a compilation of quotes and real-life examples, Ryan provides a perspective only those in the field of internet publication could give along with a playbook of various tactics used by the various forums.
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the author's main argument is that the world of blogging offers benefits to “journalists” who are both easily anticipated and credulous.
The format and rules of blogging, or 'pageview' journalism as the author likes to say, elaborates on nearly every measure blogs take. In a place where the only form of currency is clicks. Therefore a larger amount of pressure to manufacture out content cost effectively and hastily to develop and maintain traffic. the stories are meant to bait instead of educate. A headline with a good hook is more important than an accurate story. Also, bloggers don't have the resources to work by the rules or principles of good quality journalism. Turning something into “news”, all you must do is give a blogger what they need in order to live—stories that hook readers and provoke thought. That is it. For the reader or consumer, This ultimately means we’re in a bubble of information. But for marketers and advertisers, this creates a world of opportunity for them to take advantage for profit. As soon as there is an understanding of the economics and there are predictable aspects of blogging, all that a person must do is give in: hand reporters stories that are too juicy for them to not pay attention to. The better the story, the more this journalist will ignore everything else—the truth, your own interests, that you're trying to distribute, even whether or not the story is true in the slightest— purely out of their own personal self-benefit and interest. businesses everywhere are sprouting and thriving because of this exploitation and the high profit for low-end content.
Now back to the consumer's point of view. The blogging economics have not only created an information bubble, but a world in which fake news slides under the radar as a truth. And once these bits of fake news spread and take hold of the large growing audience they in a sense put into question what is actually reality.
After reading this book it actually made me quite distraught and made me think only of today's political climate pithing the United States. Though I am only 22 my exposure to various presidential administrations is very limited. I know things have never been more demented. The way this country consumes news is not based on what is true or not. It is based on whether they are listening to what they want to hear or not. And when they find that they are listening to something that they don’t want to or that potentially puts at stake what they believe they find a different source of news to listen to that reaffirms them that what they believe is actually right. That is where I believe these blogs come in or podcasts for that matter. Just because someone has a microphone or somebody has a platform to explain their thoughts does not mean that something is news, that just means they have a vocal opinion. This book is actually terrifying because it also illustrates just how easy it is for someone to take the position of a news provider or journalist. Half the book talks about how to create a blog step-by-step and pretty much a tutorial or instruction manual. It would be one thing if creating these outlets that had so much gravitas were hard to create and generate. Yet they are as easy as opening a computer finding a blog creator whether it be Tumblr or Reddit or any other platform and then customizing it so it looks as credible as anything else out there that provides quality fact-based news.
The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media is a nonfiction illustrated novel, illustrated by Josh Neufeld and written by journalist Brooke Gladstone. Throughout, Brookes’s mission is not to allow for the idea that the media is a machine with the purpose of manipulating the mass population and that population's mind without consent. Rather, Brooke contends that the media is a “degrading, tedious, and transcendent funhouse mirror of America” (xxi). The media “do not control” (xiv) its consumers, and the media “pander” (xiv) to them. That Consumers actually fear the terrible reflection of their own creation and messed up reality, not the media’s manipulation.
The “central metaphor” (xiv) of the book is the “influencing machine.” Psychoanalyst Victor Tausk coins this term in his 1919 article, “On the Origin of the ‘Influencing Machine’ in Schizophrenia.” Victor finds this phenomenon in the specific case of Natalija A., a patient who thinks she is “under the spell of an electrical apparatus operated by a rejected suitor” (xvii). Natalija dismantles and takes all human features out of the machine, which makes more easier for the machine to obscure her identity. This in a way is what we consumers have done to the media: “shattered themselves into fragments and projected the shameful bits” (xix) onto the personal day media. The author closely looks through the history of “speech suppression in America” (21), the collapse of trust between consumers and news media, and the irrefutable biases that are countless when the media does upon reporting. Gladstone gives a large section of her book to wartime reporting, where “every media bias shows up in spades” (71) because sources can be scarce some things are twisted and taken out of context which results in ultimately horrific stories. During various wars, the government “supplies plot, the threat, and the enemy’s depravity” (71); thus, limiting information is justifiable because their argument is for the sake of national security.“Our reason for fighting” (72) is lost “in the fog of war” (72).
The book discusses the ups and downs of media objectivity and how the technology supporting it has changed, and that's not just for the function of media but also for how we humans think and operate. instead of taking on the glass-half-empty perspective of various investigators and ponderers, the author applauds studies that exhibit how the use of the internet improves areas of the brain tied to “decision-making and complex reasoning” (144). readers can interact with today's media in both constructive and morally ethical ways, such as “playing an active role in our media consumption” (150), “trusting reporters who demonstrate fairness and reliability” (150), and using user-to-user networks to virally bring acknowledgment to pressing issues. the author makes sure the reader doesn't forget just how much power they have to accept or deny information.
This book takes a very interesting approach to what is a very serious issue by using a strong presence of illustrations to convey certain messages in addition to Brooke Gladstone's commentary. The reader in more ways than one can gather the information of what the author is trying to get across to the reader I feel as if this book contends with Ryan Holiday's “Trust me, I’m lying” by putting more of an emphasis on the readers' ability to hold themselves accountable for what information they consume or what they don't. Whereas Holiday took the stance that certain aspects of information should be more carefully curated and made clear whether something is news or not. Gladstone focuses more keenly on biases that are institutional rather than ideological meaning. She takes exception to the opinions of a group of people or company or a news outlet rather than one individual’s point of you. And again place is the responsibility of a democracy on its people to share with Care and thought.
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