The nasty effects of mass media programming

I have been on ATS for a while now, and from it, I have been given a unique view of the world, that others wouldn't get without doing the research and reading that is required to give yourself that second approach on life.

At home my wife and I sit down at night and we watch the TV, not just any old crap, but we do like to watch Channel 4, BBC & ITV docs on murderers, real life, social problems, and anything that we find interesting away from X Factor and all that.

And this is where it gets interesting for me personally, because although I am aware of the dark side of living on Earth under the TPTB, my wife isn't really, as she prefers to spend time with her cats, and in honesty she doesn't want to know what really goes on, and the reason why I say it’s interesting, is because when we watch these programmes, she reacts to them, and I can observe her opinions change on different subject matters.

For instance, last night, we watched a doc on a poor family man that got beat to death by some teenagers outside his house, after he approached them for doing something to his car.

Garry Newlove kicked to death

My wife went into extreme over drive, she said we should bring back the death penalty, we should send kids to boot camp, we should impose a curfew at night, the parents should be jailed, and so on and on. From a peaceful person, she suddenly turned into a government policy makers dream.

Then I'm not sure if it was earlier or later, but we then watched a programme that showed the increasing amount of children who are disabled and mentally ill for life, after being conceived in marriages of cousins, and this occurs mostly now in Muslim families in the UK.

After watching it, my opinion was that, it wasn't the fact that cousins had children, but that when two people got together with this gene problem, then the children have a 25% chance of being born disabled, so it was that 2 people got together who had this gene problem, that created the problem, not the fact that cousins got married, if you know what I mean.

Cousin Marriages

Anyway, the programme, started of scientifically, then it went into over drive that Muslims are taking up all the beds in children’s hospitals with these problems, the amount of money it costs and on and on. So my wife started again, "They shouldn't even be in this country", "They come over year and take all the hospital beds", "They come over here, bla, bla, bla", and again she went into extreme fanatical mode, and in a way, it was quite frightening, because my wife is intelligent, articulate, and aware of her surroundings, but the effect these programmes have on people, amazed me.

In a way, both programmes, where directing everyday people, into Christian fundamentalism, and a form of eugenics, in that the cost of the effects people have on services will become big issues, and so healthy, non-smoking, non-obese, no gene problem people will have low insurance premiums, and if you chose to marry someone who falls into one of these issues, they insurance premiums will be higher, and will not be offered the NHS services of the future.

The child delinquency issue will end up in nigh-time curfew, children will be demonised, and excluded from society, and a whole new lower class society will be generated where health services will be tough to get, and punishment and life will be tough also.

Don’t get me wrong though, the Garry Newlove incident is terrible, but I do feel they use these occurrences to make people make think of extreme punishment and ideas of how to deal with the issue.

I think also that although the issues on ATS can be a little wayward at times, the actual fact that I have read it, and also had the other side of the story from mainstream media, allows me to make an informed decision of my choice, and I can get both sides of the story from sitting with my wife at home, watching the TV.

[note: Do not alter or edit out staff actions]

[edit on 24-8-2010 by 12m8keall2c]

reply to post by delta9cannabinol


Umm, did I miss something?

It is amazing how TV and media in general can impact and influence a person's thoughts....

Having a job that requires much public and cutomer contact and interaction, I realize just how much the news and broadcasters can influence opinion.

Due to the economy, and being proactive, my wife and I decided to cut the satellite TV service... How many times can i watch the Godfather...1-2-3...in a weekend? Anyway, we really don't miss it. We save about $60.00 a month and when we want to watch a movie, we actually have a better and wider selection of movies on VHS/DVD than the satellite channels.

Anyway, we use the internet for waether, news, and resource material... I actually have the news as it's happening befotre they broadcast at 6pm...and the waether radars are great.

Anyway, we are happier, better informed, and find that our decisions and responses to national issues seem to be more rational and well considered.... maybe self delusional?

It is amazing though, that we see so many around us spoon fed what the powers want them to believe.... when we get into debates or argue a point, one of the first responses is "That's not what I saw on the news."

A good resource for what is happening now is an older book...read it in college...."The War That Hitler Won."

About how Hitler used the media and news outlets to mold public opinion in Germany and even around the world in the years prior to WWII.

From what i see, someone else read it too.

reply to post by AlreadyGone


Hi alreadygone,

I think we are at a stage in world politics now, that people are so well informed and mis-trustful of politicians, that they haven't got the power they used to have to create policies that will have big impact on peoples lives.

So the way they need to do it, is for the people to cry out for these laws, as a result of watching distressing and violent docs on TV, and in the hope that life will be safer for them and their children.

On the other hand, I dont think its a new thing either, I think all civilisations and empires since the Pharohs have used that technique, and if it didnt work, then they turned to brute force and wars. So in way, we have moved on slightly, at least the government don't send legions of armed warriors out anymore, to enforce new policies and laws on their own people.

This is a very good thread and I am pleased you have brought this up. Take a look at this thread Have you quit TV in it you will find the reasons why people have quit wathcing TV and what they do instead. I have to say my family stopped watching TV over a couple of years ago and it was the best thing we did. All of our friends and family thought we were mad, but over time they have begun to realise how influential the TV is.

Some of our friends say, well I am in charge of what I watch, but I always say, are you really. Take for instance you and your wife watching documentaries and factual programmes, you have just explained in great detail how your wife is effected by such factual programmes. So is everyone in control of what they watch, or is it that they like to think they are?

Whenever I am at my friends house and they skip through the channel listings I can see various documentaries that are going to be shown during that night. I always say to them Take a look in the paper the next day and you will see the information they are showing in the documentaries referenced in them for example:

The other day there was a documentary about jellyfish and how clever they are and how fascinating creatures they are. The next day there were articles all over the MSM saying that jellyfish were going to invade our shores and costlines, due to drastic climate change. Suddenly the focus has gone from clever jellyfish to serious drastic climate change and how we need to focus on building energy efficient power stations, obviously this brings in the nuclear vs wind power debate.

If there is one thing I have learnt by not watching tv is that the people who do watch it are suckered in to thinking quite falsely that they are in control they don't seem to put 2 +2 together, the more channels there are the more hopping they will do the more brainwashed they will become.

TV is a tool, there is a conspiracy to the television however, people will not understand this until they have switched it off.

reply to post by multichild

I caught a few glimpses of that; it was on ITV at 9.00pm. That documentary series has been running for about three weeks now; the programme a few weeks ago was about a pair of women who went crazy and threw themselves into oncoming traffic on a motorway - I won't be recovering from those mental scars for a while.

Personally, I don't think these programmes are a conspiracy to make people drift towards totalitarianism and stricter forms of punishment; not that these things don't go on, they probably do, but I don't think that documentary series imparticular has been created purposefully with the intention of surreptitiously planting that meme inside people's heads. Then again, I could be wrong; if people keep getting bombarded with these sorts of programmes (which there has been an influx in recently after the Raoul Moat incident), the populace might raise their hands in anger and scream "something must be done" and you can either welcome an RFID chip into your life or say hello to four grey walls.

[edit on 24-8-2010 by Nathan-D]

reply to post by franspeakfree


Hi,

Yes thats a good thread that. We got two young children, so to take the TV away from them at the moment, will result in world war 3. So what I try to do, is occupy myself with making web sites until something interesting comes on, or I read a paragraph or two in the evening.

That way I'm not sat in front of it for hours on end, but picking my programmes.

But I'm also glad that i came to ATS to at least give myself that second opinion.



[edit on 24/8/10 by multichild]

[edit on 24/8/10 by multichild]

reply to post by Nathan-D


I think these programmes are about the populace thinking they are forming an informed opinion, but in honesty, they are being guided to that opinion by the content of the programme.

It would be very interesting, if you could do an experiment, where viewers of docs are viewed by a group, and to see if by th end they all come out with the same ideas and opinions, and if not then what do they do in their other time, that made them think differently from the others.

Like I spend time on ATS, would be my excuse for not forming the possible same outcomes.

Since I was a teenager, I read and watched news on a daily basis. I believed in the integrity of journalism. The themes I spoke about with my friends, coworkers and family, were given to me by corporate media. My opinions were based upon the information they gave, and upon the way this information was presented to me. Rarely did I spend time to think deeply about a everyday things to form an opinion of my own. Few were the times, when I decided what is really important to me for myself. I was, and perhaps still am, what Oscar Wilde called most people:

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Oscar Wilde

As adult, I had already become increasingly unhappy with traditional news sources, because I had realized, that many ideas presented in the news seemed to steer society into a direction I do not like. The reasoning of the authors and experts often left me dissatisfied. But to seldom I doubted the truth of facts found in history books, scientific studies and statistical recordings.

I think, we can learn a lot from ideas, which are outside the small framework, the MSM allows. Even a true freethinker will profit a lot from people, who think outside the box. The process our pool of ideas is limited by the media is good explained in a video of Edward Herman & Noam Chomsky.



But today it goes beyond the processes, which Herman and Chomsky describe. The social engineering becomes more and more visible. More and more blatant lies are disseminated by the media. It is an active process. Some truths and facts are suppressed and countered with disinformation.

This means, that the worldviews between those, who trust the media and view themselves immune to suggestibility and those, who doubt all sources and want to find the truth for themselves are becoming more and more incompatible.

reply to post by Drunkenshrew


Great reply,

Just out of curiosity, do you think that as time goes on and the lies need to be more and more elaborate that they become almost impossible to believe, and then as a result TV will become less about programming, and instead turn to a gossip anc celebrity machine, as to completely avoid the issue.

To continue with the subject of mass media programming, I moved away from adults behaviour from TV and went and had a look at how they proramme children in education.

This you tube video, highlights how the education system in America falls short of some other countries around the world.

But my question is, is it that the majority of children in America cant be bothered to learn, as they prefer to do other things, and they occupy their minds with other less important mass media stuff, and so the education system has to be less to accomodate the students who are not prepared to teach themselves anything outside of the class room.

Is it that the education system is dumbed down to feed the capitalist ideology, of consumerism and basically as the Romans put it, 'Bread & Circus', or is it that the children are not prepared to learn, and the education has to accomodate them in basic terms.

Dumbing Down America

I cant embed the video sorry due to you tube reasons

[edit on 26/8/10 by multichild]

[edit on 26/8/10 by multichild]