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Is The Media Responsible For Public indifference


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Unarmed people are shot and killed by police.  Civilians are killed and injured by chemical warfare.  Everyone says "Tsk, tsk. that's terrible" and then go about their business.

If an informed public is essential to the success of a democracy and the media has the responsibility to inform the public, are they failing to do so when the edit out the more gruesome aspects of reality, such as stopping the video before the shot is fired, or not showing the more horrific effects of chemical warfare?

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Eh, the video of the Syrian chemical attack wasn't gruesome enough for you? If anything, I'd say the sheer overload of these sorts of videos (and ones that are even more gruesome) have perhaps kind of numbed us to some degree. 

 Also, I'm not sure what you think the proper reaction by the public should be. Screaming for military intervention? Donating heavily to relief efforts? What sort of reaction do you feel is warranted?

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All of the images I've seen have been pretty gruesome.  I also agree that there is probably an overload of these things.  I'm numb to a lot of it.  I don't have the capacity to react anymore than I already do.  I'm what one might call a SJW, have plenty of rage I direct into actions I hope are meaningful and helpful to improving society or at least the lives of other individuals.  But I only have so much to give and I suspect most people are the same way.

Aside from not having the mental capacity and feeling numb, I often don't know the best way to react.  Not sure how or if the media can help with that and even then, I'd still have to find a way to fit it in with everything else.

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7 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

All of the images I've seen have been pretty gruesome.  I also agree that there is probably an overload of these things.  I'm numb to a lot of it.  I don't have the capacity to react anymore than I already do.  I'm what one might call a SJW, have plenty of rage I direct into actions I hope are meaningful and helpful to improving society or at least the lives of other individuals.  But I only have so much to give and I suspect most people are the same way.

Aside from not having the mental capacity and feeling numb, I often don't know the best way to react.  Not sure how or if the media can help with that and even then, I'd still have to find a way to fit it in with everything else.

Yeah, I purposely avoid the videos at this point. Reading the story is hard enough. I can't make myself watch this sort of stuff at this point. It's kind of soul crushing.

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1 hour ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Eh, the video of the Syrian chemical attack wasn't gruesome enough for you? If anything, I'd say the sheer overload of these sorts of videos (and ones that are even more gruesome) have perhaps kind of numbed us to some degree. 

 Also, I'm not sure what you think the proper reaction by the public should be. Screaming for military intervention? Donating heavily to relief efforts? What sort of reaction do you feel is warranted?

 
 

You're right--indifference, I think, comes from cognitive dissonance due to media reporting too much on these negative stories. It's a cliche at this point, but to use the news as your guide, you'd assume the world was ending. Then you look out your window, and it's a quiet, pleasant spring day. The two just don't add up. It's a real problem--I know I experience but I have trouble stepping outside this POV.

 

Showing more would only add to the problem and be extremely problematic. When the news WAS showing men being shot by police--and they were showing it without warning--that's really pretty messed up. I've seen enough with my own eyes, I don't need someone else shoving the gruesome in my face saying, "NO YOU DON'T GET HOW BAD IT IS."

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I think the normalisation of killing as a legitimate response at a personal, social and national level is what is making people indifferent. I don't think the media has anything to do with it.

If you need to see horrific images to be horrified by killing on a large scale then there is something very wrong.

I don't think people are indifferent, I think people feel powerless.

39 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

All of the images I've seen have been pretty gruesome.  I also agree that there is probably an overload of these things.  I'm numb to a lot of it.  I don't have the capacity to react anymore than I already do.  I'm what one might call a SJW, have plenty of rage I direct into actions I hope are meaningful and helpful to improving society or at least the lives of other individuals.  But I only have so much to give and I suspect most people are the same way.

Aside from not having the mental capacity and feeling numb, I often don't know the best way to react.  Not sure how or if the media can help with that and even then, I'd still have to find a way to fit it in with everything else.

Honestly, I think rage is an undesireable motivation. Try to find a way to be motivated by caring and love, it's much better for your own sanity, and you are less likely to turn people into victims.

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9 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Honestly, I think rage is an undesireable motivation. Try to find a way to be motivated by caring and love, it's much better for your own sanity, and you are less likely to turn people into victims.

I don't turn anyone into victims, thank you very much.  I actively care for those who have been made victims.  People's love and care are motivated by a lot of things.  Mine is often motivated by seeing something wrong and wanting to make it right. 

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11 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

I don't turn anyone into victims, thank you very much.  I actively care for those who have been made victims.  People's love and care are motivated by a lot of things.  Mine is often motivated by seeing something wrong and wanting to make it right. 

And I expect that is certainly your honest intention. But when rage is driving people's social action then leaving victims in their wake is inevitable, eventually, even if unintended.

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5 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

And I expect that is certainly your honest intention. But when rage is driving people's social action then leaving victims in their wake is inevitable, eventually, even if unintended.

My 'victims' are child abusers, rapists, unethical and immoral laws, ignorance, nazis, inequality, etc so I'm gonna say yeah I guess I'm ok with that. :rolleyes:

ETA: I get the sense that perhaps you aren't realizing that language is quite hyperbolic these days.  I'm obviously not literally walking around with actual uncontrolled violence.  

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Reminds me of Adam curtis' Video on Oh dearism. 

that feeling of being a spectator in the world and feeling resigned to its events after realising after the 100th terrible event that you are basically powerless to stop it.

i think it's mostly got worse recently however as my own distrust in an impartial media has meant that I have to question everything I see or read. The simplistic emotive narratives of the past don't have an effect any more and I'm far more cynical when I see any so called 'tragic event'

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56 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

i think it's mostly got worse recently however as my own distrust in an impartial media has meant that I have to question everything I see or read. The simplistic emotive narratives of the past don't have an effect any more and I'm far more cynical when I see any so called 'tragic event'

There has been a substantial shift in the media's approach to impartiality in the past few months. Of course, they were never truly impartial, but in the past, they at least pretended to be thus. Recently, I've seen mainstream media such as CNN say things like "So-and-so falsely claims..." followed by some statement the veracity of which is practically impossible to verify for the outlet until further information emerges. This is much closer to the old Soviet style of propaganda (which pushed the audience in a specific direction and did not try to hide that it was doing this) than it is to the American one (which claims to be objective and unbiased).

That said, I don't think the media is responsible for attitudes towards violence and I don't think this attitude is indifference so much as resignation due to a nearly complete inability to do anything about it.

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You definitely do become numb the more you see of it. My job is to deal with documentation of horrific human rights abuses, and there's just so much of it that it all starts to blur together after a while. 

I think the "tsk tsk" side of things is often simply that it's not happening to them or anyone they know, so seeing it and reading about it is in many ways not all that different to watching a movie. That's obviously not the case for everyone, but there is a sizeable population, I personally feel, who have a hard time feeling empathy unless the tragedy affects themselves. I have no idea how to solve that. 

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35 minutes ago, Altherion said:

There has been a substantial shift in the media's approach to impartiality in the past few months. Of course, they were never truly impartial, but in the past, they at least pretended to be thus. Recently, I've seen mainstream media such as CNN say things like "So-and-so falsely claims..." followed by some statement the veracity of which is practically impossible to verify for the outlet until further information emerges. This is much closer to the old Soviet style of propaganda (which pushed the audience in a specific direction and did not try to hide that it was doing this) than it is to the American one (which claims to be objective and unbiased).

That said, I don't think the media is responsible for attitudes towards violence and I don't think this attitude is indifference so much as resignation due to a nearly complete inability to do anything about it.

Yes I agree with the bolded. That we've had 30 years of reporting on almost identical situations, with events like Band Aid gathering a ton of support and lots of effort to change things, I think after realising how futile it all is we've all just stopped being interested. How many bombings in foreign countries can you really care about when you can't differentiate them all. 

I think also we've all started to become more insular and protective, worrying far more about our own close circle of influence rather than thinking we should be saving the world. Part of that might be to do with the US's ineffective use of being world police over the last few decades.

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"Is the media responsible for public indifference?"

It's an interesting question. I tend to hold the public responsible for its indifference. The media reports the U.S. bombs a Mosul neighborhood on St.Patricks day, killing over 200 civillians and theres all kinds of excuses and rationalizing and within a few news cycles its like noone even remembers it happened- http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-mosul-civilians-airstrike-20170324-story.html 

Yet a few weeks later a tragedy happens to Syrian civilians and the cries of outrage are nonstop. The same people (public figures) who trivialized (or were silent) Mosul civillian deaths are leading the chorus three weeks later. 

For me its not that people are indifferent, its troubleing to see the selectiveness that they will use to rationalize away events when their own government is responsible for the crimes, all the while raging when another group commits heinous acts. How does one fail to be equally disturbed for both crimes? I dont blame the media for that, I blame a public that is complicit in acting hypocratic, swinging from indifferent to outraged when it feels theres a convenient bogey man. We should look in the mirror and identify our own actions, not just resort to only caring when theres someone else to blame.

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Robin,

I suspect the 24/7 news cycle is part of the problem.  Humans have always been pretty crappy to one another.  The difference today is that "if it bleeds it leads" and we have the bleeding and violence in our faces constantly.  The prevalence of violence in news programing desensitizes people to the horror of violence.  Numb people are harder to motivate.

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Its also very difficult to prioritise what we should be outraged about any more, there is outrage about the lack of outrage.

Should we be more or less outraged about deaths in Syria, than in Yemen or Iraq? Which one do I feel I need to be upset about most. Do I even have the time to worry about these things? If I worry about it, what can I possibly do to affect it. Nothing probably. 

And then you have people telling you that you need to be less outraged about somethings, and more outraged about others. When Charlie Hebdo massacre happened there was a persistent meme around the internet that we are being too upset, that we should be equally upset about kidnappings and massacres in Nigeria and Africa.. how dare we be so focussed on Europe. 

It just causes a level of exhaustion in most people. There is no clear narrative to the world any more, its far more complex and difficult than it ever was. Now we've gone searching for the truth we are too lazy to ever try and understand it.

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That comment about not knowing what to prioritise is true. One of the things that I notice a lot is that when we put out a report documenting some kind of abuse, at least half of the comments we get are complaints that we're not commenting on a completely different abuse somewhere else. I think many people have their 'pet' issues, which they have made the decision to be outraged about, and other things simply don't register as strongly. 

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1 minute ago, Silverstar said:

That comment about not knowing what to prioritise is true. One of the things that I notice a lot is that when we put out a report documenting some kind of abuse, at least half of the comments we get are complaints that we're not commenting on a completely different abuse somewhere else. I think many people have their 'pet' issues, which they have made the decision to be outraged about, and other things simply don't register as strongly. 

Yes and also the more passionate someone is when they rant and complain and say 'you need to be upset about this', the more people tend to just switch off and ignore it. 

Its like Veganism. I might like it as an idea if it wasn't for Vegans screaming about animal cruelty 24/7. I prefer to make my own mind up, rather than being shouted at for not thinking in the correct manner.

 

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I dunno on that one. I think that makes a lot of sense for someone yelling at you about, say, the wonders of Crossfit, but when we're talking about people being mutilated and gassed and tortured, that doesn't seem so much like a "need to make my mind up on whether or not it matters" kind of thing. 

It's a human reaction, I guess, but it bothers me. But then I guess it would. 

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I would have said the public is responsible for the media, given that they operate in a free market.  I'm surprised by the reverse contention.  All of these atrocities are reported and the media ultimately responds to the public's level of interest.  There's very little that goes unreported; so much, in fact, that most gets lost in the deafening clamor for attention.

Numbness, fatigue and distance are inevitable in the minds of the public of the developed west.  A huge slice of the global population lives with high structural risk to their lives and well-being, mainly from corrupt & oppressive regimes, over-population and/or violently intolerant attitudes. The west has discovered painfully that trying to forcibly fix any of those is actually a worse outcome in most cases. 

It's frustrating to think that a Pepsi ad got more attention than Syria yesterday, but Syria got more attention than famine in the Sahel, which puts many more lives at risk without the immediacy of a specific single event and video footage.  I'm just as frustrated by low voter turnout, climate change denial, populism, Fox News and the existence of TMZ but liberal democracy includes the freedom to be vapid and solipsistic and I realize the flaw in telling the rest of the world it should conform to my mindset. 

Personally, I never watch news video footage: I'm very capable of parsing information from text and I don't want to respond or contribute to the suffering-voyeurism and emotional manipulation of video over facts.  A single event isn't worse or more demanding of my attention because it was caught on video while others have to settle for boring text. 

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