Is The Media Responsible For Public indifference

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

24 minutes ago, Silverstar said:

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. 

Everyone is different, but I've had people on social media post up things about animals getting tortured and really awful things, and I have to say my reaction has been 'god, get over it'. Which is ridiculous because I'm horrified by these things in reality.  

Partly its the messenger rather than the message, if someone is constantly posting things like that you are likely to grow tired of it.. I mean we all know animal torture is terrible and should be stopped, but what do you expect your Facebook post to do about it, and are you posting it just to show everyone what a good person you are. 

Tying that back to the news, I've started second guessing every single piece of news I read or see now, I can't trust the motivations for anything (CNN as has been mentioned has become incredibly partisan for instance, the Guardian has such an obvious agenda that it might as well be the Daily Mail.) My reaction becomes far more about 'why are they saying this' than paying attention to the actual news. 
 

[Arkhangel]

A separate but related variable is the utility of public outrage to actually addressing the problem. In the case of civilians being shot by police in the US, clearly the US public's outrage is very valuable and could lead to directly addressing the problem. In the case of a chemical attack in Syria, whilst obviously outrage by Western audiences provides moral support and some measure of encouragement to Western governments to continue engaging, no one really thinks the Syrian crisis is going to be resolved or Assad held accountable for his actions because people in the West are mad on Twitter. I think it's worth keeping in mind that there are significant differences in the dynamics of media portrayals and public reactions between local or national vs. international issues.

[Fez]

I think people as a whole care roughly as much about terrible events far from them as they ever have; which is to say, usually not very much, but every once and a while something breaks through.

The difference is that it used to be much harder and take longer to find out about these events, so it seemed more natural that people often didn't react to them. Now, its so much easier to find out about them (well, in many cases at least; sometimes news from some places, like parts of sub-Saharan African, never really comes out), so it seems more callous that people don't care more.

But in many ways being outraged over events far removed from you is a luxury, reserved for people who don't need to spend all their energy keeping themselves and their families afloat.

[Iskaral Pust]

With no intention of being snarky or snide toward the OP, this thread, however well intentioned, has some echoes of the smug hectoring by that kid in high school who was a member of amnesty international.  

There is absolutely room for greater awareness of distant tragedies, but most people are either already aware and just don't need to yell about it or make fruitless gestures, or else they've already decided that they just don't care in general.  It's not a secret any longer that something terrible is happening somewhere in the world every single day.  People have made their decisions on how they want to respond and participate in the world.  Demanding they listen to the latest story rarely changes much unless this particular story reaches some horrifying new scale. 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

I'd also say sometimes they show far too much in terms of gruesome details because  they know it's click worthy, even if the content isn't verified.

look at much of the stuff from ISIS of beheadings and explosions. Propaganda all of it. But it's shown to create outrage, which is beneficial for both sides, with little thought going into whether we should see it

[Robin Of House Hill]

4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

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.

Ser Scot,

What the media shows, is dictated by innumerable polls of the demographics they target to determine what their audience wants to see.After all, it's still a business. But, I get the idea of constant exposure numbing people.  I wonder what percent want to see police shooting unarmed people because they approve of it.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

13 minutes ago, Robin Of House Hill said:

Ser Scot,

What the media shows, is dictated by innumerable polls of the demographics they target to determine what their audience wants to see.After all, it's still a business. But, I get the idea of constant exposure numbing people.  I wonder what percent want to see police shooting unarmed people because they approve of it.

Hopefully, a very small percentage.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

4 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Everyone is different, but I've had people on social media post up things about animals getting tortured and really awful things, and I have to say my reaction has been 'god, get over it'. Which is ridiculous because I'm horrified by these things in reality.  

Anything involving animal torture is absolutely unbearable to me, particularly if it involves dogs. I simply cannot watch it. I don't know what that says about me, but I find those to be the absolute worse.

[DireWolfSpirit]

6 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Everyone is different, but I've had people on social media post up things about animals getting tortured and really awful things, and I have to say my reaction has been 'god, get over it'. Which is ridiculous because I'm horrified by these things in reality.  

Partly its the messenger rather than the message, if someone is constantly posting things like that you are likely to grow tired of it.. I mean we all know animal torture is terrible and should be stopped, but what do you expect your Facebook post to do about it, and are you posting it just to show everyone what a good person you are. 

Tying that back to the news, I've started second guessing every single piece of news I read or see now, I can't trust the motivations for anything (CNN as has been mentioned has become incredibly partisan for instance, the Guardian has such an obvious agenda that it might as well be the Daily Mail.) My reaction becomes far more about 'why are they saying this' than paying attention to the actual news. 
 

^^^ The bolded above has been my approach since the 2000 elections. I have seen so many sensationalist headlines since that time, headlines and reporting that turned out to be misleading and agenda driven, that I rarely will accept or trust a lot of stuff without seeing several reports and views on a event. Especially events tied to U.S. foreign policy. They seem to be the most misleading and sensationalist of all, often because which ever admin is in the W.H. favors a certain policy. Wasnt it Randolph Hearst who said something to the effect of how he could whip up the frenzy for war anytime with a little creative writing?

Ultimately though, the responsibility for taking the media bait falls back to the public imo.

[Larry of the Lawn]

There's also an element of learned helplessness.  At least for my generation, we grew up in the world where Rodney King was beaten on television, his assailants were acquitted, and police violence against the black community continued unabated in the years since.  

Or how for a society that has such a push to conserve resources on a personal level and try to prevent the destruction of the natural environment since Silent Spring came out, we have largely just pushed the accelerator to the floor of the "poison the world mobile".  

Beyond that, I wonder why anyone still watches the news, unless you're looking for a daily dose of human tragedy or some awful puff piece.  Life is hard enough.  It's not a question of being desensitized, it's a question of what the fuck to do about it.