First: I don't know which sociological studies you refer to, but most of it is politically colored arm chair philosophy. These insights didn't come from sociology, but from political movements.
Second: there's a difference not providing a full picture of a war or a new economic policy, and outright lying. I expect news organizations to provide me with the basic info: incomplete, but not counter-factual. Saying they're all lying and always have is a (probably politically motivated) spin against normal news organizations.
> Saying they're all lying and always have is a (probably politically motivated) spin against normal news organizations.
Perhaps the most wooden way to interpret what they're is saying. I think that most people would read this as "by in large, most are lying".
Pointing this out is useful because it shows the irony in the whole matter. This kind of wooden interpretation of words and lazy disqualification is what leads someone to the "black and white" spin you're accusing the GP of. This falls in line with the type of _gotcha_ logic that insists: "Well you said x, and x means X regardless of rhetorical device usage." and "OP has expressed sentiment in Y, which leads me to believe he's actually Y and therefore not $CREDIBLE".
The point is, engaging like this deprives the dialogue of nuance, rhetorical freedom and grace. If we continue with this way of interpreting one another we'll likely fall into the same polarization that we're complaining about (again, a grand irony).
I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I've just seen first hand (1) the real information on the battlefield (2) the public affair office's briefing to medias, which is factual although omits sensitive things and (3) the media's subsequent reporting which largely ignores what the PAO said and goes on with their made up interpretation. It's frankly sickening. They're writing fantasy.
If you consider the decades of scolarship it takes to clarify extremely well doccumented events, like the outbreak of the first world war, it's clear that even with a mountain of evidence, and all the time in the world, the 'basic facts' can be stubornly elusive even with the best of intentions.
The idea that an accurate picture should be able to emerge before 9-o'clock, in a newsroom, in a haze of conflicting reports, seems pretty incredible to me: and historically, that's not what has happened. So 'accurate news' is neither something we should expect, nor something we have a great deal of evidence of.
But propaganda is tricky, you need people to keep paying attention which means the most overt spin is to be avoided. Done well you shift the narrative over decades not just swap positions on day one. Fox News is the most well known US example, but you don’t want to just preach to people who already believe your message.
Thus you want to control the widest possible selection of media.
No, not for propaganda. If you want people to have a certain perception and position on a topic, selective reporting of topics and the presentation of them is far more relevant. This certainly does qualify as misleading.
Lies are even more ineffective since they often can be directly disproved, which biases people to believe the opposite. You want to present your spin in a certain blur.
Many prominent sociologist pretty much explain the mechanisms media and advertisers employ in detail. To say this is a fringe position is misleading too.
There is a difference between withholding information, selective emphasis, and outright lies. They are all bad, but they are equally bad. If you want to make things better you attempt to differentiate better from worse actors.
TLDR; all media, and all people, are biased, but they are not all equally biased. This bias can produce false beliefs. If you think false beliefs are a bad thing you promote the better actors and condemn the worse.
Almost every US newspaper printed the blatant and unconvincing lies of the Bush Administration as if they were fact, and reported the results of the weapons inspectors as if they were gullible idiots.
Meanwhile, outside the UK even conservative news outlets in Europe were deeply skeptical of the whole story.
At the time, I thought the government and the news media knew something I didn't, because it just seemed ridiculous that they could overthrow an entire government in a few weeks for a few tens of billions of dollars.
It turned out that no, it was just one great big lie from top to bottom. (Only the SF Gate showed any skepticism at all, bless their hearts.)
> Second: there's a difference not providing a full picture of a war or a new economic policy, and outright lying.
It should be obvious to ethical or moral people, but I guess I need to explain that your statement is very often not correct.
Deliberately covering up the truth is often a form of lying. For example, if the American people had known that the weapons of mass destruction claim came from a single person nicknamed Curveball who had made false claims in the past and whom the CIA suspected might be crazy (thus the nickname!), I suspect the Iraq War might never have happened.
"they believe national news organizations intend to mislead, misinform or persuade the public to adopt a particular point of view through their reporting."
This is the core of the survey. I didn't see them or your parent mention lying. Although I have seen such blatant miscommunication of the facts that the resulting news is counter-factual.
Isn’t… isn’t that a pretty black and white spin on the idea of sociology? Do you have any studies to share that indicate “politically colored armchair philosophy”?
