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April 23, 2005
Worth a Thousand Words?
Astonished Head (great name) doubts the ability of biased images to sway public opinion. He has the opinion that the American people aren't stupid enough to fall for such subtle bias, and makes a good argument for the need of people to show some discernment.
Plato's hypersonic grave-spinning aside, his basic premise still stands: it is the responsibility of the listener to determine the truth of a proposition, not the speaker. It is Socrates who must insist on dialogue; it is Socrates who must define the rules of dialectic; it is Socrates who, in the end, always admits that ultimate truth may be approached but never reached.I happen to think hes' right - we shouldn't make arguments that assume the stupidity of our audience. However, I think he misses my point. I don't want media bias to end. I just want the media to stop playing at objectivity. The media is pretending it holds absolute truth, or at least as close to it as we can get, while presenting the facts in a way that favors their ideological viewpoints.Similarly, today's media consumer is responsible for his own intellectual development and the fine-tuning of his own discernment. If someone is foolish enough to be affected by Time magazine's photographic choices, it does not then become that magazine's duty to change its ways in order to better accomodate the readily confused.
If the media was honest about their biases - if the NY Times called itself a liberal paper and the Washington Times called itself a conservative one - people could better judge for themselves the facts of a given situation when it is reported. My point is not that people are stupid, but that they will make wrong assumptions about the nature of truth when presented with bad information.
I think the writer of AH is correct - we should ask the educational system to raise standards in the areas of "critical thinking, logic and rhetoric." But I don't think it's too much to ask the media to either play it straight, or give up the pretense of objectivity they've been hiding behind for decades.
Posted by slublog at April 23, 2005 02:31 PM
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Comments
I think you are right on the money here, Slub. It seems strange to me that on the one hand, the Democrat's position is so often that people were misled into voting for Bush because they were hoodwinked by the media, whereas the more conservative viewpoint seems to be that people will generally figure things out if you give them the facts.
The other side of this coin is that there is a multi-billion dollar industry called "marketing and advertising" which hinges on the concept that people can be made to believe something if given the right imagery. My personal opinion is that liberals take the marketing approach, and rely heavily on emotion-producing imagery to sway opinion.
My point is not that people are stupid, but that they will make wrong assumptions about the nature of truth when presented with bad information.
A very valid point. And when the MSM presents itself as the noble arbiter of truth, and yet fails to provide the full picture, one has to wonder why.
Thank goodness for blogs!
Posted by: Partisan Pundit at April 25, 2005 07:29 AM