ericksolvi
26th September 2011, 01:43
One of the great tools of fascism has always been manipulating information. Nazi propaganda blended disinformation with just enough truth to give it a sense of legitimacy.
I unfortunately see the propensity for this kind of manipulation within the US system. We all know that politicians and corporations take information out of context and use it to their advantage. Rational people with good critical thinking skills see right through this kind of sham, but many peoples opinions are affected by such tactics. There should be outrage at blatant information manipulation, but most just shrug and accept it.
As a very simple example I'd like to talk about adds that have been running for Transformers 3. In the course of the add a quote comes on the screen "The Best Action Movie Ever!" if you pause it and look very closely you'll see in tiny letters that the quote is attributed to "Rusty Gatenby, ABC-tv Minneapolis". Look him up and you'll discover he's not even a movie reviewer, he's a run of the mill reporter. This might seem unimportant, but it's symptomatic of the fact that people in our society have grown accustom to being lied to.
I feel a new regulation should be written called The Fair Quoting Act, that would affect all advertisements including political ones. Requiring that the attribution come before the quote, be the same font color and size as the quote, and requiring that the entire paragraph from which the quote came be given again in the same font color and size. Advertisers and political campaigners would be effectively castrated by such a rule, and would probably abandon using any form of quotation all together. Thereby elimination one avenue of information manipulation. College students are required to site their source material in accordance with certain guidelines, why not commercials?
A society wide dedication to honesty would be a tremendous step towards creating a better world. But since you can't expect people to be honest and decent of their own accord, regulations have to take the place of morality, at least for the time being.
I unfortunately see the propensity for this kind of manipulation within the US system. We all know that politicians and corporations take information out of context and use it to their advantage. Rational people with good critical thinking skills see right through this kind of sham, but many peoples opinions are affected by such tactics. There should be outrage at blatant information manipulation, but most just shrug and accept it.
As a very simple example I'd like to talk about adds that have been running for Transformers 3. In the course of the add a quote comes on the screen "The Best Action Movie Ever!" if you pause it and look very closely you'll see in tiny letters that the quote is attributed to "Rusty Gatenby, ABC-tv Minneapolis". Look him up and you'll discover he's not even a movie reviewer, he's a run of the mill reporter. This might seem unimportant, but it's symptomatic of the fact that people in our society have grown accustom to being lied to.
I feel a new regulation should be written called The Fair Quoting Act, that would affect all advertisements including political ones. Requiring that the attribution come before the quote, be the same font color and size as the quote, and requiring that the entire paragraph from which the quote came be given again in the same font color and size. Advertisers and political campaigners would be effectively castrated by such a rule, and would probably abandon using any form of quotation all together. Thereby elimination one avenue of information manipulation. College students are required to site their source material in accordance with certain guidelines, why not commercials?
A society wide dedication to honesty would be a tremendous step towards creating a better world. But since you can't expect people to be honest and decent of their own accord, regulations have to take the place of morality, at least for the time being.