vinny
The Living Force
Here's a film I recommend: 'Sleepers'.
from http://search.reviews.ebay.co.uk/Sleepers...
Very often the media presents various stories in close proximity (on the same page in the newspaper, or sequentially on TV) that could easily be linked to illustrate a certain idea, or which are obviously in conflict with one another, or which taken together provide a bigger picture which is more than the sum of its parts. However, the papers and TV always fail to take this step to join the dots.
For example an article regarding computers being used to predict climate change, accompanied by another article about the mysterious sudden decline and disappearance of the civilization on Easter island when the population used up all the natural resources and as a consequence caused their own demise. But with no connection made to the previous article about climate change.
Or, another example, a report of record profits for some multinational vampiric corp (but not one of the publicly accepted as 'bad' ones like nestle or nike) immediately followed by an article on poverty or somesuch, and NOWHERE is the link made between the two.
Sometimes this is so blatant that I am sure viewers/readers will be able to join the dots themselves between certain events. The one thing that I DON'T think many people will do is join the dots to the point where they actually notice the consistent pattern of the media NOT joining the dots, and start to ask why THAT is.
I think of this as the 'Sleeper Defense' and I take the concept from the film 'Sleepers'. Without going into detail, the main idea here is (and its a long time since I saw it, so I hope this is right) that a court case is 'fixed' so that a guilty man is aquitted of murder, and the way it is done is to somehow get an 'insider' (Brad Pitt, above) into the position of prosecuting attourney. He then procedes to undermine the case whilst simultaneously and completely plausibly fulfilling his duty (AS do the mass media journalists, above) as prosecuting attourney, by discussing evidence etc. What he deliberately DOES NOT do, is to 'join the dots', eg. he never discusses a motive for the defendant, etc.
from http://search.reviews.ebay.co.uk/Sleepers...
Its a bit of a nasty film in places, as you can probably gather from the description, but it very well illustrates a certain point, which I will elaborate below:
Very often the media presents various stories in close proximity (on the same page in the newspaper, or sequentially on TV) that could easily be linked to illustrate a certain idea, or which are obviously in conflict with one another, or which taken together provide a bigger picture which is more than the sum of its parts. However, the papers and TV always fail to take this step to join the dots.
For example an article regarding computers being used to predict climate change, accompanied by another article about the mysterious sudden decline and disappearance of the civilization on Easter island when the population used up all the natural resources and as a consequence caused their own demise. But with no connection made to the previous article about climate change.
Or, another example, a report of record profits for some multinational vampiric corp (but not one of the publicly accepted as 'bad' ones like nestle or nike) immediately followed by an article on poverty or somesuch, and NOWHERE is the link made between the two.
Sometimes this is so blatant that I am sure viewers/readers will be able to join the dots themselves between certain events. The one thing that I DON'T think many people will do is join the dots to the point where they actually notice the consistent pattern of the media NOT joining the dots, and start to ask why THAT is.
I think of this as the 'Sleeper Defense' and I take the concept from the film 'Sleepers'. Without going into detail, the main idea here is (and its a long time since I saw it, so I hope this is right) that a court case is 'fixed' so that a guilty man is aquitted of murder, and the way it is done is to somehow get an 'insider' (Brad Pitt, above) into the position of prosecuting attourney. He then procedes to undermine the case whilst simultaneously and completely plausibly fulfilling his duty (AS do the mass media journalists, above) as prosecuting attourney, by discussing evidence etc. What he deliberately DOES NOT do, is to 'join the dots', eg. he never discusses a motive for the defendant, etc.