The News

The News: Truth or Profit? Ratings, Clicks, and Content Choices

Our news sources are driven by profits, often at the expense of truth or objectivity. The distributors of “news” benefit greatly from two opposite sides talking about opposing viewpoints often without listening to the other. The closer the balance of power and the farther apart the viewpoints, the greater the stakes for viewers, readers, and consumers. This leads to more advertising revenues.

A great video about the methods used by media to manipulate opinion. . . . NOAM CHOMSKY – TOP 10 MEDIA MANIPULATION STRATEGIES

Democracy or Capitalism

Can capitalism and democracy co-exist? When money can buy access to and control the distribution of information, is it possible to avoid corruption? Does money have more power in our culture than truth? Has this always been the case?

Nineteen Eighty-four

I think Nineteen Eighty-four was before its time.

Syme bit off another fragment of the dark-coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:

‘Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we’re not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there’s no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won’t be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak,’ he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. ‘Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?’

‘Except-‘ began Winston doubtfully, and he stopped.

It had been on the tip of his tongue to say ‘Except the proles,’ but he checked himself, not feeling fully certain that this remark was not in some way unorthodox. Syme, however, had divined what he was about to say.

‘The proles are not human beings,’ he said carelessly. ‘By 2050 earlier, probably — all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron — they’ll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like “freedom is slavery” when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.’

From Nineteen Eighty-four by George Orwell

Post originally written August 12, 2011

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