|
-
3rd November 2019, 19:43
#346
Senior Member
Finally, an understanding of the fundamental belief systems of journalists should be a more valid means of understanding their biases and behavior than would an understanding of their socio-politico orientations. The same should be true of media consumers.) The growing body of research on perception and belief systems seems to be concluding that man constantly strives for cognitive balance as he views and communicates about the world, and that man will select and rely upon information consistent with his basic perceptions. This holds true for the journalist as well as the journalist's audience. To do otherwise runs contrary to an apparently basic human need, which helps explain why open-mindedness is an elusive objective for the journalist. A recent Journalism Quarterly study by Donohew and Palmgreen, for instance, showed that open-minded journalists underwent a great deal of stress when having to report information they weren't inclined to believe or agree with, because the open-minded journalists' self- concepts demanded that they fairly evaluate all issues. Closed-minded journalists, on the other hand, underwent much less stress because it was easy for them to make snap decisions consistent with their basic world views, especially since they were inclined to go along with whatever information was given to them by authority figures. (Winter, 1971, "An Investigation of 'Mechanisms' of Information Selection,") In short, it appears to be far more difficult and stressful for both journalists and media consumers to keep their pluralistic orientations. What Donohew and Palmgreen seem to be telling journalists is that if they are not undergoing any mental stress, it may be that they aren't opening their minds long enough to allow belief discrepant information to enter. And, one might imagine, the same holds true for audiences. If they don't undergo some 'mental' strain upon reading their daily papers or viewing their television news or listening to their radio news or reading their weekly newsmagazine, it may be that they are closing their 'minds'. This is not to say that stress and strain in and of themselves make for open-minded media behavior. They may just make for confusion, and result from confusion. But if journalists and news audiences never find themselves concerned over contradictory information, facts that don't add up, opinions that don't cause them to stop and think, then they are behaving as Hohenberg's and Seldes' closed-minded journalists and members of the public, and as purveyors and passive receivers of propaganda.
Most of the empirical findings of belief systems researchers are entirely consistent with the body of knowledge referred to as 'general semantics', as both study how people perceive the world and how they subsequently communicate their perceptions or misperceptions. Recent empirical studies of semantic behavior have begun to validate many of Alfred Korzybski's original statements (Science and Sanity, 1933) that unscientific or "Aristotelian" assumptions about language and reality result in semantically inadequate or inappropriate behavior. Studies of children and adults trained in general semantics principles have demonstrated that semantic awareness results in such diverse achievements as improved perceptual, speaking, reading, and writing skills (Berger, Glorfield, Haney, Livingston, Ralph, True, Weaver, Weiss, Westover), generalized intelligence (Haney, Steele), decreased prejudice (John Black), decreased dogmatism (J . J . Black, Goldberg), and decreased rigidity (J .J. Black). These studies offer substantive refutation to early criticisms of general semantics as an overly-generalized and pedantic system of gross assumptions about language behavior. From the studies emerges a series of semantic patterns typifying the semantically 'sane' or 'un-sane' individual, patterns reflective of Rokeach's typologies of the open-minded or closed-minded individual and of propaganda analysts' descriptions of the non-propagandistic or propagandistic individual.
Highlighting general semanticists' descriptions of 'sane' language behavior are such concepts as 1) awareness that our language is not our reality, but is an inevitably imperfect abstraction of that reality, and that tendencies to equate language and reality (through the use of the verb "to be" as an equal sign) are setting up false-to-fact relationships. This is seen in the "intensional 'is-of-identity', "and is to be replaced by "extensionalized" analysis and description of reality as we perceive it; 2) awareness that the use of "to be" to describe something usually tells more about the observer projecting his bias than it does about the object described. This is seen as the"intensional 'is-of-predication"' and is to be replaced by "extensionalized" awareness of our projections; 3) awareness that people and situations have unlimited characteristics, that the world is in a constant process of change, that our perceptions are limited and that our language cannot say all there is to be said about a person or situation. This is seen in attempts to replace a dogmatic "allness orientation" with a multi-valued orientation that recognizes the "etc.," or the fact that there is always more to be seen and observed and described than we are capable of seeing, observing, or describing; 4) awareness that a fact is not an inference and an inference is not a value judgment, and subsequent awareness that receivers of our communications need to be told the differences; 5) awareness that different people will perceive the world differently, and we should accept authority figures', sources', and witnesses' viewpoints as being the result of imperfect human perceptual processes, and not as absolute truth, and 6) awareness that persons and situations are rarely if ever two-valued; that propositions do not have to be either 'true' or 'false', specified ways of behaving do not have to be either 'right' or 'wrong', 'black' or 'white', that continuum-thinking or an infinite-valued orientation is a more valid way to perceive the world than an Aristotelian two-valued orientation. (I would append this with the notion that William James proffered - "The Truth is what the future proves it to be")
“El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"
-
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Emil El Zapato For This Useful Post:
Aianawa (28th November 2019), Chris (4th November 2019)
-
3rd November 2019, 20:04
#347
Senior Member
Numerous other semantic formulations exist, but this half-dozen can begin to offer a framework for semantic analysis. As noted above, awareness and application of these formulations have resulted in empirically improved levels of perception, reading, writing, speaking, generalized intelligence, and open-'mindedness'. And, as in the case of being open-'minded', it can be seen that being semantically 'sane' or sophisticated is not the easiest way to go through life, because it tends to result in a mass of often contradictory perceptions and la nguage behavior
that the semantically unsophisticated or 'un-sane' individual never has to worry about. But such is theresponsibility of the professional journalist, and the fate of the mature media consumer.
PROPAGANDA--A NEW DEFINITION
At this juncture, insights from propaganda analysts, journalistic critics, social psychologists and general semanticists can be amalgamated into a reasonably objective insight into journalistic performance... both the performance of journalists and media consumers. Taken in their extremes (and recognizing that people fall somewhere along the continuum at any given time, rather than resting at a pole), the pictures of propagandists/propagandees and non-propagandists/non-propagandees as uncovered by the preceding discussion show very definite patterns of behavior. On the one hand, the dogmatist (typical of both propagandist and propagandee) may be characterized as having a heavy reliance upon authority figures, a narrow time perspective, a tendency to make irrational evaluations, and display little sense of discrimination between differing sets of information. On the other, the non-dogmatist (typical of both nonpropagandist and non-propagandee) faces a constant struggle to remain open-'minded' as he evaluates and acts on information independently of its own merits, is governed by self-actualizing attitudes rather than irrational ones, doesn't get hung up on what is being said or by whom, recognizes contradictions, incomplete pictures of reality, and the interrelationship of past, present and future.
The above typologies help lead us to an original definition of propaganda, one that can be applied not only to mass media studies but to a broad range of communications behavior in everyday life. The definition is broad enough to apply to creators of messages, the messages themselves, the media in which the messages are carried, and the receivers of those messages. It goes as follows:
While it may or may not emanate from individuals or institutions with demonstrably closed belief systems, the manifest content of propaganda contains characteristics one associates with dogmatism; while it may or may not be intended as propaganda, this type of communication seems non-creative and seems to have as purpose the evaluative narrowing of its receivers. While creative communication displays expectations that its receivers should conduct further investigations of its observations, allegations, and conclusions, propaganda does not appear to do so. Rather, propaganda is characterized by at least the following : 1) a heavy or undue reliance on authority figures and spokesmen, rather than empirical validation, to establish its truths or conclusions; 2) the utilization of unverified and perhaps unverifiable abstract nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, rather than empirical validation, to establish its truths, conclusions, or impressions; 3) a finalistic and fixed view of people, institutions, and situations, divided into broad, all-inclusive categories of in-groups and out-groups (friends and enemies), situations to be accepted or rejected in whole; 4) a reduction of situations into readily identifiable cause-effect relationships, ignoring multiple causality; 5) a time-perspective characterized by an under- or over-emphasis on the past, present, or future as disconnected periods, rather than a demonstrated consciousness of time flow, and 6) a greater emphasis on conflict than on cooperation among people, institutions, and situations. This definition allows for an investigation of mass media behavior in its full range. News media in particular (plus, of course, advertising, public relations, photography, editorials, entertainment, etc.) can be investigated as falling somewhere along a propaganda--non-propaganda continuum. Since most people expect the advertisements, public relations programs, editorials and opinion columns to be biased and persuasive, they may tend to avoid analyzing these items for propagandistic content; but the arguments in the present paper hold that ads, public relations programs, editorials and opinion columns can meet their basic objectives without being propagandistic. Indeed, persuasive media that are propagandistic, as defined herein, would appear to be less likely to attract and convince open-'minded' media consumers than they would to reinforce the biases of the true believers.
CONCLUSIONS
We are not suggesting that the necessity for mediating reality inevitably results in propaganda. Far from it. But we might suggest that when there is a pattern of behavior on the part of media practitioners that repeatedly finds them jumping to conclusions, acting as advocates, making assumptions based on previous experience rather than the evidence at hand, and approaching their assignments with preconceived notions of what is happening and how the event should be depicted... when they have this pattern of behavior, we can say they are acting as propagandists. THEY MAY BE DOING IT UNCONSCIOUSLY. They may not be attempting to propagandize or ever be aware that their efforts can be seen as propagandistic. (In this sense our definition of propaganda differs from many standard ones.) It may well be that their view of the world is such that their work habitually follows propagandistic patterns. But this doesn't excuse them. Nor does it excuse the media audience member who readily accepts the distorted pictures of reality. Surely, if people want spokesmen and authority figures to run their lives, they'll swallow what they're told by 'our usually reliable sources'. If they wantto believe in simple explanations for complex issues, they can find them. If they want to believe in simple explanations for complex issues, they can find them. If they want to believe that everybody of one race or sex or religion behaves one way, that things never change, that everything is a conspiracy, that the newest and most heavily advertised products are indeed panaceas, they'll find enough evidence in their mass media to perpetuate their beliefs. If they want
to subscribe to only one type of newspaper, magazine, book club, or view only one type of television program or movie or listen to only one type of music, rejecting all others, they are probably acting as unwitting propagandees. More than one observer has noted that no society has ever had a media system much better or worse than the society deserved. That may be something to think about .
“El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"
-
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Emil El Zapato For This Useful Post:
Aianawa (28th November 2019), Chris (4th November 2019)
-
4th November 2019, 13:56
#348