Stereotypes

[Prolescum]

How much time do you spend here in the States?

You don't have to be a resident to view your media, sunshine

 

[ImprobableJoe]

You don't have to be a resident to view your media, sunshine

That was my point earlier about The Village... they aren't representative of America, but they monopolize the media. What the rest of the world sees of America is almost entirely based on the biases of a couple of thousand wealthy (and VERY WEALTHY) mostly white people from NYC, Washington DC, and Los Angeles who all went to the same prep schools and colleges, belong to the same country clubs, all own homes in the same gated communities and second vacation homes in the same areas, and are inbred to make West Virginia jealous.

If you look on the TV news channels and dig into the histories of the talking heads and people behind the scenes, they are all related to, married to, old chums with each other on every side of the issues except the side that represents real people. All the movies and TV shows are written and produced by the same handful of people, and the companies are owned by the people back east who run the DC and NYC media.

 

[Prolescum]

You don't have to be a resident to view your media, sunshine

That was my point earlier about The Village... they aren't representative of America, but they monopolize the media. What the rest of the world sees of America is almost entirely based on the biases of a couple of thousand wealthy (and VERY WEALTHY) mostly white people from NYC, Washington DC, and Los Angeles who all went to the same prep schools and colleges, belong to the same country clubs, all own homes in the same gated communities and second vacation homes in the same areas, and are inbred to make West Virginia jealous.

If you look on the TV news channels and dig into the histories of the talking heads and people behind the scenes, they are all related to, married to, old chums with each other on every side of the issues except the side that represents real people. All the movies and TV shows are written and produced by the same handful of people, and the companies are owned by the people back east who run the DC and NYC media.

All of them?

Seriously now, it was only a passing comment. If you feel it doesn't hold true, who am I to argue?

 

[ImprobableJoe]

All of them?

Seriously now, it was only a passing comment If you feel it doesn't hold true, who am I to argue?

Seriously, it is fucking insane if you look into how intertwined the media is in America. For instance, NBC News' chief foreign correspondent Andrea Mitchell is married to former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan. NBC News anchor Brian Williams is married to Jane Stoddard Williams who is on the board of NYC's PBS station and has a show on Bloomberg Radio... owned by NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The point is, America's media is geared to present a very limited viewpoint, controlled by a tiny number of interconnected people. Everyone doesn't speak like them or share their viewpoints, interests, or priorities. In fact most Americans don't. It doesn't mean we're better or worse than we seem... probably both, truth be told... but we're certainly much more diverse and complex.

 

[Prolescum]

[...] but we're certainly much more diverse and complex.

Yes, that's a point I made earlier. I'll have to take your word for it that people generally don't refer to themselves and each other as hyphenated Americans.

 

[Lallapalalable]

Theres actually a running joke at my job where anytime somebody uses 'black' to reference an object, we'll go "Ahem; African-American, hurr durr!". The one black guy there loves it.

 

[nemesiss]

Dutch here:

I allways wonder if I speak with Americans, if they know where their roots are. They seem to think of them as the best, the biggest, the ones who conquered the world, but in fact America has only been a country for a few centuries and lost the biggest part of the original population that lived on that continent before the big migrations from Europe (dutch, english, spanish in south amerika, french in canada's region).

I don't want to be an ass, but I think americans don't have much historical knowledge and I hope that'll change.

here is another great piece of american wordplay: AFRICAN AMERICAN
and it only refers to people with dark skin, strangely not to white skinned africans.
as with people who are asian of decend, the call the just ASIANS, even if they are born and raised in america.
the true native americans who are almost extinct and are in worse living conditions then most 3rd world country inhabitants, are called indians (lets just columbus for that, yet why its not fixed..)
an the ones they refer to as american are the ones who came from europe.

its almost a miracle that their isn't a civil war... oh wait.
we forgot about soft racism and gang fight, never mind...

I don't want to be an ass, but I think americans don't have much historical knowledge and I hope that'll change.

Unfortunately with the education system under siege by private and religious interest.... It'll be a while.

Edit: Actually, you know what I just remembered? Guess who's thinking of getting his hands into the public education money pie? Rupert Fucking Murdoch. It's over. Don't hold your breath.

i blame Ray comfort's movie 180 for that, it made me wonder if american even pay attention in histroy classes and what is taught. offcourse it wouldn't be surprising ray just picked the dumbest people he found (which could be the next cast for jersey shore).

 

[televator]

i blame Ray comfort's movie 180 for that, it made me wonder if american even pay attention in histroy classes and what is taught. offcourse it wouldn't be surprising ray just picked the dumbest people he found (which could be the next cast for jersey shore).

If it were a measurable thing, I'd bet everything that Murdoch and his "Ministry of Truth" News Corp. far exceeds the intellectual damage that Ray comfort has or will ever do in his lifetime. Ray Comfort's entire existence and influence is a pebble, in Rupert Murdoch's galaxy of lies and misinformation.

 

[Dean]

@ImprobableJoe

[. . .]The point is, America's media is geared to present a very limited viewpoint, controlled by a tiny number of interconnected people. Everyone doesn't speak like them or share their viewpoints, interests, or priorities. In fact most Americans don't. It doesn't mean we're better or worse than we seem... probably both, truth be told... but we're certainly much more diverse and complex.[. . .]

The news media in the UK is becoming overly "centralized" too, especially in the newspapers. Perhaps a de-centralization generally of news media outlets in the US will help. What puzzles me is that in many cases ... the opposite seems to be true. It seems that some news organizations in the United States are very bold, and very independent, and often biased. Take Fox News and MSNBC (as obvious examples). Am I missing something? :|

 

[Prolescum]

The news media in the UK is becoming overly "centralized" too, especially in the newspapers.

No it isn't. Go read The Guardian, then go and read The Daily Telegraph, unfold The Financial Times, browse The Daily Mail, look at the tits in The Sun, then buy a copy of Private Eye.

Perhaps a de-centralization generally of news media outlets in the US will help. What puzzles me is that in many cases ... the opposite seems to be true. It seems that some news organizations in the United States are very bold, and very independent, and often biased. Take Fox News and MSNBC (as obvious examples). Am I missing something? :|

Yes, the meaning of free press and why in the UK we have it in print media but not broadcast media.

 

[Dean]

[. . .]The news media in the UK is becoming overly "centralized" too, especially in the newspapers.

No it isn't. Go read The Guardian, then go and read The Daily Telegraph, unfold The Financial Times, browse The Daily Mail, look at the tits in The Sun, then buy a copy of Private Eye. [. . .]

Hmm. Never even heard of that last one. Interestingly, all of these papers are owned by private enterprises. Equally, privatization seems to be an increasing phenomena in both the UK and US.

 

[Dean]

[. . .] You guys who's ancestors never bought a boat ticket [. . .]

Ya know...
In the UK those people are quite rare, as I assume they are in most places. I was reading a study a while back that said that if you were British with parents (or was it grandparents?) born in the UK, it's almost guaranteed that you can trace your family lineage to William The Conqueror.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

here is another great piece of american wordplay: AFRICAN AMERICAN
and it only refers to people with dark skin, strangely not to white skinned africans.

Not strangely at all, unless you're a European who seems grossly ignorant and just a little bit racist... yeah, see how you like it!

African American, which isn't used as much as some people think, is mostly a term used to describe the descendants of African slaves. It isn't an exact term, since Barack Obama is sometimes referred to that way (usually just called "black" though), but it is representative of the fact that these are people who usually can't trace their heritage to a specific country in Africa. If you're a first or second generation immigrant, you get to call yourself by the nation you came from, but after that you're usually just a white guy or a black chick. I think the Irish and Italian Americans are more likely to call themselves Irish or Italian than black people are likely to call themselves African American.

 

[Prolescum]

No it isn't. Go read The Guardian, then go and read The Daily Telegraph, unfold The Financial Times, browse The Daily Mail, look at the tits in The Sun, then buy a copy of Private Eye. [. . .]

Hmm. Never even heard of that last one. Interestingly, all of these papers are owned by private enterprises.

http://www.private-eye.co.uk/ Hope that helps. The editor is Ian Hislop.

What are you on about? The GMG (Guardian Media Group) is owned wholly by The Scott Trust, whose namesake is responsible for the phrase Comment is free, but facts are sacred, the single most important principle of The Guardian.

I chose all those papers because they are owned by different companies, take different stances on the same topics; they are the free press. Are you recommending that government controls the press? Not in my effing lifetime.

Look, I'm no fan of much of the private sector, but your insistence here that the newspaper owners are all nefarious Murdoch-like bastards with dodgy agendas is just not true.

Equally, privatization seems to be an increasing phenomena in both the UK and US.

Are you taking the piss?

 

[ImprobableJoe]

The news media in the UK is becoming overly "centralized" too, especially in the newspapers. Perhaps a de-centralization generally of news media outlets in the US will help. What puzzles me is that in many cases ... the opposite seems to be true. It seems that some news organizations in the United States are very bold, and very independent, and often biased. Take Fox News and MSNBC (as obvious examples). Am I missing something? :|

Yeah, but it is weird. Besides the fact that MSNBC has on a bunch of right-wingers, and Fox has on almost ONLY right-wingers, they are both in the pockets of ridiculously wealthy multinational corporations, and the on and off-air talent at the top of the food chain are all members of The Village. Think about this: you've got Rachel Maddow who is a confirmed liberal. She's also a wealthy academic with a doctorate in political science from Oxford of all places. She's also pretty buddy-buddy with racist Nazi sympathizer and regular MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan... which is part of the problem. You've got a bunch of wealthy people with wealthy people concerns, which skews the focus on and attitude toward which issues get covered. The you've also got the problem of these people being too chummy with each other.

 

[Lallapalalable]

Yes, I am reviving a load of dead threads; looking for one in particular who's entire title is comprised of words "too common" to perform a search (even though I set it to topic titles only, narrowed it to the subforum it's in, and set myself as the author), so I'm thumbing through my old posts and wasting hours reading threads I lost track of and, as is the case here, feel the need to reply some more. Anyway:

I think the Irish and Italian Americans are more likely to call themselves Irish or Italian than black people are likely to call themselves African American.

I would just like to throw in that the usage of 'African-American' is limited more or less to the media, as they choose the least offensive words and phrases for everything. Hell, I've heard not-old people use the word 'colored' more often than I hear A-A, and I live well above the Mason-Dixon Line. I've NEVER heard a black person call themselves A-A, and I'm basically convinced it's entire function anymore is to just be an awkward way to say someone is black on TV, and even then its starting to wean off. So, patience, you tea-sipping, apostrophe-hating, funny-sounding ninnies! But it probably won't disappear.

 

[malicious_bloke]

I chose all those papers because they are owned by different companies, take different stances on the same topics; they are the free press. Are you recommending that government controls the press? Not in my effing lifetime.

Indeed, but the problem in the UK these days is more the other way round IMO. It isn't just the current PM hiring Murdoch empire goons to be his advisors, it goes back further than that. Remember how desperate Tony Blair was to ingratiate himself to the daily mail back in the late 90s?

The media, both print AND broadcast, has the power to destroy any politicians career and influence any election result it wants and all the major players know it. It's why the whole news of the world scandal was so interesting, it had all the hallmarks of someone trying to shake up the power dynamic.