Is the news being repeated to stir things up? Or to cause complete apathy?

This has just appeared on my yahoo news this morning. Russia test fires missiles. Its a report stating that this weekend Russia has tested 3 ICBMs very successfully, with some additional worrying commentary suggesting that they are gearing up for war.

I was especially concerned about the comment that "this was a dry run for a war with the United States" and of course looked on here to see if the good posters on ATS had any further developments. I used the search function and came across this ATS

Now whats been reported looks to me like its happened over this weekend, yet there was a post about this test on ATS nearly a month ago. Is this simply a case of bad reporting, time slips or are we being softened up to prepare for an eventual all out Superpower war??? or are the differing news agencies simply rehashing old stories on a slow news day?

I remember the times when these sorts of tests and comments like those attributed in the article would cause concern amongst the west, now no one seems bothered. I have spoken to some of the sheeple in my office and they simply do not care, they say its just not important, they do this all the time??? im starting to think its the drip effect in full force, the news agencies keep repeating the same things, people become immune to it and pretty soon no one cares about anything that doesnt directly impact on their daily life (until its too late).

The banks are another example of the media creating apathy. If you wanted to nationalise a bank 6 months ago there would have been huge public outcry about the use of taxpayers money etc. So, you report a crisis and everyone panics. After a few weeks of the same news day after day after day, people get sick of hearing about it, realise that they havent actually lost any money themselves. so they turn a blind eye to it with comments such as "im sick of hearing about it". The government buys into the banks knowing full well in the long run there will a profit to be had and its a perfect fundraiser for them. After all, there is no bad debt as such if people pay is there? Or did the "sub prime" market all decide on mass that they wouldnt be paying their mortgage at all for the next 25 years??

I have come to the conclusion that constant exposure to the same news stories makes people switch off and the government can use this tactic to bore people into submission on any subject they want. Sorry for the ramble if it comes across that way, i just wanted to get that off my chest- news agencies governement banks

Astute observations here, I think you're probably on the money.
Starred and flagged

Im active duty right now and ill tell you we are always testing and so are the Russians its old news just part of a game

Originally posted by pimppapa1977
Im active duty right now and ill tell you we are always testing and so are the Russians its old news just part of a game

I understand that, and hats off to you by the way for serving Anyone that serves their country has my utmost respect.

My main point was not about the tests, it was the media repeating stories enough to bore people into submission to get their own way, with the financial situation being the main case in point. Everyones sick of hearing about the mess the markets are in and therefore dont care what action is taken as long as it makes it go away so they they can get back to their stories or Brad and Angelina. This allows the governements to push through economic packages that suit their best long term interests and allows legislation to be pushed through to serve their own ends.

The US is a case in point, years of major news stories being about terror and threat levels let them push through bills that would have been considered unconstitutional 7 years ago. The public was almost so bored with it all that the attitude seems to have been "well, just do something, anything about it to fix it and make it go away" Its only after that people started to think "hang on a minute?" It will happen in the UK if the 42 day holding without charge bill is defeated, mark my words.

replied to the wrong tab ... just ignore me

*whistles*[starts walking slowly towards the door)




[edit on 13/10/08 by noobfun]

Starred and flagged! In TV land it's mostly all about the ratings and all else be damned including "news". They have all but cancelled the freakin' news. Instead they run stories of some totally gruesome crime that happened at some shopping center somewhere and play it over and over and over again...or else it's Paris Hilton...until you just about vomit the garbage.

Pavlov Pavlov Pavlov. It's in any introductory Psychology text. We are the mice.

reply to post by expatwhite


Your post grabbed my attention because I noticed the same thing the past couple of days...that mainstream media is repeating the same news over and over.

I don't usually watch much news on television, but recently I've been watching more. I've been interested to see what the news media on T.V. is reporting compared to the news I read here and other news sources outside the mainstream media.

Two nights ago during a one-hour news segment, the same breaking story was repeated at least three (if not four) times. And the story was repeated back-to-back...with nothing new being reported inbetween the breaking news.

It really made me mad because there's so much other news out there, and besides that, it's frustrating to hear the same thing repeated over and over, as well as to see the same video clips repeatedly.

I noticed the same thing later in the evening while I was browsing ATS and listening to the news on a different channel in the background. Even though I was barely paying attention to the T.V. because I was reading threads here, I still noticed how a certain breaking news story (different from the other channel) was repeated in a short period of time.

When I tuned in briefly to the news tonight, I heard more of the same that I heard yesterday. I flipped it off because I was bored out of my mind.

I don't know if this is typical because I generally don't watch much news on T.V., but I found it odd that so little news was covered and the same stories repeated. You'd think they'd be concerned about their ratings and that they'd want to keep their viewers interested instead of boring them to tears to the point they turn to another channel. I don't get it, but maybe it does make people more apathetic. It's just reinforced my belief that mainstream media news on television, for the most part, just isn't worth watching.