The media and their use of conspiracy theories.

The media's use of conspiracy theories.People in the media always like to talk bad about conspiracy theories and dismiss them for being nothing. There are people that say that people who try to come up with conspiracy theories are just doing that because they have anti-government views- and that's all it is. What they are doing- however- is exactly the same thing that people in the media are doing. I was just thinking abou this the other day. Goldman sachs, AIG, BP, the tea party people, angry militia men- what do they all have in common? They're villains set up for us to tunnel our anger at- and so we can see problems with these various institutions, and what they are. It certainly is true that the people in the media do look for villains- who are responsible for various problems- like financial victims. These same people then think it's silly that people believe in conspiracy theories in the first place- or that it's silly to say that reality is somehow different than it actually is. Yet it is especially important to look at the public record- and see what facts match up with the real version- and criticize these institutions that are really pulling the strings.

The media does it- but they think that anyone who uses the same techniques as they do- are crazy and delusional paranoid anti-government people. They call people who believe in conspiracy theories anti-government because they want to smear the right-wing, and, accuse them of being the ones that spread conspiracy theories- and while it may be true that they do- there are a lot of conspiracy theories that come from many different sources- from propaganda sources, and, other sources that are truly independent. These people want everyone in the same bunch... they don't want people to use the same tactics they do.

So if the media does it- why is it so wrong?

Media tropes
Media commentators regularly note a tendency in news media and wider culture to understand events through the prism of individual agents, as opposed to more complex structural or institutional accounts.[33] If this is a true observation, it may be expected that the audience which both demands and consumes this emphasis itself is more receptive to personalized, dramatic accounts of social phenomena.A second, perhaps related, media trope is the effort to allocate individual responsibility for negative events. The media have a tendency to start to seek culprits if an event occurs that is of such significance that it does not drop off the news agenda within a few days. Of this trend, it has been said that the concept of a pure accident is no longer permitted in a news item.[34] Again, if this is a true observation, it may reflect a real change in how the media consumer perceives negative events.
Hollywood motion pictures and television shows perpetuate and enlarge belief in conspiracy as a standard functioning of corporations and governments. Feature films such as Enemy of the State and Shooter, among scores of others, propound conspiracies as a normal state of affairs, having dropped the idea of questioning conspiracies typical of movies of eras prior to about 1970.

Shooter even contains the line, "that is how conspiracies work" in reference to the JFK murder. Interestingly, movies and television shows do the same as the news media in regard to personalizing and dramatizing issues which are easy to involve in conspiracy theories. Coming Home converts the huge problem of the returning injured Vietnam War soldier into the chance that the injured soldier will fall in love, and when he does, the strong implication is that
the larger problem is also solved. This factor is a natural outcome of Hollywood script development which wishes to highlight one or two major characters which can be played by major stars, and thus a good way of marketing the movie is established but that rings false upon examination.

Further, the necessity to serve up a dubiously justified happy ending, although expected by audiences, actually has another effect of heightening the sense of falseness and contrived stories, underpinning the public's loss of belief in virtually anything any mass media says. Into the vacuum of that loss of belief falls explanation by conspiracy theory. Too, the act of dramatizing real or fictional events injects a degree of falseness or contrived efforts which media savvy people today can identify easily. "News" today is virtually always dramatized, at least by pitting "one side" against another in the fictional journalistic concept that all stories must contain "both sides" (as though reality could be reduced to two sides) or by using more intensive dramatic developments similar to feature movies. That is, by obvious dramatizing, the media reinforces the idea that all things are contrived for someone's gain which could be another definition of, at least, political conspiracies theories. --Dr. Charles Harpole in "History of American Cinema" Scribner/U. Calif Press.

en.wikipedia.org...

I'm not sure that I've ever heard anyone on the news say anything about conspiracy theorist, but I will admit that their views tend to be dismissed out of hand due to bad public opinion.

It's true that some conspiracy theorists are "crazy", but they can't all be. There just happens to be a few bad apples that spoiled the bunch.

Maybe they need a better public relations team

reply to post by Mayson


I think you misunderstand. My point is not that conspiracy theories are crazy. Rather- I believe when political pundits talk about wallstreet and these supervilpains they are spinning their own conspiracy theories. They may think they are doing something different- and consider themselves superior but they too look for ulterior motives like many conspiracy theorists do. I am just saying the practice of using conspiracy theory logic is more widespread than just with this board.

Yeah. I definitely did miss the point. Thanks for clearing things up.

I wish I had something more to offer. I don't want to let your thread die.


Hmm... Maybe I could say that I agree with you. It's pretty much the entire point of investigative journalism. To try and find the next big "scoop".

It's pretty much a given that everyone is going to lie to you to suit their own needs. The journalists just have to find the proof to back it up.

Maybe that's the difference between conspiracy theorists here and those in the media; accountability. There aren't going to be any repercussions from posting a false conspiracy here. The rest of the media has to be sure that their story is provable(or at least be able to convince people that it is) or heads will roll.