does the media do the terrorists' job for them???

terrorists use terrorism in order to bring fear to the masses right??? well fear in a person does not last forever. the media constantly says that the terrorists are going to use another terrorist attack and they give supposed dates and ways they will attack. well ATSers, what scares you more, a terrorist attack and then a couple weeks later you forget all about it OR a terrorist attack and then the media constantly says "there is more to come and it will be worse"???

my example is this: 9/11

9/11 scared some people but a couple of weeks / months later people forgot about the terrorists and their plan. the media CONSTANTLY said that there will be more to come and they said it would be worse.

so the terrorists do the terrorist attacks and the media brings even more fear to the masses by "warning" them or giving them "information"

this can also be seen in movies with terrorist plots and etc.

questions or comments???

Sure, blame it on the media. How about the fact that Bush, Cheney, and Ashcroft are constantly talking about terrorism, the war on terror, and the threat of future terrorist attacks?

The Bush strategy for reelection is simple. Scare hell out of the American people by reminding them frequently of the terrorist threat. Portray Bush as the strong leader of the war on terror. Portray Kerry as someone who cannot be trusted to fight terror and protect America.

Appealing to fear for political advantage is a disgusting tactic. Bush and the Republicans should be ashamed of themselves.

Originally posted by donguillermo
Sure, blame it on the media. How about the fact that Bush, Cheney, and Ashcroft are constantly talking about terrorism, the war on terror, and the threat of future terrorist attacks?

The Bush strategy for reelection is simple. Scare hell out of the American people by reminding them frequently of the terrorist threat. Portray Bush as the strong leader of the war on terror. Portray Kerry as someone who cannot be trusted to fight terror and protect America.

Appealing to fear for political advantage is a disgusting tactic. Bush and the Republicans should be ashamed of themselves.

im not blaming it on anyone (or i am not trying to)...

im just saying that the media DOES scare the hell out of people and i thought that job belonged to the terrorists...

I have to agree with donguillermo, the media is doing a favor to bush when it reinforce the fear of terrorism in the common citizen in US, most people can not deal with the fact of having their pleasant and nice lives interrupted by a terrorist attack, everybody like to do their shopping on Saturdays and their BBQs on Sundays god forbid having terrorist interrupting our easy lives with an attack Right?

Isn't Fox the only network that displays the 'Current Threat Level' like, all the time? It's as if they are trying to reinforce how scared you should be.

You are right curme, they used to have the American flag, but now is being substituted for the terror alert, I guess they need to remind us how ignorant we are about terrorism

Yes the media are doing Bush and the rest of this Government a favour, if they do anything else they will be unpatriotic and branded just as bad as the so called terrorists, hate to be the one to tell ya�s like but�.. there is no free true independent (worth a crap) media or big news network in America today, the usa is so full of propaganda and lies that its seeping over the sides like a big boiling pot.

Ever stop and wonder, How did it get to this? How did this happen? How did Bush ( and more importantly people) because Bush is a figurehead, how did they! i.e the REAL rulers of America and the world get this past us without knowing.

Who are they? NWO = nope (New world order is a term used by these people, as they think they are creating a new state of affairs for us all to live in, a new peace, a new world order.

Who are they? = When JFK was killed by the CIA and corporate agents your country was taken away from you, there was a little thing called a coup that they, the people of the day, Mr Joe Voter, did not even know was going on, they took your country back then, and they changed America forever, also, they will continue to do so for as long as they have the control. CNN NBC FOX BSKYB they all know it. , And if Mr Bush messes up, he will get one in the FRONT OF THE HEAD just like the shot that killed Mr JFK.

All this time on and you STILL don�t ask this of your Government, and it�s the most obvious crime that has ever been committed, they took your freedoms away that day, most of us here could do nothing about it as we were little sperms in our daddies bags, but your fathers could have, and they did nothing, just as your doing nothing now.

Stand up for yourself America, before its to late.

SiCkBoY, I agree with you that is power behing the president and they are the one to tell how things are to be done, but why they are not exposed? why not body mention names? I don't know who they are? but how does anybody ?

All of the fear-mongering about terrorists was never logical to begin with. There is so little chance that any one person would be effected by what is necessarily an isolated event that it is not even worth thinking about.

Pushing fear is simply the most successful way the power structure has to get everyone to go along with programs that we would reject if we were all calm and seeing things clearly.

so you think that all the terror alear is fake that is what we though before 911 and look what happened its up to you if you think the terrorist wont do anything and if we just went back to the way it was but i think we have to be on alert.

i dont think the media is scaring us intentionally, but maybe they are.

i dont know why SOME people obsess over one media outlet but i've checked out a few and they seem to have a common theme.

they'll show something that bush rumsfeld or someone else had done or said that day and then right after they'll show what happened in iraq or wherever the latest terrorist act has occured.

the impression I get is while they show bush saying the war on terrorism is working (as an example) they show how its not by showing these things right after what they showed him or someone else saying something similar to this. or they show this before they show what bush or whoever said or did something that day.

i wont name which outlets i have seen do this as people have a bias against whatever outlet is named so i wont bother naming them. but its more common than we think.


i think the one thing the media does (american media anyway) is show these tapes of kidnapped people over and over. i literally cannot turn on the TV let alone the news without seeing the latest kidnapping video over and over. i think THIS does more to scare people piss people and make people as emotional as they are than anything else the media does.


of course a person is only as scared as they allow themselves to be. quite simply if terrorists are going to attack, they're going to, no sense in me getting all fightened and paranoid about it. i dont give a damn if fox is showing the current threat level or not, if YOU let such things get to you its because YOU let them get to you.

perhaps people should turn the TV off and spend a little more time living their lives rather than living it in front of the TV wringing their hands worrying about this that or the other. life is full of uncertainties but one thing is certain, if you let this get to you it will effect you.

rather than blaming a politician or the media blame yourselves for letting them get to you.

Just because is terror alert we can not live our life hiding, we have to go around our business as usual, look to those countries like Israel and Palestine they have attack constantly, do they stay in their houses and hide ? No, they keep on doing business as usual and they had learned to take life one moment at a time.

We are lucky all we have is terror alerts not attacks as everyday part of our life.

Occurs as long as we stay in US soil.

[edit on 5-7-2004 by marg6043]

Originally posted by marg6043
Just because is terror alert we can not live our life hiding, we have to go around our business as usual, look to those countries like Israel and Palestine they have attack constantly, do they stay in their houses and hide ? No, they keep on doing business as usual and they had learned to take life one moment at a time.

We are lucky all we have is terror alerts not attacks as everyday part of our life.

Occurs as long as we stay in US soil.

[edit on 5-7-2004 by marg6043]

good points

I myself grew up in a war zone and we never had terror alerts on the tv, but we had bombs every other day. in America its the other way around, you have alerts every other day and no bombs, so what does this tell you.

Fear = Control
Keep up the fear, keep the control.

Any good wife-beater could tell you that, and being Irish i know a few of them lol.



[edit on 5-7-2004 by SiCkBoY]

Right now, the terrorist acts that are being portrayed on the American media are serving the Bush Administration's current regime. The media right now is serving the War on Terrorism. So, the terror acts constantly being portrayed give us the illusion that terrorism is occurring "at home", when really it's way far, far away.

After 9/11 happened, people in rural America were thinking that the terrorist were going to attack them. In rural America. The media has great power in serving the interests of Bush's regime at the moment. The media is telling us what we should be thinking about.

If it was decided that Environmental destruction was far worse right now, we would all forget about terrorists and only think about the Environment.

But, part of the control that is required is to maintain the current agenda to display propaganda related to the war on terrorism. The threat levels as well is a good indication of a propaganda level in the United States to keep people in fear.

The sleeping masses are the ones who fall for it.

Yes, I totally agree IMMORTAL, everytime I flip past Fox News they are saying "New terrorist attacks being planned" etc....

It has some people I know on edge.

But seriously, the media is used to manipulate all the time. How its done is people on many different shows simulate credible news by repeating factoids over and over. People then, whether a person belives the factoid or not, hears it enough that when the time comes for a major news story on that subject to be announced they think "Oh I was well informed about that it must be the right thing to do"

Check out this article:

www.acs-onweb.de...

"Mass media have a powerful influence on public life and have frequently been called a �fourth authority of the state� along with the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the government. The basic principle of separation of powers is mutual control - the media have often readily accepted being misused as a means of propaganda, however."

The media influence,

The media falls under our constitucional right of freedom of speech,The role of the media was to be that of a watchdog, acting as a part of the system of checks and balances built into the framework of our government.

It was also to work as a link between the public and the goverment. Because of the change in time, now the media is more for ratings, multimedia and instant access sensasionalism sells.

Now they not only influence people but, they interpret and set political agendas.

In 1775- 37 weekly newspapers were publish in the colonies.

In 1830's- The newspapers became private ownerships, politicans noticed the influence of newspapers on public opinion.

In 1837-1847- With the invention of telegraph and and the rotary press Newspapers were able to gather news faster and increase circulation.

In 1920- Radio became the latest medium for news, and became the most poluar way of media during wold war ll.

In 1950- TV took over the radio, now people were able not only to have a voice for the news but also a face to match.

In 1960- TV took over anyother way of comunications.

In 1981- TV was overtaken by the two most powerful companies of the time
Time, Inc. and Warner Communications merged to become Time Warner Inc. because the power of this corporations it was in their hands now of a small group of powerful people a way of control and influence of the public.

Surveys conducted in 1984,85 and 1970 show that people not only have shortime memory on news but it also has "numbing" effect on the political consciousness of its viewers. Also it gives the viewer political aphathy in wish people have so much information feed to them that they can not make up their minds.

Now the most powerful influence on the media is political agendas.Not only influencing people with the way news are given but also children. By the time of high school graduation, the average American has watched over 19,000 hours of television. And with everything media tend to distort news for their sensasionalism advantage.

The source of my post can be found at.

trumpet.sdsu.edu...

for better review.





[edit on 6-7-2004 by marg6043]

Originally posted by WestPoint23
so you think that all the terror alear is fake that is what we though before 911 and look what happened its up to you if you think the terrorist wont do anything and if we just went back to the way it was but i think we have to be on alert.

You're not making it into OCS, much less the Point, with grammatical skills like that!! You've got Jarhead written all over ya!

Just teasin'!

The media is much like a bomber pilot.....in search of high yield targets. So, when the Secretary of this or that's Staffers ask for air time, it's looked upon as a score. Given the fact that the War of Terror which this administration falsley markets as a War on Terror's major component is to keep people so scared that they buy into the "logic" that changing teams would be a continuity fiasco, it is a situation where the "tool" that the media has become is serving that end.

I think the the kind of media we have these days it a natural channel that terrorists use to get their message across. Media outlets either wittingly or unwittingly amplify the message sometimes.

This is in part due to their need to attract more viewers with more enticing "news". There are of course political, financial or other reasons why a news organization might want to highlight particular stories.

I personally think, or hope, that over time we will find it much easier to filter and analyze the news we see and hear, allowing us to better grasp the undercurrent of truth. For those of us brought up on a single national nightly news show, reserved and unsensationalised, the new media environment can be confusing and over stimulating.

The next generation though are growing up in this environment, and seem to be developing are more skeptical, questioning attitude. They're also growing up with a much more informed world view than I had when I was younger. The rest of us have to try to catch up in some cases!

Bout Time, not name calling here my husband is a jarhead too, and it drives me crazy sometimes, but he is my jarhead and I love him

Regarding the media, I agree that some outlets cover politics and the war almost exclusively. I'd rather have that than a channel that sprinkles important news with what Britney Spears or ludacris have been doing these days.

I think Brit Hume of FOX News is one of the best. FOX News in general covers the war and politics more in depth than any other. Right-leaning? Maybe. But this morning the coverage has been almost exclusuvely on Kerry. Still the best outlet out there, IMO. Definitely not for someone who hates America or Bush.

The good thing is you can always change the channel. Compare yourself to the mideast, where al Jazeera is the main "news" outlet. Strictly one sided, no bones about it. They are all employees of the gov't of Qatar. As noted by Allied Media Corp.,

Al jazeera is not likely to critisize its own benifactor, the emir of Qatar and the government of Qatar.

We here in the US have it much better than the rest of the world when it comes to choices on where to get our news, both in quality and quantity.


Edit to correct name of reporter

[edit on 6-7-2004 by jsobecky]