Thread: About Cold War and more

Thus, while Hanna makes some good points about commercial messages and FoxNews (for example) being a type of "propaganda" that shapes/distorts our thinking, the fact that самиздат had practically no analogue in 20th-century Western life (because there was no need for it) should caution us against treating Soviet and Western propaganda as "two sides of the same coin".

What's the connection? самиздат appeared because the government forbade to publish many things and it was partially the result of uneffecient propaganda. But it doesn't mean that FoxNews say something closer to the truth.

Originally Posted by Marcus

What's the connection? самиздат appeared because the government forbade to publish many things and it was partially the result of uneffecient propaganda. But it doesn't mean that FoxNews say something closer to the truth.

FoxNews competes with many other privately owned media companies whose content and opinions are not tightly controlled by a centralized government. And not all of FoxNews's competitors are large corporations; there are small "indie" publishers and academic printing presses, etc. This was true even before the Internet age and the "digital distribution" revolution.

In short, in Western society, people who dissented from the government's official point of view had a much easier time propagating their own views than Soviet dissidents did. (Which is not to say that there was NEVER censorship in the US, or legal harassment of dissidents; but in general, censors in the US had much less power, and dissidents had much greater opportunities to express and publish their beliefs legally.)

P.S. I would add that although FoxNews is clearly biased, its biases have sometimes been exaggerated by people who devoutly believe in the "objectivity" of the BBC and The New York Times, etc.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

FoxNews competes with many other privately owned media companies whose content and opinions are not tightly controlled by a centralized government. And not all of FoxNews's competitors are large corporations; there are small "indie" publishers and academic printing presses, etc. This was true even before the Internet age and the "digital distribution" revolution.

In short, in Western society, people who dissented from the government's official point of view had a much easier time propagating their own views than Soviet dissidents did. (Which is not to say that there was NEVER censorship in the US, or legal harassment of dissidents; but in general, censors in the US had much less power, and dissidents had much greater opportunities to express and publish their beliefs legally.)

P.S. I would add that although FoxNews is clearly biased, its biases have sometimes been exaggerated by people who devoutly believe in the "objectivity" of the BBC and The New York Times, etc.

BBC, The New York Times etc are not much different from FoxNews. Russia Today is probably different, but who watches it? All the big Western media belong to one group of people, behave coordinately and are connected with the states. Of course there is more possibilty to publish something in the West than in the Soviet Union, but that happens only because the Western rulers are able to make their people ignore other sources of information.

Originally Posted by Marcus

BBC, The New York Times etc are not much different from FoxNews. Russia Today is probably different, but who watches it? All the big Western media belong to one group of people, behave coordinately and are connected with the states. Of course there is more possibilty to publish something in the West than in the Soviet Union, but that happens only because the Western rulers are able to make their people ignore other sources of information.

I agree that although the BBC is good, it often takes the official position of the UK. The "politically correct" agenda when reporting UK internal news is very tiresome. For example, their reports on Russia are very predictable. Lack of democracy, Khodorkovsky and spies.... That's all you ever read about Russia.

I think Russia Today covers Europe very well indeed, but I am relatively certain that they are somewhat biased in their coverage of Russia. According to RT, everything in Russia is more or less pretty good, despite the fact that Russia has many well known problems. RT would be much more credible if they occassionally acknowledged those, and did a bit of investigation about it.

In terms of coverage of the USA, it would be nice if they occassionally did a positive piece -- not everything in the USA is bad and the US is not necessarily going straight to hell in a handbasket... It's almost entertaining to see how the British RT presenters look just the tiniest bit amused as they read the latest grim report from the US.

Likewise they clearly have an agenda to show that the EU and the Euro is a failure. I don't think they have ever said anything nice about the EU, or the Euro, and there are plenty of good sides to this.

They are VERY good at covering important and interesting stories in Europe that get neglected by mainstream media. They are not held back by the "politically correct" censorship on certain issues - this alone is worth watching RT for.

I turned on RT in the kitchen at work in the UK a few times. I heard several people commenting that the coverage on some important story was very good, saying stuff like "what channel is this, it's really good". RT has mainly British presenters and I think some people did not understand that it is Russian.

Media in Sweden is totally insane - 95% all media have the exact same opinion about everything (it's always been like this, but they have changed their position on lots of things for the worse over the last 15 years - I did not mind it so much when I agreed with most of what they were saying. Now I do not, so I can't actually be bothered to read it. They are politically correct to the extreme, and constantly chew the latest PC agenda. Anyone who dares express a different opinion is subjected to such a character assassination that his career is practically over. I really pity those Swedish people who can't speak any other language and are not able to get an alternative perspective. The sheer volume of media in the USA for example means you could easily get a lot more variation than in Sweden. Same thing in Russia, despite potential state interference in media.