PROTEST THE MEDIA

It's not up to you to determine how your "protests" (aka, drum beating, dancing, cooking classes) are covered by the media.

What you see is what you are.

And making the media the target only makes even more of a mockery of you.

What the media covers is up to its ultrawealthy owners who want it to stay that way, Sam B. The ones who control what you might want to generously regard as YOUR thought processes. We know that you are sadly duped and feel sorry for you.

Plus, you are boring.

What the media covers is up to its ultrawealthy owners who want it to stay that way, Sam B. The ones who control what you might want to generously regard as YOUR thought processes. We know that you are sadly duped and feel sorry for you.

Plus, you are boring.

What the media covers is up to its ultrawealthy owners who want it to stay that way, Sam B. The ones who control what you might want to generously regard as YOUR thought processes. We know that you are sadly duped and feel sorry for you.

Plus, you are boring.

Your whining is really transparent; your assertion as "victim" of the "ruling class" is hardly compelling OR demonstrable.

It is really pathetic to see human beings act like you.

Actually, Sam B, Justicescholar wasn't whining and said that YOU were duped by the media. YOU'RE the victim. Must be true, too, or else wouldn't you be able to understand what you read?

It's quite apparent that you don't understand what either one of us wrote.

But that's just par for the course since thinking is not your style.

You're all being duped by your own ignorance and prejudice. The only way for you to wake up to that fact is to get an education.

I don't hang out at indymedia much, and this name-calling reminds me why that is.

My opinion:
Of course the media shapes public discourse, and of course they bring their own assumptions and prejudices to any story they cover. I believe that the slant and content of media stories is in fact a product of individual journalists' buy-in to the "mainstream" worldview, rather than being a result of heavy-handed executive censorship. It's true that this "mainstream" perspective consistently favors the rich and their closest subordinates, but folks self-select when they go to work for these media empires. If they have major differences in worldview, journalists tend not to seek jobs at "mainstream" media outlets. If we want to change mainstream media coverage, we'll have to spend time persuading the journalists themselves to see things differently. The executives may then pull their wigs off and crack down, but winning over the people on the ground has to be the first step. Only after the journalists feel censored will protesting the media have any significant effect. Until then, it will seem like whining.

Sam B.'s first comment should be taken as a valuable outsider's perspective for those aiming to use the media as a tool for social change. Drum beating, dancing, etc. IS what most people will notice first about the "protests". If we want that to change, we'll have to invent new forms that are better at conveying "substance" from a distance. Signs are the obvious, classic solution, but they are not enough. Any ideas?

> Signs are the obvious, classic solution, but they are not enough. Any ideas?

Stark spectacles.

Conceptualize the issue into a street theatre "sound bite" that takes center stage.

A gallows comes to mind, e.g., the death of conscious mainstream journalism.