NZGames.com Forums
Register FAQ Calendar Mark Forums Read

Go Back   NZGames.com Forums > General > Open Discussion
User Name
Password

Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 1st November 2018, 20:35     #161
Lightspeed
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by [Malks] Pixie
The Nazis are literally credited with the first ever mass media spectacle (the Berlin Olympics) - they "got their groove on" as you so eloquently put it, by utilising new communications media of the time (TV). They spread their propaganda and leveraged a lack of media literacy in the new formats. They solidified this with more traditional formats of radio (which had wider reach but less impact) and print to capture a wider section of the population. Media, particularly new media (for the time), we absolutely critical in their ability to build support.

Is any of this sounding at all similar to some of the situations we are seeing now?
It sounds like it was the Nazis working the media, rather than the media spontaneously producing Nazis...

And then McDonalds got in on their game and here we are.
__________________
Stay shook. No sook.

Last edited by Lightspeed : 1st November 2018 at 20:36.
  Reply With Quote
Old 1st November 2018, 21:01     #162
[Malks] Pixie
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lightspeed
It sounds like it was the Nazis working the media, rather than the media spontaneously producing Nazis...

And then McDonalds got in on their game and here we are.
You say this like "the media" were some independent entity. TV was still a new medium and there was uncertainty as to how it was going to work (and bear in mind Germany was at the forefront of rolling it out as a consumer technology). There's always a relationship between civil society (the audience), capital (the corporations) and the state (government) - they're always all intertwined to a certain extent. [See work by Johan Galtung and later expanded by Denis McQuail]

The corporations wanted to shift as many units as possible to make profit (because there wasn't a separation between the production of technical equipment and production of content), the Nazis wanted it to be a communal experience (like radio). This is why most Germans experienced television though television parlours (Fernsehstuben).

My point is that saying "the Nazis didn't need social media" is wrong, they literally wouldn't have been able to spread their ideas without new media. The properties of a medium, who controls it and makes decisions about how it works, who has access to it and who profits from it all matter. Is it going to be a panacea to all our current ills? Of course not, but saying it's not a problem and it doesn't need fixing is literally a head in the sand type response.
__________________
Civilised is as civilised does and civilised people walk among us.
  Reply With Quote
Old 1st November 2018, 21:20     #163
Lightspeed
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by [Malks] Pixie
You say this like "the media" were some independent entity.
I'm saying "the media" in the context of a thread titled "fuck social media". Would the 30s German equivalent of this thread be "fuck broadcast media"? Because citizens of Germany were helpless to its effects, with fascism as an inevitable outcome? The in the absence of the Treaty of Versailles broadcast media would have still brought about fascism?

Quote:
saying it's not a problem and it doesn't need fixing is literally a head in the sand type response.
I'm suggesting what we're seeing is a consequence of media being one more tool used to concentrate resources into the hands of the few, as a priority over bettering the lives of those consuming it. That in the case that inequality wasn't so stark, that life wasn't so deadly grim for so many, we wouldn't see the degree of problems we are.

As opposed to the current design of social media naturally leading to the problems we're seeing in any kind of socio-economic conditions.
__________________
Stay shook. No sook.
  Reply With Quote
Old 1st November 2018, 21:49     #164
[Malks] Pixie
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lightspeed
Would the 30s German equivalent of this thread be "fuck broadcast media"? Because citizens of Germany were helpless to its effects, with fascism as an inevitable outcome?
Yeah it probably would have been because visual broadcast media was the new media of that age. Media effects research actually stemmed directly from the use of media by the Nazis - a whole lot of people saw the power that they exerted with it and realised this was something they needed to understand. The first conception of how media effects worked was literally that people took on it's messages uncritically (called The Hypodermic Needle model or Magic Bullet)!

This was the reason I mentioned how Germans experienced TV - because the communal experience of media was very different to an individual experience (because you're not only reacting to the media but also to the reactions of the other people consuming it). Strangely enough the Nazis themselves helped push forward the understanding of media effects in this are - The Spiral of Silence theory by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann covers how some of this works (and it's still a model used in some fields of analysis these days).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lightspeed
I'm suggesting what we're seeing is a consequence of media being one more tool used to concentrate resources into the hands of the few, as a priority over bettering the lives of those consuming it.
See now you're talking about market models of media vs public sphere (Jürgen Habermas) - which is a good conversation to have. Look, you're not wrong that accessible platforms have provided a view of the world which people otherwise not have access to (as Marshall McLuhan had hoped TV would do with his idea of the "global village"). I used to have students complain about "complaints culture" being new, to which I'd suggest that perhaps it was just more visible due to new media forms (with the added realisation by people that it was actually okay to complain about shit they thought was wrong).

Having said that economic structures which underlie social media, and never ending push to turn content into a commodity does lead to certain sorts of discourses being promoted because they are profitable. What I'd be really interested to see would be a publicly owned and funded social media platform that was ring-fenced from both political and economic influence.
__________________
Civilised is as civilised does and civilised people walk among us.
  Reply With Quote
Old 1st November 2018, 21:49     #165
Lightspeed
 
(Posted before seeing the post you just wrote.)

Another way to put it is if this thread was titled "fuck meth" with clear examples of problems where meth was a clear component, I would be pointing to the clear trend that the volume of people hooked on meth had lives destined to be shit before they were even born.

That wouldn't make meth any less problematic, it wouldn't make people's anger at meth any less justified. But would the more effective response be to fight destructive drugs? Or improve people's lives?

We can of course do both. But we don't and we aren't.
__________________
Stay shook. No sook.
  Reply With Quote
Old 1st November 2018, 22:18     #166
Lightspeed
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by [Malks] Pixie
...
Interesting points, I appreciate you sharing your insight. I certainly don't have anything better.

Quote:
What I'd be really interested to see would be a publicly owned and funded social media platform that was ring-fenced from both political and economic influence.
That would be great, wouldn't it?
__________________
Stay shook. No sook.
  Reply With Quote
Old 2nd November 2018, 00:51     #167
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
They were also masters of "fake news".

I hear people saying that the Jews burned the Reichstag.

Please share this document we've found called The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion which looks totally 100% real, Protocol number 3 will shock you
  Reply With Quote
Old 2nd November 2018, 00:58     #168
DrTiTus
HENCE WHY FOREVER ALONE
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by [Malks] Pixie
What I'd be really interested to see would be a publicly owned and funded social media platform that was ring-fenced from both political and economic influence.
I think this is called the World Wide Web, and allows any member of the public to put in a slight bit of effort to control and publish their own content.

However, convenience is king, and likes/views are more important than having a free platform, so we have forgone our freedom to be subjects to our content masters, hoping that we trend, and praying we don't get shadow banned.

The technology and tools exist - the problem is people are lazy/scared of learning, so they act like there is no alternative to having your own piece of the internet that no one else can fuck with.
__________________
Finger rolling rhythm, ride the horse one hand...
  Reply With Quote
Old 2nd November 2018, 09:19     #169
[Malks] Pixie
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ab
They were also masters of "fake news".
Yep - the phrase comes from German though I forget the actual etymology.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DrTiTus
However, convenience is king, and likes/views are more important than having a free platform, so we have forgone our freedom to be subjects to our content masters, hoping that we trend, and praying we don't get shadow banned.
Abso-fucking-lutely. Convenience is what social media platforms are "selling" to users (though of course they're "selling" users to advertisers which is a given).

But this is also why I've stopped talking about social media as a communications medium because (to me) communication has become secondary to the affect produced (and by affect I mean the emotional and pre-emotional response that content/communication can engender). Affect is also far easier to turn into a commodity than communication because the message becomes the saleable product instead of the medium - and messages are easy and cheap to produce.
__________________
Civilised is as civilised does and civilised people walk among us.
  Reply With Quote
Old 2nd November 2018, 12:30     #170
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by [Malks] Pixie
Yep - the phrase comes from German though I forget the actual etymology.
Are you referring to the "lugenpresse" phenomenon?
  Reply With Quote
Old 2nd November 2018, 13:22     #171
[Malks] Pixie
 
I believe so.
__________________
Civilised is as civilised does and civilised people walk among us.
  Reply With Quote
Old 2nd November 2018, 13:33     #172
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
Goes a loooooong way back, 19th century I think. It wasn't a new term when the German govt was using it to criticise "unpatriotic" media coverage during the First World War..

Anyway.

IMHO the biggest difference between then and now is when the Nazis used media to whip up hatred and mainstreamify previously-extreme views it took a lot of work by a lot of very talented and hardworking Nazi propagandists. Goebbels wrote the book on community manipulation through media and he had a whole Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda working at it.

Now? All automated. AI drives this shit now and it's far more efficient and effective than anything Goebbels and co did, because they were just meat. We've got algorithms now. Facebook will whip up hatred and hysteria and spread fictions that look like news and radicalise populations because the algorithm has proven that that's the best way to increase pageviews and thus maximise shareholder value. Everything that Goebbels and his entire Ministry worked at for for over a decade is now available instantly with the click of a mouse for a price so low it's essentially free.

Hell, at least Goebbels and the Nazis had principles and were trying to achieve a sociopolitical goal. Facebook has perfected and automated world-wide hate-generation as nothing other than a revenue stream.
  Reply With Quote
Old 2nd November 2018, 13:58     #173
[Malks] Pixie
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ab
Goes a loooooong way back, 19th century I think. It wasn't a new term when the German govt was using it to criticise "unpatriotic" media coverage during the First World War..
Yeah the phrase was around way before the Nazis - much like many of their moves they adopted and re-purposed it for their own ends (which is another trend that we've seen a recent upswing in with phrases like cultural marxism).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ab
IMHO the biggest difference between then and now is when the Nazis used media to whip up hatred and mainstreamify previously-extreme views it took a lot of work by a lot of very talented and hardworking Nazi propagandists. community manipulation through media and he had a whole Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda working at it.
Yep and they basically built a language of moving visual media basically from scratch (stuff like framing, transitions, closeups etc) and we're still using these principles in modern production (though obviously way more eloquently). They took the power of media very seriously (much to the worlds detriment).

To all the other stuff you've stated I totally agree - my original point to LS wasn't that things are the same, but that media (whether were talking about news, entertainment or any other type) has always been absolutely critical in the mobilisation of populations and that often (not always). Social media is less than 20 years old which is really young in terms of a medium. It mutated fast and both the hard (system based) rules and the social rules have moved just as fast which makes it very hard for people to build literacy skills and critically assess the information they're getting.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ab
Hell, at least Goebbels and the Nazis had principles and were trying to achieve a sociopolitical goal. Facebook has perfected and automated hate-generation as nothing other than a revenue generator.
I believe Facebook, Twitter et al do have a sociopolitical goal (even if they don't know it) - and that's to turn everything into an economic transaction, to make the inalienable alienable and be the sole measure of an individuals worth.

[edited for speeeeling and grummer]
__________________
Civilised is as civilised does and civilised people walk among us.

Last edited by [Malks] Pixie : 2nd November 2018 at 14:00.
  Reply With Quote
Old 2nd November 2018, 14:42     #174
pxpx
 
Remember when NZG had post ratings?

Liked and Subscribed.
  Reply With Quote
Old 2nd November 2018, 20:50     #175
Redneck
 
  Reply With Quote
Old 6th November 2018, 18:45     #176
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
Quote:
Facebook has said a human rights report it commissioned on its presence in Myanmar showed it had not done enough to prevent its social network from being used to incite violence.

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...ate-in-myanmar
or, put another way, Facebook admits its own report shows that it has productised ethnic cleansing
  Reply With Quote
Old 11th November 2018, 12:18     #177
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
https://thebaffler.com/latest/twilig...uncles-burmila

Won’t someone think of the boomers?
  Reply With Quote
Old 11th November 2018, 19:40     #178
Lightspeed
 
I was wondering about why so many of that generation seem so needlessly angry. I thought maybe being the kids of two generations of war. But I wonder if it's not just leaded fuel during crucial developmental years?
__________________
Stay shook. No sook.
  Reply With Quote
Old 12th November 2018, 12:31     #179
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lightspeed
But I wonder if it's not just leaded fuel during crucial developmental years?
I'm not a neuroscientist or behaviourist, but hey crazier things have happened.
  Reply With Quote
Old 13th November 2018, 23:02     #180
Lightspeed
 
Zuckerburg says "yeah, nah" to appearing before international committee

You know, the real problem here has been around since long before social media. The real problem is marketing and advertising.

Facebook wouldn't be able to monetise shit, if paid advertising wasn't a thing. Paid advertising is the real bane on our society.
__________________
Stay shook. No sook.
  Reply With Quote
Old 14th November 2018, 00:45     #181
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lightspeed
You know, the real problem here has been around since long before social media.
Agree
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lightspeed
The real problem is marketing and advertising.
Disagree

I was listening to an interesting episode of the History Hit podcast the other night, really interesting tidbit: the witchcraft mania of the late middle ages was possibly driven by the invention of the printing press. All of a sudden it was possible to disseminate inflammatory fake news about people you didn't like. Rumour here, denouncement there, next thing you know... burn the witch.

Marketing and advertising have been around for tens of thousands of years, big deal. Machine-learning-driven attention-grabbing is the problem. We have given the keys to an addiction machine to an AI, and the AI has worked out that what people get most addicted to is outrage. So now the AI is working out what form of outrage is the most addictive for each individual person.
  Reply With Quote
Old 14th November 2018, 02:32     #182
Lightspeed
 
There's marketing then there's marketing. I think it started with the intentional, systematic use of psyche hacks, specifically with the work of Edward Bernays, to convince people to behave in certain ways en masse, for money. The money part is essential because only certain people have access to enough money for such marketing to be effective which in turn allows those people to gather more money. Generating a feedback loop. That was the steam engine that started the industrial age of marketing.

If there wasn't anyone paying for clicks, advertising or outrage, no one would be generating them. The political ideology angle has piggybacked off the get-people-to-buy-our-product angle. Gathering influence, which in turn leads to power, which in turn leads to BIG money. An even more vicious feedback loop.

It seems insane to me that websites ask me to enable ads so they can generate revenue to run their service. I'm literally being asked to subject myself to propaganda as if that is sane.

AI is coming into the fore because the low hanging fruit has been plucked, those who want to be on top need more effective tools.

There are of course many co-dependant facets. But I put the psyche hack industry at the top.
__________________
Stay shook. No sook.
  Reply With Quote
Old 22nd November 2018, 17:59     #183
Lightspeed
 
Facebook isn't all bad. It facilitates trade, marriage, even both at the same time!

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-...sudan/10518232
__________________
Stay shook. No sook.

Last edited by Lightspeed : 22nd November 2018 at 18:01.
  Reply With Quote
Old 22nd November 2018, 19:09     #184
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
Quote:
Facebook admitted on Wednesday that a top executive hired a public relations firm to attack George Soros and undermine critics by publicizing their association with the billionaire Jewish philanthropist.

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...erg-zuckerberg
  Reply With Quote
Old 22nd November 2018, 19:22     #185
Nich
 
France is ditching Google because spying on people is not cool.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/goog...silicon-valley
  Reply With Quote
Old 25th November 2018, 00:06     #186
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
After Initially Calling The New York Times' Report False, Facebook Confirms Most Claims Made in the Story
  Reply With Quote
Old 25th November 2018, 04:43     #187
CCS
Stunt Pants
 
Quote:
he was responsible for hiring the group, and had done so to help protect the company’s image and conduct research about high-profile individuals who spoke critically about the social media platform.

That sounds like some Nixon-esque shit, keeping a shitlist of enemies with dirt on them.
__________________
I just want to understand this, sir. Every time a rug is micturated upon in this fair city, I have to compensate the owner?
  Reply With Quote
Old 25th November 2018, 16:31     #188
Lightspeed
 
British parliament seizes cache of Facebook internal papers

Quote:
Damian Collins, the chair of the culture, media and sport select committee, invoked a rare parliamentary mechanism to compel the founder of a US software company, Six4Three, to hand over the documents during a business trip to London. In another exceptional move, parliament sent a serjeant at arms to his hotel with a final warning and a two-hour deadline to comply with its order. When the software firm founder failed to do so, it’s understood he was escorted to parliament. He was told he risked fines and even imprisonment if he didn’t hand over the documents.
__________________
Stay shook. No sook.
  Reply With Quote
Old 26th November 2018, 10:16     #189
crocos
 
This is turning into the Fuck Facebook thread. Some areas on Twitter are pretty much as bad a cesspool as anything on FB.
__________________
Ξ √ Ω L U T ↑ ☼ N

وكل يوم كنت تعيش في العبودية
  Reply With Quote
Old 26th November 2018, 15:08     #190
Lightspeed
 
Yeah, that. But then you see a cute tweet Obama sent about Biden last year, and you think to yourself "how bad could it really be?"
__________________
Stay shook. No sook.
  Reply With Quote
Old 5th December 2018, 06:58     #191
pxpx
 
I do kind of enjoy when FB does the "you posted this photo 9 years ago" thing.
  Reply With Quote
Old 5th December 2018, 10:59     #192
Cyberbob
 
Quick reminder that Facebook has entire data centers dedicated to the permanent and immutable preservation of every piece of data ever put onto FB, burnt onto optical media with a shelf life of 50-100 years.
__________________
ɹǝʌo sᴉ ǝɯɐƃ ʎɥʇ
  Reply With Quote
Old 6th December 2018, 12:05     #193
Nich
 
Sam Vaknin: the TRUE toxicity of social media revealed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmXcjvL9VSc

This is an excellent analysis of social media.
  Reply With Quote
Old 11th December 2018, 13:52     #194
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/09-12...destroying-us/
  Reply With Quote
Old 11th December 2018, 14:48     #195
[Malks] Pixie
 
The 2000s called and it wants its orthodox theories back.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing particularly wrong in that "hot-take", but there's nothing that hasn't been said a thousand times already in the last two decades either.
__________________
Civilised is as civilised does and civilised people walk among us.
  Reply With Quote
Old 11th December 2018, 15:03     #196
ZoSo
 
Did Danyl ever review their own tv show? I'd love to read that.
  Reply With Quote
Old 11th December 2018, 16:29     #197
Nich
 
Will my tweets get me fired?
https://willmytweetsgetmefired.com/

I've just got an idea for a website. I'll just reskin this website and call it "Help me find dirt on my employee so I can fire them" .. ok so the name needs to be a bit more snappy, but I think it'll be a hit!
  Reply With Quote
Old 11th December 2018, 17:42     #198
CCS
Stunt Pants
 
...and they charge you $2.99 to vet your tweets. Pfft. You could do that for free by having some SJWs look at your tweet and see how enraged they get.
__________________
I just want to understand this, sir. Every time a rug is micturated upon in this fair city, I have to compensate the owner?
  Reply With Quote
Old 11th December 2018, 19:30     #199
Ab
A mariachi ogre snorkel
 
been there, done that, gave up and quit twitter

  Reply With Quote
Old 11th December 2018, 21:45     #200
MadMax
Stuff
 
bahah i use the same avatar almost everywhere https://steamcommunity.com/id/madengineer/
__________________
My degree of sarcasm depends on your degree of stupidity.
  Reply With Quote
Reply


Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump



© Copyright NZGames.com 1996-2023
Site paid for by members (love you guys)