This post will probably sink like a stone...

[thucythucy]

32. Gore Vidal dubbed the US

"the United States of Amnesia."

It doesn't help that our media--including what passes these days for journalism--is focused on click bait and sensationalism. This isn't new of course, "If it bleeds it leads" has long been a truism, especially in broadcast news. And yellow journalism is a long standing American tradition.

But in the past there were attempts to temper this. Broadcasters like Murrow and Shirer, for instance, were conscientious about trying to provide more depth to their reporting, which often landed them in trouble with their corporate masters, especially Shirer, who took no prisoners when it came to confronting Nazism. More recently, there's the example of Dan Rather and his becoming a virtual "unperson" at CBS, to the point that his reporting of the Kennedy assassination has been dumped down the memory hole at that once vaunted institution.

I see three factors at play here.

First, there is the corporate absorption of much if not all of the mass media, including newspapers. Whereas as late at the 1970s there were numerous daily newspapers and weekly news magazines owned independently--often by families with a history and stake and a pride in their reporting--we now have a few mega corporations that regard "news" as just another product, on a par with toilet paper and video games and soft drinks.

Second is the marked decline in literacy across the board, but especially among younger people. The most common complaint I received as a university instructor was that I assigned too much reading to my students. I'm talking maybe twenty to thirty pages a week. This was seen by a significant portion of my students as onerous verging on cruel. And these were university students, presumably among our society's most literate. I've had younger folks tell me, with some evident pride, how little they read. At least one of them--working in medicine--simply said, "I don't read books." And so the sad fact is that many folks today get their "news" from Facebook, Tik Tok, YouTube and other social media that are generally superficial, inaccurate, and very often downright lies. Add to this that this new technology makes it incredibly easy for a few malevolent actors--Elon Musk being a case in point--to manipulate the narrative to the extent that millions now are subject to the whims of the very few who have only their self-interest in mind.

Finally, and this is something I've been thinking about for a while now, the very nature of the new technology has had by and large a deleterious effect, especially in America. By that I mean the proliferation of smart phones has has an effect similar to that of radio in the 1930s. Radios were then relatively new, and went from being a more or less luxury item that very few owned to being a feature in almost every household. The technology itself then conferred a sort of legitimacy on those who used it--sometimes to good effect, such as FDR's "fireside chats," but far more often as a way of manipulating the public and spreading hate and disinformation. Hitler and Goebbels were masters at this, and their use of radio goes a long way to explaining their hold on the German public. Soon after coming to power the Nazis made radios available free to the public, which shows how important they considered this medium. There are numerous photos of families gathered around, staring intently at the one radio in their living room. The fact that this voice came to them via this "miracle" in technology, something so new and startling, conferred on it an added and by and large unquestioned legitimacy. This was often done at the very edges of consciousness, that is to say people were by and large unaware of the effect the nature of the technology had on molding their beliefs.

I think we're now seeing the same phenomenon with the rapid proliferation of smart phones. The technology itself--this hand held instrument pumping images and sound direct to the individual user--confers a credibility to what is seen and heard that other media conduits can't match. This is by and large unacknowledged, unconscious, but prevalent among users. Add to this how the technology is inherently alienating and anti-social, consumed not in groups--like the old newsreels for instance--by almost entirely individual by individual. Then too there is the inherently seductive nature of moving images linked with sound, and we now have a medium that is reshaping our political culture in ways difficult to measure and well-nigh--for the present anyway--impossible to counter.

Radio of course still plays a role, and as it's mostly owned by the right, its impact by and large is still deleterious. But it has now been superseded by hand held visual devices that hold a fascination with the technology itself not seen since the 1930s.

And as in the 1930s, it seems this fascination bodes little that is good in the coming decade.

I apologize for being so long winded.

Best wishes to you and yours,

Thucy.