Scott Walker offers a fresh new approach

[Bereta_Eder]

media have an "amazing" power. One can see that if he's at a public space, like a tavern or a coffee shop and the news is playing and like 50 heads turn and watch it.
media's role should be checking the power. view political life with a "prejudisted" critical eye. They should not act as pacifiers of anti-social applied politics.
the merging of political and media power is toxic and detrimental to society.
all links between political pwoer and media should be scrutinized thoroughly and impeded at every step.
also a truely free media seems to work well with the wellbeing of a society. an un-free media seems to do society a dire diservice.
power uses media to divert attention from its primary function of feeding the elites.
there can be a ton of reporting about pensions but zero about contracts between media tycoons in the glass tower that do business with the state.
all this will change

[Bereta_Eder]

for example, this is journalism

[C0ckney]

You're talking as if there's some heavily right wing media that is peddling a message outside the control of the people to change their beliefs about various issues. My point is that you're looking at the whole thing the wrong way around. Yes the media might lead people to belief something is much more serious than it actually is, but the only reason people buy that media is because its the kind of reinforcement of their existing beliefs that they want.

as i've demonstrated, people have ideas about certain groups and issues that are completely at odds with the facts about them. these are the same groups and issues that a section of the media is constantly hammering away at. this is not a coincidence.

and while people do like to have their existing biases confirmed, they react differently to different information. let's imagine that £24 out of every £100 spent on benefits were claimed fraudulently, it really would be a serious problem and one which reasonable people would want to be fixed. if reasonable people knew the truth, that it is 70p out of £100, they probably wouldn't think it a serious problem, because it isn't. but the impression the media gives leads people to think it's first and not the second, and this is true for the other examples i have given. and the way they do it is quite clever, they won't say "£24 out of every £100 spent on benefits is claimed fraudulently" because that's an easy claim to prove false, instead they'll 20 stories a month about someone being caught defrauding the benefits system, giving the impression that there's a lot of it going on and crucially, that something must be done.

Answer me this, what's the difference between someone buying a newspaper that tells them that benefit fraud is rampant (when it's really not) and someone casting a vote in an election for a politician who declares that benefit fraud is rampant and they are going to stamp it out? Should we blame the politicians for people electing them? Because if not why on earth would we blame the media for people choosing to consume their message?

without the first the second would not be possible. were it not for the toxic environment created around teenage mothers, immigrants, benefit claimants etc., there wouldn't be the same political capital to be made from attacking them. of course it's a mistake to the see politicians and the media as much different; they're all in it together, on the same team, playing that oldest of games: blaming those with the least political power for the political problems.

[kentonio]

and while people do like to have their existing biases confirmed, they react differently to different information. let's imagine that £24 out of every £100 spent on benefits were claimed fraudulently, it really would be a serious problem and one which reasonable people would want to be fixed. if reasonable people knew the truth, that it is 70p out of £100, they probably wouldn't think it a serious problem, because it isn't.

Why are you talking about 'reasonable people' all of a sudden? Are we randomly moving the goalposts of the discussion? Because for a huge number of people, they don't hate the people on welfare because of a belief that x amount is claimed fraudulently, they just use that figure as a factlet to support their existing contempt for people they see as leeches and workshy layabouts. Take away that peice of information and they'd just replace it with another inaccurate peice of bollocks.

without the first the second would not be possible. were it not for the toxic environment created around teenage mothers, immigrants, benefit claimants etc., there wouldn't be the same political capital to be made from attacking them.

Of course it'd be possible, the same as it's been possible in the past for leaders to rise up with public support without large media companies to support them. They just play on peoples fears, it doesn't matter where those fears come from.

of course it's a mistake to the see politicians and the media as much different; they're all in it together, on the same team, playing that oldest of games: blaming those with the least political power for the political problems.

Vast oversimplification, the media in the UK are not a right wing political organ and to suggest they are is as ridiculous as those conservatives in American bleating about the liberal mainstream media. Yes they're largely a bunch of opportunistic wankers, but they're equal opportunity wankers. They'll print anything the hell they think will sell papers, and they'll hang any politician, celebrity or member of the public out to dry to do so.

Except.. ok, I'll give you the Daily Mail.

[C0ckney]

Why are you talking about 'reasonable people' all of a sudden? Are we randomly moving the goalposts of the discussion? Because for a huge number of people, they don't hate the people on welfare because of a belief that x amount is claimed fraudulently, they just use that figure as a factlet to support their existing contempt for people they see as leeches and workshy layabouts. Take away that peice of information and they'd just replace it with another inaccurate peice of bollocks.

your point appears to be that hateful people consume media that confirms and reinforces their hateful views. well of course they do! but how did so many people get the idea that these people were "leeches and work-shy layabouts", could it possibly have anything to do with the all the negative press around the unemployed, and the disabled?

i am and have been talking about how the debate in general, and yes that includes reasonable people as well as hateful arseholes. it's absolutely clear that everyone is affected by this hostility; i very much doubt that yougov just took a poll of hateful arseholes. but perhaps an example closer to home might be more effective:

Would you for instance accept that an awful lot of people have at various times been receiving welfare payments that they didn't have any genuine need for?

and when confronted with the statistics:

The DWP couldn't find their ass with both hands. I come from an underprivileged area that was full of perfectly capable people who simply decided it was easier to sit on the dole than it was to work.

and when told that fewer than 5,000 people had been unemployed (or rather in receipt of unemployment benefits) for more than 5 years.

I prefer statistics to anecdotes too, but due to the nature of the problem there aren't any accurate statistics. Re those 5000 people you talk about btw, how recent are those figures?

this isn't an attack. we all do this, that is, we base our views about wider contexts than our own immediate environment on generalisations of our experiences, on what we hear, on what we read in the papers and online. few of us will read academic studies, or look at statistics, except for things we really care about, due a lack of time and inclination; we'll do the only possible thing, which is to take shortcuts to acquire some kind of understanding. the problem is that this leaves us open to manipulation, to being given the impression that things are different from reality, and this can be, and is, used for political ends; to shape our 'own' opinions and view of the world.

Of course it'd be possible, the same as it's been possible in the past for leaders to rise up with public support without large media companies to support them. They just play on peoples fears, it doesn't matter where those fears come from.

oh i think it does matter, and i've shown why in this thread.

Vast oversimplification, the media in the UK are not a right wing political organ and to suggest they are is as ridiculous as those conservatives in American bleating about the liberal mainstream media. Yes they're largely a bunch of opportunistic wankers, but they're equal opportunity wankers. They'll print anything the hell they think will sell papers, and they'll hang any politician, celebrity or member of the public out to dry to do so.

Except.. ok, I'll give you the Daily Mail.

well i've said that: a) the UK media is right wing, which by any measure, it is, and that; b) it creates a toxic environment around certain groups, which; c) leads people to believe certain untrue things about these groups, which in turn; d) leads them to have different views than they otherwise would have about said groups.

[kentonio]

your point appears to be that hateful people consume media that confirms and reinforces their hateful views. well of course they do! but how did so many people get the idea that these people were "leeches and work-shy layabouts", could it possibly have anything to do with the all the negative press around the unemployed, and the disabled?

No, people have plenty of preconceived and ultimately very stupid ideas about groups of people they don't understand. They don't need the media's help. It's basically no more complicated than 'I work and then I have to give money to these people who don't work'.

this isn't an attack. we all do this, that is, we base our views about wider contexts than our own immediate environment on generalisations of our experiences, on what we hear, on what we read in the papers and online. few of us will read academic studies, or look at statistics, except for things we really care about, due a lack of time and inclination; we'll do the only possible thing, which is to take shortcuts to acquire some kind of understanding. the problem is that this leaves us open to manipulation, to being given the impression that things are different from reality, and this can be, and is, used for political ends; to shape our 'own' opinions and view of the world.

I'm not anti-welfare, but I've also had many friends who have abused the system and I've (thankfully briefly) had to use the system myself in the past. It's (probably by necessity) a broad brush system with rules enforced by fairly low paid people who generally don't particularly care as long as people aren't creating issues for them. It's incredibly easy to cheat, and when the government decide that having people registered as unemployed for too long makes them look bad they invent a new training for work scheme that ensures that after x amount of time people go for some scheme that may last a month or a few months and while they're on it they are not unemployed they are 'in work or training for work'.

The amount that benefits pay out these days is a lot less than it once was so you see a lot less people living on benefits. I find that morally difficult because people who need help shouldn't have to struggle, but either you pay out a low amount or you have strict enforcement measures. If you don't have either of those things, you DO have people just living long term on benefits.

oh i think it does matter, and i've shown why in this thread.

And you're still wrong.

well i've said that: a) the UK media is right wing, which by any measure, it is, and that; b) it creates a toxic environment around certain groups, which; c) leads people to believe certain untrue things about these groups, which in turn; d) leads them to have different views than they otherwise would have about said groups.

Breaking it into letters doesn't make your already quite clear point any more persuasive.

a) The UK media are representative of the UK people. If you're insistent that the media is right wing then you're saying the people are too.
b,c,d) The UK people (like any other people) don't need a newspaper to make them fear or hate people they don't understand. Humans have been managing to do this just fine for thousands of years.

[C0ckney]

what a load of nonsense. i've provided evidence that people have views wildly at odds with reality and that the groups they hold those views about are the same ones that are constantly attacked by the media. you want to make out that this is all some coincidence and provide some ridiculous blandishments about people having certain views (perhaps you believe they are born with them) and so that's that, without anything even approaching evidence to back it up; you pretend the media has no effect, which is just absurd.

[C0ckney]

and (i'm going to use this double post) your second section, while not addressing the point i made, is at least a good example of what i was talking about. we love to use generalisations of our personal experiences and even stick with them in the face of overwhelming evidence. to put it another way, we love to stick with our beliefs, whether we got them from personal experience, or from the papers, or from the man in the pub etc.

[Dinner]

Walker's trip to London basically had everyone laughing at him for being a ****** and refusing to say if he believed in basic science or not. It was a room full of British conservatives and even they laughed their asses off at how stupid Walker is.

[kentonio]

and (i'm going to use this double post) your second section, while not addressing the point i made, is at least a good example of what i was talking about. we love to use generalisations of our personal experiences and even stick with them in the face of overwhelming evidence. to put it another way, we love to stick with our beliefs, whether we got them from personal experience, or from the papers, or from the man in the pub etc.

When you've seen people game the system, and you've engaged with a system and seen that it is indeed very easily fooled, that is definitely going to influence your opinion. You're pulling out statistics as if they paint a complete picture, when first hand experience shows this to be untrue. How is this any different to you having an opinion about how NGO's work in real life compared to how a set of figures about money being wasted appear to show? Should we completely ignore our own experiences in favour of 'hard' data?

[C0ckney]

ken, i love it, "my personal experience invalidates the statistics!" and if i recall correctly you didn't present any evidence or figures about how much money is wasted by NGOs.

personal experiences are one thing, but they are, by their very nature, extremely limited. we know very few people; our sample size is tiny and geographically limited. it's likely to be socially limited as well, as people prefer to mix with those with whom they have things in common. statistics on the other hand use more or less scientific methodologies that aim to overcome these kinds of the limitations. they're more simply reliable for anything larger than the smallest community.

we might also consider just how accurate, or truthful, our personal experiences are. how many people do you know well enough to have enough of an idea of their circumstances to say whether their fit to work, or the cause of their unemployment etc.. family, perhaps, a few close friends, maybe, but beyond that, it's doubtful; in any case the number is likely to be very small. a good question to ask i think is how many people know enough about your personal circumstances to make those judgements about you. for some reason people seem to think they know more about others than others know about them.

[kentonio]

ken, i love it, "my personal experience invalidates the statistics!" and if i recall correctly you didn't present any evidence or figures about how much money is wasted by NGOs.

personal experiences are one thing, but they are, by their very nature, extremely limited. we know very few people; our sample size is tiny and geographically limited. it's likely to be socially limited as well, as people prefer to mix with those with whom they have things in common. statistics on the other hand use more or less scientific methodologies that aim to overcome these kinds of the limitations. they're more simply reliable for anything larger than the smallest community.

Ok, you're bordering on just being dickish now, but I'll keep going a little longer. There is a huge difference between 'My anecdote about x trumps your carefully researched statistics!' and 'I have first hand experience that the system on which your statistics are based is extremely easy to fool. Oh and there is a strong incentive on the part of those involved to fool it in some cases. Oh and I know numerous people who have actually fooled the system'.

we might also consider just how accurate, or truthful, our personal experiences are. how many people do you know well enough to have enough of an idea of their circumstances to say whether their fit to work, or the cause of their unemployment etc.. family, perhaps, a few close friends, maybe, but beyond that, it's doubtful; in any case the number is likely to be very small. a good question to ask i think is how many people know enough about your personal circumstances to make those judgements about you. for some reason people seem to think they know more about others than others know about them.

You know how the jobseeker system tracks how people are looking for work? Each week the applicant writes down what they have done looking for work. 'I spent x hours looking at job websites. I sent inquiry letters to x companies' etc. These is absolutely zero checking process on this, because how can there be really? All it takes is for someone to take an hour or two to prepare a convincing activity schedule each week, and they are basically fine. The people working in the job centres spend so much time dealing with complete ****wits, that when they get someone who has actually filled out an impressive sounding list that is basically a happy day for them and they have absolutely no interest in digging deeper generally.

As for people's 'circumstances', there are plenty of decent hardworking people struggling to find jobs, but there are also a massive amount of complete ****ing idiots who couldn't find their asses with both hands. People who repeatedly manage to miss their one Jobseeker appointment each week for a variety of incredibly stupid reasons, people who write CV's that look like a retarded monkey basically spewed on a piece of paper, and people who are rude and obnoxious and completely self entitled towards prospective employers and then whine about how they can't find a job because of the 'foreigners'.

****, you just reminded me how much I hate people.

[Hauldren Collider]

That sounds exactly like unemployment here in the US. Lots of people legitimately out of work, many others legitimately bums who are just lazy and need to get off their asses.

[rah]

But at least for unemployment, the benefits eventually ends so they can only scam it for so long. Then they have to get off their asses.

[Hauldren Collider]

Except that they kept extending the benefits for years throughout the recession.