Thought Control

[Merlin]

I feel like I am being told what to think, and when. I am a fiercely independent person, I hate being told what to do by anyone. Recently, I've noticed that we're being spoon-fed emotions through the media - today's Daily Mirror, for example, carries a picture of a tired policeman behind the headline "No Let Up" (in the hunt for two missing schoolgirls). While I do hope they're found alive, I resent being effectively told that I should feel a certain way, maybe say certain things. In this case, it must be awful for the families anyway, without media camping outside their homes picking up every scrap of information and broadcasting it to the public, in a way that suggests how the paper's editor thinks they should feel.

The papers over here carry ridiculous bias. If the editor takes a dim view of someone, they get lynched by the tabloids and subsequently the public. Take David Beckham; he made an irrational mistake in the World Cup of 1998. The Mirror absolutely ripped into him the next day; subsequently, effigies of the player were seen hanging from buildings, yet all he had done was to get himself sent off - it's not like he tried to rape someone.

It's as if the media controls what we think of people.

I would really like to see newspapers that solely reported news, without a political inclination or an editor's point of view. Just news. No celebrity showbiz columns, no opinion columns (although the Guardian has some interesting ones) and no crap stories about people who've lived in the same house forever. Even the broadsheets are biased, especially in their sports coverage.

I've had enough. It's white-dot time for the TV, and the paper is off to be recycled into toilet tissue and put to good use.

[rm']

An individual who does not interact with society is not a member of that society. A simple sociological rule.

I'd also like to point out how dependant your thoughts are on others. Independance of thought is a relatively new idea. Your assumption that your thoughts are your own is likely highly influenced by the current trend in thinking (Dennis Hopper's archetypal protrayal of the independant rebel, for example, in the movie Easy Rider. Truth is, this "fiercely independant" rebel is the result of commitee-thinking), and acceptable behaviour. If you were born 500 years ago, would you be the same person you are today? Would you still think that you are an "independant person"?

[Merlin]

I don't consider reading the paper to be interaction. It's one-way traffic.

As for independence, I meant that I hate being controlled by others; I wasn't referring to my own role in society. 500 years ago, it is unlikely that I would have had the education I've had in the present, so I would likely have been a totally different person.

[rm']

Interaction does not need to be bilateral. The radio is a good example of this. Although a schoolchild in Cambodia has no way to converse back with a Voice of America radio operator, he can still be absorbed into American culture by listening to their broadcasts. If you learn nothing from society, if you don't take any of society's values to heart... if you essentially reject the common wisdom of your peers, you are an outsider. You are not a member of that society.

All I'm saying is that it's not possible to be wholly independent, and be a member of society at the same time. You must fit into the mold, somehow. Loosely, or tightly, it doesn't really matter.

btw, your role in society is a measure of the control others have over you.

[Merlin]

I don't want to be wholly independent; just want the press to print news, from which I can make my own opinions. Obviously I don't want to be an 'outsider' on those terms, just someone who is not influenced by media bias.

[Sandman2012]

Get a room, guys.

All media has bias, some greater and some lesser, but I think it is impossible to simply "report the news." A useful talent in our society to have is a "bias filter." If you can mentally separate the information from the slant, you are doing ok, but remember that the choice of stories shown by the media, as well as which you choose to read, are a form of bias as well.

Also realize that all your own experiences and perceptions provide a filter through which information travels. Even if a story provided facts and only facts, by the time those facts have reached your mind your own cognitive processes have worked their biases into it.

A good practice to get into is to get your news from a variety of sources, some liberal, some conservative, some extreme, etc. This helps to train your mind to see the different slants put on the same story. Also it gives you a number of views from which to choose, perhaps providing you with one you wouldn't have thought of on your own, given your own biases. Try it. The worst that could happen is that your perception of the world expands.