gazzer:
I was a few quid short on my weekly EU budget contributions…£350K as opposed to £350mil!
Everyone was presented, on TV, on which ever channel they chose to watch to be influenced. Nobody is stuck with 1 channel to watch. If you don’t like what SKY were promoting you turned over to watch GMB, etc etc. You keep turning over (reading your daily paper) until you find what you do like because it agrees with your ideas.
It works exactly the same prior to a General Election. The nature of democracy where everyone is entitled to a view and have it supported, even Tommy Robinson or even The Monster Raving Loony Party. LOL, if they still existed they could be in with a chance if this Brexit goes ■■■■ up and the C’s are disgraced!
A few decades ago the medical world changes a bit: it used to be the consultant surgeon and his team would visit your bed, and say “sign here, it’s a consent form for your operation”. Now we talk about ‘informed consent’. The good and bad points of a procedure should be explained to us in as neutral a way as possible*.
Surely a better way? Nothing to stop you asking the Dr “what would you do?”, of course if you want to.
“We choose who we are influenced by”?
So do we do that knowingly?
We watch the footie on the box, then the news comes on. Maybe it’s not a neutral news caster. Maybe it’s someone saying “the Brexit talks should be easy” thus repeating from the news desk, as fact, what is only one side of the argument. Doesn’t continual drip feed of stuff like that influence us ? And is that really through choice? I know we’re free to turn off, but we don’t.
“We choose to read what we already agree with”?
The ‘Echo Chamber’ effect then.
We have a tendency to one point of view, so read papers etc that reflect that, our leaning is then normalised and we move further in that direction.
On other media we read an article saying X so we are fed more links to X and ■■, later ■■■. Many are moved either further towards extreme X as others are moved towards extreme Y.
We take part in forums, but can easily block those whose views we disagree with.
(Some jokes in there…)
Maybe you’re correct in what is happening, except maybe you are under estimating the insidious nature of the way we are UNKNOWINGLY influenced, rather than it being a conscience choice?
“We’re entitled to a view, which we should find supported”?
Surely our choices should be based on facts, not reinforcement of our prejudices?
Our votes should be made on accurate information, not on a party agreeing with our opinion that “two plus two makes five”!
Another thought about buying cars.
A salesman convinces you that his Rolls Can’Ardly is a gem. You are Clarkson praising it on a video. You pay a deposit on it.
Before it’s delivered you realise the video was a paid for advert. You read about the mpg figures for the R-C that the salesman omitted.
You realise that maybe your existing Mondeo** is actually a better vehicle to go shopping and commuting with?
And then you look at insurance. An R-C will cost shed loads, although the salesman told you barefaced lies about that.
I reckon you may wanna change your mind about buying the Roller?
*‘neutral’ and ‘unbiased’ are difficult to achieve of course!
**no one is on my ‘ignore’ list.
Edit for many typos
