Information in Short Bursts-
Democracy Is Threatened, Is It Really Though? The Answer Is, Yes... Maybe, Nah.A cure, it seems like the merger of North American newspaper media with Facebook and Twitter is inevitable for purposes of credibility.Social media is appearing to become corrupt because information is becoming unreliable.
Why do people like news in brief bites? Information is the pathway to complaint, at first small and scaling to larger and more a effective volume. A news story is usually a complaint.The ability to complain is expanding and the volume is scaling up with a narrowing from cause and effect to narrow political banners.
Democracy is threatened, is it really though? The answer is really, yes... maybe, nah. Democracy is resilient, but the governed need faith that it is working for them and not the other way around. That faith is being tested by an out of control string of events effecting every person ,every race in every country. Democracy should not play favorites nor have double standards, real or perceived. The words transparent, sustainable and accountable are mentioned so often they seem aspirational and not the reality they should be. People notice. They feel, they protest too much.
The roll of media has moved up the ladder of things influencing populations. At one time the priority list had family,religion, friends,job down list to somewhere around ten ,is media. Today Media and Family... around tenth ,religion are prioritized in a nearly reverse order.
The distractions now working just like it always has. Someone said recently that people like conspiracy theories because they are interesting, short and easy to remember. It gives people something to talk about around lunchroom tables or around the water cooler. It gives them power, knowing one little thing about everything. To be listened to, to fallow something, someone.
Making the jump from water cooler talk to storming a government building requires, suggestion and a little more internet magic. Falsehoods repeated enough times becomes facts in the conversations of the abbreviated. Reality is ignored, it does not diminish,but only gets worse over time. Layers of short burst falsehoods stacked one on top of the other over time may alter reality. The fascination of Super heroes seem more real in a world so polarized and unreal. The time has arrived when people see the world they live in isn't going to change and it will even get worse. They see the world the way it really looks through thin barriers of influence and their front windows and car windshields and electronic screens. Inspirational thinking in reverse. Good things will not happen in the future because they didn't happen in the past. There is no lottery win coming,no super hero nor magic powers. Work ethic fails when there is no work. Giving away money does not solve the problem. But money and a new way to look at wealth redistribution must be sought in ways that are harder,more fair, with less humiliation than food stamps and idleness of welfare. People need something to do. Idle hands storm government buildings.
The small bits of stories is taking it's toll, like a version of Alzheimer,incomplete, detached understanding of detail, large issues and implications.
A cure, it seems like the merger of North American newspaper media with Facebook and Twitter is inevitable for purposes of real credibility and to supply,completes,practical purposeful content would serve all parties into the future. These new media platforms are a technical marvel but are without a history and are in much need of a soul and a conscience. Creeping corruption and decline is inevitable and it is starting. There is a much at stake for all parties and the public. For no other reason the merging of images,words and technology is a no brainer from this content hungry media to reach new and ever higher innovation potential. Credibility is something, it either has or it hasn't. The entanglements of a free market and the wild west internet are mounting, credibility cannot be bought. Being cool is fleeting.
WARNING this content is a real outside the box trip. The reader may be required to laugh in the appropriate spots, if not already after the seriousness of the opening. It is all connected, all the bits make up the whole and the bits have been over looked to the point of comedic criminality.
Conspiracy theories are sticky information. There must be an UN-Logic chromosome or some part of the brain that motivates people to be righteously unrighteous. It may be in the failure of sugar coated media tendencies of the past few decades that sanitizes information beyond recognition. It now sanitizes images, actually de-faces news images without thought of the true visual historical record.
The view of the world ,the way it actually is, brings clarity to those who might able to respond in a positive way are let off the hook. They just don't see the problem. The routine nature now of fuzzing out news content seems out of control. Authentic history is being corrected through image vandalism.
The un-pretty, un-slick, gray news of 1960's gave way to harsh social realities revealed by the visual images of real time, live television news,further enhanced and amplified by the smart phone and the internet. The only continuity is advertising. The old nightly news actually had no advertising ,then later it was limited but it did cater to one audience only. The layers of media from print to technology based news somehow managed to obscure and sidestep social problems hoping the inequity will even out. The world is becoming more confident and rising in it's own self worth. It's disparity is realizing it's actual value, this is where the problem lies.
Real vs Unreal, aspiration vs hard reality. The small bite information stream lets the public off the hook , it takes power from what has become a news clip in an abbreviated form that can be empowered in any direction. Strength of interpretation replaces understanding and it looks like weakness. Strength and weakness values are assigned based on abbreviated information. It is born out of laziness instilled by volume over content. The public arrives at the wrong conclusion. Power looks better than weakness in an abbreviated world view.
Culture is not for sale because it cannot be owned just as First Nations people believed that land could
not be owned. The migrating Europeans believed otherwise.
The reality of momentum,running blindly forward and never looking back as failures in culture are catching up to the very real present. Running forward and running away is the same thing. It is not progress, nor civilization and the result is not peace nor transparency, nor sustainability not matter how many times it is repeated. Many problems are converging to a single point. How did we all get here?
Running blind and never looking back is the hint. That sad sorry history is brief, and thin, reduced to social studies in early grades that favour the majority.
How do short messages influence readers and viewers? There are lots of examples measured in merging images,characters and seconds to one crystal clear thought.
What is the evolution of short sticky information. For my generation the Kennedy assassination had to be the most clear cut example of conspiracy being more plausible than the investigated and verified truth. The choices of villains were greater for one thing , just about anyone could have done it, the mob, the CIA had a lot more experience in those matters,the Cubans and ordinary Texans who would lose their oil royalties under JFK.
A stolen election, that is a big fish story to swallow. It would be impossible for large groups of people in 1963 to fall for a hoax as big as the 2020 US Presidential Election being rigged. Or is it? The fear of spreading Communism and world domination might be an equivalent of the time, but it also kept people's belief in it's democratic institutions. In the 1950's there were sticky dueling slogans, Better Dead Than Red and Better Red Than Dead referencing nuclear exchange between superpowers. Even the phrase “superpowers,” has changed relevance. “Duck and cover,” when you hear your neighborhood air raid siren. We vs ME. Comic book heroes may be the last big screen for a suitably large enough distraction to social justice.
Smart people say the big issues of the day have more to do with recent history than post WWII policy.
The fall of the Soviet Union would be in that category, the internet, along with 9/11, the Great Recession 2008 and recent Middle East wars and migration and now a world wide pandemic. These are all life/culture/world changing upheaval events. These are all downward trends. With the exception of the internet that started out with such promise, but the tables are being turned especially regarding privacy. Free people do not feel comfortable being monitored in every thought or expression even if they are being sending advertising. It is yet another example of corruption of humanity. Greed has never been good.
Does journalism have a role in the immediate future? Hope so! Hope is not a plan. Legitimate news needs to be free to all, as a safeguard for democracy. Media companies both old and new have to make that happen.
What is the evolution of sticky information, short sticky truths and untruths seem smarter that those truths were there is no evidence to back them up making them a hard truth. A Catch-22. That shouldn't be hard to fix, with all that has no evidence, is a truth. Something is not true because there is no evidence to support it is the common defense of the truth.
Over the ages,science has defeated religion in democratic societies, now science is being defeated by stubborn un-logic.
Can journalists and truth seekers of the future fight back with short sticky truths. What if Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi, Jesus Christ and Muhammad had a Twitter account in their name, what would they have to say on a daily basis in a world displaying un-corrupted faith. Counter balance. How many followers would they have. The Beatles would famously say they were more popular than JC. Would it make those who stray from their teachings be more accountable? It is possible with the combined efforts of scholars and religious groups to create accountability beyond revenue, ratings and quarterly growth. Can outcomes be less certain and more relevant. Soul-less media beget a soul-less public.
You might blame, advertisements, the newspaper business or car bumpers, social media for sticky information short cuts.
Newspapers have headline writers. Historically they might be the first with short sticky information. The ones I knew, are generally pretty funny people,they have quick minds because they are always trying to rebel against the incorrectness by always correcting .They are the ones that edit stories for grammar spelling and coherency. Many are, with respect the most incorrect people I have ever met. They know all the ways of incorrectness. In a good way, they are very incorrect people always improving themselves by being the last line of correctness for any reporter or photographer. They may also be the ones to blame forgetting to put the photo credit , in the smallest type possible,on a picture. In their demented incorrectness they always forget the credit a great picture but never on a crappy one. I am told it is a science as well as an art. And still they are among my most favorite people. The newspaper headline may be the first sticky news.
Has there ever been a newspaper without advertising . The first advertisement was 3000 years ago on papyrus , a slave owner was looking for a runaway slave, a Hittite, 5ft. 2in.with tall, brown eyes.
Headlines are large print titles of a newspaper stories, they are sometimes a direct or indirect or humorous introduction to a story. When a headline is in question form, it may be incorrect sarcasm? There are news headlines that give information and all headlines fit into spaces allotted. A six column headline might be on a front page or section front, the one column headline may be the most challenging for a late breaking story, or to fill a small space. POPE
A
POLE
This one column headline informed the confirmation story of the first non Italian pope since the 16th Century ,John Paul II born in Poland and voted to the papacy in 1978.
It's all pretty random and yet functional.
Sometimes headlines can be misleading, in that they seem to overstate the importance of the story itself. Could this be the humble genesis of political misinformation. As one cable news anchor, the lying, liar,lied was the astonishing former president king of all lying, liars with 22,000 errant claims made in 1300 days, has to be a record. The Beatles would say,I read the news today,Oh boy. Four thousand holes in Blackburn Lancashire and although they were rather small,They had to count them all. (Day in the Life) And still the charade continues entangled in all the debris of governance. There is no short sticky answer. The reality is layered and democracy teeters. How is impeachment a trial when the jury votes along party lines?
Headlines could also be a question or a command. It is meant to be sticky information,it sticks to the readers attention like, Sandwich Man Seeks Wife, Men Walk on Moon, Great War Ends, Hundreds Dead seems to be a popular one over time only to be out done by Thousands Dead. The Winnipeg Free Press had POPE a POLE as well as African Spill Dwarfs Slick in Alaska. Salks Vaccine Works! State Population To Double By 2020, Babies To Blame. Missippi Literacy Program Shows Improvement. Murderer Says Detective Ruined His Reputation. Voters Vote On Whether To Vote. Museums Full Of History.
A Winnipeg Free Press reporter ended all of his emails with a headline , Reporters Don't Write Headlines.
Headlines introduce or draw attention to the story, stopping the reader to a point on the page or introducing a story online. It is a grabber. It grabs the reader's attention in the competition for eyes.
Bumper Stickers are actual, sticky information and that sticks to automobile bumpers. AND! If you can read them,your driving too close. A safety thing too.
The bumper sticker was invented by Forest P. Gill in the 1940's after WW2. The magic lay in the self adhesive paper that used words on bumpers to promote products, ideas and driving safety. Road rage and the tailgate collision was invented shorty after. His company is still around today. Cars didn't have bumpers until 1927 when the first Ford Model A came out. People would decorate their cars before that with home made signs held on by wire. The human need ,identified. The self adhesive paper was a real breakthrough, thank you WWII.
Was anything ever invented as a result of peace? NO.
People seemed to always have this need to communicate safety information or support some bad ass-ed cause or support greater distances or slower speeds between travelers. It maybe a short hand or a dog whistle expression of personal distance and opinion.
Correctness was as much of a theme as incorrectness.
From tourists destinations to political elections the bumper sticker was a go-to identifier of traveling opinion, class or party. You are what your bumper sticker says you are. They are personal expressions and the automobile is an extension of their home, and their home is their castle. The car or truck a steel, mobile safe space for expression in the fewest word possible. The automobile inspired songs of love and freedom. But in the is angry time, even stick figure families on rear bumpers are not safe.
Some examples, Don't touch me, I'm not that kind of car.
Adults on board, we want to live too. I'm speeding because I have to poop. I bet Jesus would used His signal light. Don't Believe everything you think. Make Orwell fiction again. Sorry for driving so close in front of you. Save the earth, it is the only planet with chocolate. Former baby on board, I like Ike, End Watergate With Honour, Make Racists Quiet Again,Your Fired 2020, Dads Against Dating Democrats, If You Elect Clowns, Expect A Circus, NO Malarkey Biden Harris,
Mostly they are traffic awareness reminders but many signal an incorrectness chromosome. Many will often say sorry, but they really don't mean it. In fact they are very, very UN-sorry. Bumper stickers got very nasty in the last since twelve years of US elections.
When it comes to short sticky information that influences people, there is none better than the 30 second commercial. Some of the smartest most influential people in the world work in advertising and propaganda, depending on which side of the curtain your on.
Uncle Sam Wants You, Coca-Cola , Campbell's Soup, General Motors ,McDonald's, and US armed forces,historically have great ads. “The Wolf is shaved so neat and trim,Red Riding hood is chasing him,” was a Burma Shave ad from1926.Amelia Earhart (who was a non smoker) endorsed Lucky Strike cigarettes, Jesse Owens was on a Wheaties box a Breakfast of Champions. 1941 was the first legal TV ad and it featured a 10 second Bulova watch ad ,America Runs on Bulova Time, You Can Do It was a powerful 1939 ad featuring Rosy the Riveter, would become the face of the feminist movement. Diamonds are Forever, worked for De Beers forever. Little Mikey Likes IT, sold Life Cereal. Because I'm Worth It ,was another forever ad for L'Oreal 1973's more expensive hair colour product ad.
I'm Stuck on Band-Aid because Band-Aids stuck on you, was pretty sticky.
The the Super Bowl ads like Mean Joe Greene's Coke ad. And in 1979 Wendy's Where's the Beef Tv got smarter and stronger. Macintosh Defeats Big Brother was scary smart for Apple Computers shocking 1980 hammer throwing ad. Nike Revolution in Motion with Nike Air and Michael Jordan fallowed by Just Do IT kept business running along .Budweiser's Clydesdale's Super Bowl ads of the 1990's pounded out profits for three decades. Big money, big results advertising,influencing sticky 30 and 60 second spots.
Then the social media anti ads upset corporations and democracies and “the Man” , around the world. I don't know if anyone wants to name one because they don't look like ads,they look like news. They use cringe worthy humour,satire spoofing and deep fake technology to put words in people mouths without their consent. There origin is sketchy and no one seems to take credit for them. Qantas Kangaroo Won't Fly, and it's called parody. Hum. Master Card Priceless. There is the Climate Reality Project exposes Fake Science sponsored by paid advertisers creating doubt and denial and unsettled science propaganda campaign around a 1950's pro cigarette smoking campaign in it's opening and moves to similar climate change denial techniques. There are anti advertising attacks, the using of infulencers and activists and lobby groups in a guerrilla warfare of information. It is all very confusing, slick, sticky and icky and as they said by 1950's mom's all over the world, “all in good fun until someone get hurt,” and loses their eye, adding sanity and their freedom.
Speaking of freedom former President DT buoyed by his 88 million Twitter followers ,fallowing almost 34,000 tweets over 5 years really got the crowd going with his White House speech . It all started on that stickiest of media,Twitter ,280 characters at a time, over time, nearly brought down the the US Capitol in the ensuing chaos.
A newspaper headline could have as many 130 characters on three decks of large and small type over a page width story. Many are in the 30 to 40 character range on smaller stories. Newspaper headlines can be searched from the headline but many can not because they don't have key words that bring a search to a particular story.
A bumper sticker would have between 20 and as many as 45 characters.
Twitter, “ has the beef” when it comes to number of characters and 330 million users, that's a lot of beef too. US newspaper circulation paper and online is 28.6 million weekday. In Canada newspaper circulation is 19.6 million weekly in 2020.
A 30 second commercial on the Super Bowl could cost $5.6 million and be seen by over 100 million people. That's a lot of beef too. The market for short sticky information is insatiable.
Information is a now weapon and religion, science and truth can be shrugged away. The newspaper business sits on it hands and the tech age begins to be corrupted. What Then? -opinion by Ken Gigliotti
Topic: Information In Short Bursts - WARNING -It's A long One (Read 1229 times)