• Rooskie91@discuss.online
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      10 months ago

      Do you believe that NPR and PBS are the extent of government media funding in America? Because that’s outrageously wrong. Both the CIA and DOD have MASSIVE budgets for media, and it’s all obfuscated so people like you think the only propaganda you consume come from NPR and PBS.

      Start with the more obvious stuff, and look into how Top Gun got funded. Radio free Asia was firist secretly and now openly funded by the CIA with the explicit purpose of growing distrust among Americans against the Asian socialist and communist experiments.

      America does not lack propaganda, we are just way better at hiding it.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_influence_on_public_opinion

      • BilliamBoberts@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        You make fair and valid points, but the propaganda the US government creates does not stand alone in the american media sphere. We have the freedom to explore other ideas on the internet or purchase movies, tv shows, music, and articles from all around the world with little to no censorship. Thus, american propaganda influence faces more competition than its chinese counterpart.

        • TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id
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          10 months ago

          No, they’re full of shit and are conflating several unrelated things in ways that may seem plausible to the casual observer, but that are actually being dishonestly spun in furtherance of a very specific narrative. It’s a very old trick. Don’t fall for it.

    • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      It definitely can be called propaganda but for different reasons usually related to market pressures.

      Private news organizations don’t like going against the status quo. That invites controversy which their advertisers or investors may not be comfortable with. Even non profits outlets like NPR don’t want to upset their large donors.

      Additionally, finding reliable sources is a difficult and expensive process. As such, private news outlets are more likely to use government officials as primary sources especially when it comes to foreign affairs. They may also rely on privately funded think tanks and NGOs which may have often been created to push a particular narrative.

      Taken together, that means private news outlets are heavily biased in favor of the interests of their local business elite and existing foreign policy.

      With regards to China, their economy has technically outgrown the US economy if you look at purchasing power parity. That’s deeply concerning for US business elite who have enjoyed an almost hegemonic control over the global economy since WWII. In my view, that’s why you see far more negative stories about China today than there were a few decades ago, despite the fact that China’s political system has not meaningfully changed.

      • TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id
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        10 months ago

        I love how you talk about the news business as if you know anything at all about what really goes on in newsrooms and editorial meetings. You obviously don’t. What you say is pure amateur hour. It’s so uninformed that it isn’t even wrong; it’s just in a completely different part of the universe that has almost nothing whatsoever to do with actual reality on the ground.

      • BilliamBoberts@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I disagree with your point that private organizations dont go against the status quo in the US. I can’t turn on any news agency in the States without seeing headlines about where the US government is failing. and which political party is blamed for said failure depends on the bias of the news agency.

        I 100% agree that news agencies are biased to their business elites in the US, but the foreign policy bias you mention is more related to that news agencies’ particular politcal leanings.

        I find it hard to believe that the business elites that own news agencies are trying to sway the american peoples view of china because they feel they are losing some petty competition to make more money. We’ve seen the global opinion of china fall greatly since 2008, mostly due to how china is treating its people through strict surveilance, its attempt to control its neighbors, its use of wolfe warrior diplomacy, and increase aggression on the global stage.

        • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          It’s true that you will hear limited critique for Republicans and Democrats from private media outlets. However, there is usually very little criticism directed at things that both parties can agree on, like their hawkish stance towards China.

          That said, I think we have vastly different perspectives on how the economy functions. What you view as a petty competition for more money I think is an existential threat to the privileges American business elite currently enjoy. If the industries they are invested in are no longer competitive in a global market, they will not be able to extract the wealth that currently funds their extravagant lifestyles. They will happily try to influence US policy if they think it can prevent that from happening.

          Lastly, I agree China’s favorable in western aligned countries have been negative since around 2008. However up until around 2018 they were still hovering close to where they were in the 2000s. It was around 2018 when Trump started implementing tariffs against China that negative opinions on China spiked. It’s not like Trump cares about human rights so why did his administration take such a protectionist measure when Republicans have been pro free trade for decades? Well that also happens to be around the same time China’s economy likely surpassed the US in purchasing power parity. That gap has only widened so it’s not surprising to me that Biden has chosen to keep those tariffs in place while also implementing new trade restrictions with China.