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Corporate Propaganda Still On the News
mofomojo writes, "Democracy Now! reports that a new study by the Center for Media and Democracy says Americans are still being shown corporate public relations videos disguised as news reports on newscasts across the country. In April, the Center identified 77 stations using Video News Releases in their newscasts; the findings led to an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission. A followup study has found that 10 of those stations are still airing VNRs today, for a new total of 46 stations in 22 states." From the article: "Most of the VNRs have aired on stations owned by large media conglomerates such as News Corp., Tribune, and Disney. They've also been sponsored by some of the country's biggest corporations including General Motors, GlaxoSmithKline, and Allstate Insurance."
Adverts disguised as stories?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
I've seen a few of these fake corporate news stories, and usually it's pretty obvious that the story came from a company (particularly for regular viewers, since the local news reporters are typically not involved). As sneaky as this is though, I'd much rather watch corporate ads disguised as news than government propaganda disguised as news, something the current administration has been found to do.
Either way, it's pretty sneaky and low.
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
Has anyone else noticed that at every turn corporations again and again attempt to subvert the powers of the state and twist both public opinion and the law to their own benefit. In many cases, large corporations behave like small, independant countries or baronies, accountable to no one but themselves and largely immune from reprecussion. Only the state can realistically challenge their authority, and even then only with considerable effort and expense.
The situation in many ways resembles the old medieval baronies, who quarralled and feuded amoung themselves, and methaphoricall and literally stamped on the faces of the general population. The state/king had only limited ability to exercise control and essentially each barony was a virtual state within a state. In many cases, different parts of a country could be at war with one another, or with the monarchy.
In case anyone thinks this is a bit far fetched, consider this. What if MegaCorp(TM), drove up to your house one day and towed away your car on some flimsy legal pretense? Barons and Lords did this kind of thing all the time. What can you do? It's getting to the point that the police will not even dare to investigate large corporations with their armies of lawyers. Your ability to conclude a successful suit before you grow old and die is also ever decreasing.
You get a lot of SciFi where in the furture, corporations rule everything. Is this really so far fetched? If they have more de facto power and influence than the nation states in which they reside, then what is to stop them, like the old barons before them, from simply all but forming states of their own? Maybe Richelieu's reforms will be rolled back, just in a different form.
May the Maths Be with you!
Why not link to the the real article instead of, or in addition to, the story about the article?
Most usians may not be familiar with it, but fascism at it's core is the joining of political and corporate powers. Both Italy and Germany in the 30s had huge corporate blocks that had a lot of political power. That may give you some pause next time you see all the 'campaign donations' that flow one way. What do you think flows the other way?
(oh and mods: please show your immaturiy to mod something down when you don't agree with it)
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
"Certain types of subliminal perception (hypnosis, for example) are known to affect the perceiver without any conscious knowledge of the effect on his part. However, there is no strong evidence that the types of messages discussed in this article (ones embedded into normal objects such as posters or movies) are at all effective."
That's only the wiki quote on the subject. IANAP (but my mom is, so I hear no end of the stuff 2nd hand) but this is way beyond no strong evidence of it being effective. It's -no- evidence of any statistically significant effect in any serious study i.e. as close as you can get to proving it's not effective in any way we we've tried to do it.
Now, to the topic of the article on the other hand, while many people can recognise stories like these as corporately funded, studies do show stories like these at minimum confuse the issue in statistically significant amounts. i.e. it's worth the companies to spend their money doing things like this rather than directly address the root issues they're trying to spread propaganda about.
Ontop of this, despite some of this being found out, it doesnt cause enough public backlash on average to harm the company more than it helps. Some don't get found at all, some create a very minor stir, I dont know of any companies getting a major backlash against tactics like this, but if there have been any they're a minority to the point of it still being a sensible buisiness policy to take the risk.
Until this changes, companies will continue to make business decisions like this because it's simply cheaper, including possible damages from backlash, to effect change in the population & the laws, than to actually fix their problems.
Surely you mean "film at 11, brought to you by [insert name of sponsor here]"?
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
You had to rescue those nations? How did you do that, go back in time? And now those nations have to pay tribute to you with support for all those other wars your country is diving in?
Pardon me, but have you been drinking the nationalistic-flavoured Kool-aid? All people that fought in WW2 are retired or dead. The politicians that got you in that war are all dead. Do you think you somehow inherited some right over 'your' former allies?
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
"The truth is that corporations really have more influence than John Q. Public because they maintain a relationship with officials and John doesn't bother. But he could."
Sure, I could. In the same way that I could become a ninja, or climb Mt. Everest, or fly to the moon. It's not impossible.
Lobbyists get paid by corporations to do nothing but influence legislators. I get paid to do my job. If I'm not doing my job, and I'm off attempting to get an appointment with legislators, I do not get paid.
So, no, John Q. Public does not have the same access to legislative services as corporations do.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!