The Power of Bad News

Hi,

I find this an interesting subject.

The key factor that holds all of this together is that they are capitalising on a powerful emotion - fear.

Quite often, I believe they choose this route because the viral power of negativity is so strong. It does grab eyeballs, but it grabs tongues even more.

In terms of TV, I don't think that this is necessarily true. In the UK, we now have hundreds of channels, cheaply available to anyone. We have fantastic, upbeat, educational DVDS, again cheaply available - yet the masses 'choose' to watch the same old drivel on five main channels. Two of these are pre-paid via licence fee (government owned and controlled - Yikes!) and (allegedly) don't accept paid advertising (purely a smokescreen), but during my lifetime this has evolved to a point where they actually have as much time in between programs purely advertising the programs on that channel that they are interested in getting the most exposure.

I believe that one of the reasons for this domination by the main five channels is a network of influence - the newspapers discuss the main channel's programs, the radio mentions them, consequently the people also discuss them - and like drones, the masses are curious to discover why there is such a buzz.

The TV 'classics' of today are not there mainly on merit, they are there because of a 'numbers game'.

And the key factor in all of this is that the 'real' money is made from advertising. So much money is made that these advertising companies literally dictate what becomes popular - they want their 'viewers' in a certain frame of mind after watching 30 minutes exposure. Therefore they need to prime their viewers with a certain mindset before unleashing their adverts.

They have zero interest in culture and 100% interest in subliminal programming - and because the general public (in general) are SO weak-minded they swallow everything that comes down the pipe and fail to develop the initiative to go off and find their 'own way'. They flick through those five channels and settle for the best of a bad lot, rather than 'losing sight of the shore' and finding something worthwhile, positive and educational to watch (or alternatively (shock/horror) - reading a book or simply staring into space!)

This starves the competition of any meaningful funding and that leads those five main channels of influence to own a virtual monopoly, giving them the power to pump more funds into spreading their wings through other media to again, push people back to the same places through social proof.

Most aspects of this are purely in the business sector, but compounding the 'bad news' you have the government using exactly the same approach with their news programs and their conveniently placed (amongst the 8pm non-news slots) 'documentary' programs - which trade on the same negativity/fear vibe for different reasons.

They try to disguise their negative nature by presenting themselves as 'how to solve' and 'how to avoid' - they add a small amount of positivity as a one minute finishing point to deflect from the 29 minutes of negativity which then allows them to print a positive sounding description -

'The world is XYZ. We present how to avoid XYZ from affecting you and the best way to live a happy life without XYZ becoming an issue in your life.'

There is a continual blame game going on where everyone is blaming someone else - it's a merry go round that leaves the people who expose themselves to it dazed and confused. Unfortunately, they don't realise that their thinking is so muddy, therefore the general public continue to share their opinions and their conclusions as if it were sound advice.

If aliens were to land today, they would wonder how the populace, blessed with innate intelligence and problem solving skills developed by millenia of generations before them, had so easily allowed themselves to become brainwashed.

I believe that this is because the ability to think clearly for themselves and act upon it has been pounded out of the masses by a media/business/government network working in cohesion which has capitalised on the naivety and pack-instincts of the masses coupled with viral marketing techniques and brain-weakening narcotics and medication in general circulation and pushed as 'necessary for good health'.

Shockingly, they have managed to convince the populace that human nature dictates that the average person would rather kill and consume their neighbour than live happily alongside them. Is that how YOU really feel? The truth is that the average person wants to kill the negativity that they find around every corner and the people who propogate it, but this is easily twisted into - 'Hey Mr. A, Mr. B hates you and your core principles and the way that you live.' We have been divided and conquered.

It appears that the 'bad news' theme is there because it simply attracts eyeballs, but the truth is that it is there because it has a far more powerful underlying effect - it weakens the already weak-minded - the terminally frightened individual is much more likely to seek someone else to 'protect' them, having given up on their own ability to protect themself.

We see it all the time in general marketing mainly because people have now become so conditioned to accepting negative stimuli (when in fact all that they need to do is avoid it and reject it en masse) that it is now also the best way to shift any kind of product - because the consuming masses are so conditioned to acting on it's impulse.

The solution is simply a conscious decision to accept and understand what is going on, educate oneself and then make the decision to avoid the problem.

There is only one mainstream media that has managed to escape the tentacles of this all-powerful network - the internet.

This is why most of the 'enlightened' individuals are to be found here.

And this is also why you should think very carefully about whether you have any feelings of social responsibility before you jump on the bandwagon and adopt the 'bad news' approach in your internet endeavours.

Most of the other media is 'one-way traffic' in terms of feedback which enables them to moderate any comment across it's 'network' (IE print or radio) to ensure that overall, everyone is singing from the same hymnsheet.

The internet is a little different, and because the most clear-thinking and enlightened minds are currently 'seeking refuge' here, if you present yourself with the 'bad news' mantra here, you may find yourself slapped down quite quickly.

Long may that continue, or it really is 'bad news'.

Hi Diane S,

...and so the cycle continues.....sigh.

Why strike out on your own and make a difference when it is so easy and convenient to jump on the bandwagon?

As Brian said from the cross, as the Peoples' Front Of Judea's crack suicide squad came to 'save' him -

"You silly sods"

(from 'The Life Of Brian')

What provides cash for newspapers is ads. However, many newspapers are now hit hard by Craigslist since it is free, and also it provides a link to your web page.

Sadly, many newspapers refuse to link to your web page, and the few that do NOFOLLOW your link. I repeat you pay, but they say "Soooory, Google told me to nofollow all links."

So my reply is "REALLY! Well, maybe GOOGLE can wip out its wallet and pay your bills. I have been paying them until now, but that ends TODAY!"