19 Jan 2005

Media Fairyland

I was reading this article yesterday and was struck by how a repressive regime is defined by the use of an indicator that Singaporeans know all too well. The link between corporations, the PAP and media is also not unique to Singapore but 'Repressive Regimes'.

The role of the media corporations in the United States is similar to that of repressive state regimes elsewhere [say for an example - Singapore]: they decide what the public will and won’t be allowed to hear, and either punish or recruit the social deviants who insist on telling a different story. The journalists they employ do what almost all journalists working under repressive regimes do: they internalise the demands of the censor, and understand, before anyone has told them, what is permissible and what is not.

So, when they are faced with a choice between a fable which helps the Republicans [PAP, right-wing, conservative, tradional], and a reality which hurts them, they choose the fable. As their fantasies accumulate, the story they tell about the world veers further and further from reality. Anyone who tries to bring the people back down to earth is denounced as a traitor and a fantasist. And anyone who seeks to become president must first learn to live in fairyland [For Singapore I think 'Lah-Lah-Land is more apt.]. George Monbiot


If you are interested, read on here...

2 comments:

Agagooga said...

The claims of a monolithic press in the US are overblown. At least there you have some competition, and there are clearly liberal newspapers and clearly conservative newspapers.

As for here - well, it's not as bad as it used to be.

dfgd said...

Why has Singapore got newspapers and media not controlled by the government, since I left? Are you not at ease with the idea of living in a 'Repressive Regime'?