Plato’s Allegory of the Cave brings to fore the ramifications of experiencing life through a restricted lens. The story paints a decidedly bleak portrait of human beings trapped within the confines of a cave since birth, where the shadows of outsiders casted upon the walls craft their perception of reality. One of the men eventually manages to break free, and ventures out from his two-dimensional prison and into the real world; as he adjusts to this new environment, he realizes that the truth that he had known for his life differed significantly from the real truth. Eager to share this discovery, he returns to the cave and attempts to explain his observations, only to be met with denial and death threats. Despite the story’s age, its relevance
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These institutions, backed by both the government and the banking industry, have an enormous scope, and can extend their message across the country efficiently and at a subsidized cost; in effect, they are the narrators of America. Narrators, real or fictional, control a rather significant ability: they can omit, add, equivocate or subtly alter any detail they wish, and these decisions impact the manner in which audiences perceive them. Should flak, politics, or controversial issues put their corporate interests at stake, the institutions use this power of selection to protect their own agendas, in addition to those of their allies, and to silence radical opponents. In his biographical documentary Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, Noam Chomsky, a major critic of corporate media, brings to fore the Indonesian occupation of East Timor and the resulting genocide, identifying it as a prime instance of the media’s agenda-specific selection system. This conflict received very little domestic attention across virtually all major outlets due to the United States government’s sponsorship of the Indonesian campaign; an inherently controversial and dangerous issue, corporate media chose to turn a blind eye in an effort to defend their ally - the government -, …show more content…
People cannot judge the world based on the reportings of these conglomerates, who prioritize turning a profit over providing accurate and objective stories to the public; rather, people need to step out of this “cave” of sorts, and take in the full scope of the world’s most controversial issues. The large institutions are first and foremost businesses, and will screen out news that poses as a threat to their company or allies, such as the government; this leads to largely misguided citizenry, and it takes exposing these citizens to the other reality through sites like Democracy Now!, to open up their eyes. The “cave” of the contemporary world, corporate media propagates ignorance on a massive scale through their often equivocal broadcasts, and it is not until the news transforms from the business that it isto the neutral documentation of current events that it should be, that knowledge and understanding willl abound in the
These institutions, backed by both the government and the banking industry, have an enormous scope, and can extend their message across the country efficiently and at a subsidized cost; in effect, they are the narrators of America. Narrators, real or fictional, control a rather significant ability: they can omit, add, equivocate or subtly alter any detail they wish, and these decisions impact the manner in which audiences perceive them. Should flak, politics, or controversial issues put their corporate interests at stake, the institutions use this power of selection to protect their own agendas, in addition to those of their allies, and to silence radical opponents. In his biographical documentary Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, Noam Chomsky, a major critic of corporate media, brings to fore the Indonesian occupation of East Timor and the resulting genocide, identifying it as a prime instance of the media’s agenda-specific selection system. This conflict received very little domestic attention across virtually all major outlets due to the United States government’s sponsorship of the Indonesian campaign; an inherently controversial and dangerous issue, corporate media chose to turn a blind eye in an effort to defend their ally - the government -, …show more content…
People cannot judge the world based on the reportings of these conglomerates, who prioritize turning a profit over providing accurate and objective stories to the public; rather, people need to step out of this “cave” of sorts, and take in the full scope of the world’s most controversial issues. The large institutions are first and foremost businesses, and will screen out news that poses as a threat to their company or allies, such as the government; this leads to largely misguided citizenry, and it takes exposing these citizens to the other reality through sites like Democracy Now!, to open up their eyes. The “cave” of the contemporary world, corporate media propagates ignorance on a massive scale through their often equivocal broadcasts, and it is not until the news transforms from the business that it isto the neutral documentation of current events that it should be, that knowledge and understanding willl abound in the