This weekend in the reading roundup:
- 'Can Data Predict Political Revolutions' by Richard Florida at theatlantic.com
- 'The Political Power of Literature' by Riz Khan at aljazeera.net
- 'Ungoverned Areas and Threats from Safe Havens: Final Report of the Ungoverned Areas Project' by Robert D. Lamb available here [US Department of Defence Report outling the 'new' geopolitical threat matrix]
- 'Weather Architects of the Year 2050 A.D.' by Geoff Manaugh at bldgblog
- 'Akoha--A Direct Action Game?' by Benjamin Stokes at civicpaths.net
Have a good weekend!
Photo credit: David Drexler
I wrote this comment to go on the first of your taser pieces, only to find you aren't taking comments. Well, it's written now, so I'm gonna copy/pasta it here and you can edit/move it if you want to.
"less than lethal" is clearly a piece of PR. It is a phrase that has been chosen by some authoritarian somewhere to pre-empt complaints about the use of tasers. They know that the spineless, like most of the BBC and especially the commercial media, will just repeat the "less than lethal" catchphrase and will even do the hard work of expanding the catchphrase:
"I feel it is important to highlight that when introducing the weapon we described it as "less than lethal", as in less lethal than a regular ballistics based firearm."
The pro-gun lobby like to point out that guns don't kill people, people kill people. And that is true. So to claim that a taser is "less than lethal" is misrepresenting things: the lethality of a weapon is very much controlled by the weapon wielder, not the weapon itself.
"We would simply have nothing to gain by incorrectly describing such an item and feel our description was accurate, balanced and allowed viewers to pass their own judgement on this often contentious weapon in their own time."
OK, they are confirming that they are incapable of performing actual journalism. And yes, it allows people to form their own opinion, and the opinion many come to is that the BBC are just a voice of the state far too often. Many others will come to the conclusion that they are being led to: that the powerful need more power. That is where you will be led if you only listen to one side of the story, as is invariably the case in these cop-shows.
The media industry like these cop shows. They are clearly cheap to make, very cheap, and given how media-savvy the state apparatus has become over the last 10 or 15 years I would not be surprised if the police don't actually have quite some influence over what goes into these programmes. No doubt there is some method where the police have a final say over what can go into a programme or not, for example the police understandably would not want certain ongoing investigations to be televised. Give the police an exit like that, and they will use it to censor incompetence, harassment, abuses, etc..
Back to the media companies, I would not be surprised if government PR divisions pay media companies to follow them around. Like that, the police would have a much easier time of getting a final say on what goes out on the air. The channel is being paid to make a programme, and commercial TV get paid to wrap it up in adverts, and provide it to paying channel subscribers. From a business point of view, that is great. No, you aren't making a critical piece of art, but the bank manager will like your work.
I have read that if you want to make a war movie the US military will provide you with all the equipment you might want for free, with one caveat: the US military get to say if your production is to be made public or not. Hence why movies glorifying warfare and mechanised killing are packed with Apaches and Hum-Vees and shit, but films critical of war end up with obsolete kit or have to privately rent look-a-like kit, and so are at a massive financial disadvantage to a pro-war film.
The above system works well for the US, with the constant positive depiction of the military and military action in contemporary cinema, and so if other powerful groups are not doing similar, well they must be ignorant as to how to abuse the people they rule.
Posted by: anon | 03/08/2011 at 05:51 PM