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Ed Webb

The future of stupid fears | Bryan Alexander - 0 views

bryanalexander.org/...the-future-of-stupid-fears

education media future bryanalexander fear book review

shared by Ed Webb on 13 Jan 19 - Cached
  • Culture of Fear argues that media and political fear-mongering teaches consumers and voters to see problems in terms of stories about heroic individuals, rather than about social or political factors.  The contexts get set aside, replaced with more relatable tales of villainous criminals and virtuous victims, which Glassner calls “neurologizing social problems” (217). There is also a curious, quietly conservative politics of the family involved.  Such fears emphasize stranger danger, which is actually statistically very rare.  Instead, they minimize the far more likely source of harm most American face: our family members (31).
  • fake fears reveal cultural anxieties, much as horror stories do
  • “news is what happens to your editors.”  By that he means “editors – and their bosses… [and] their families, friends, and business associates”(201)
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Our politics clearly adore fear, notably from the Trump administration and its emphasis on immigrant-driven carnage.  Our news media continue to worship at the altar of “if it bleeds, it leads.”
  • that CNN is the opposite of a fringe news service.  Between Fox and MSNBC it occupies a neutral, middle ground.  It is, putatively, the sober center.  And it simply adores scaring the hell out of us
  • What does the likelihood of even more stupid fear-mongering mean for education?  It simply means, as I said years ago, we have to teach people to resist this stuff.  In our quest to teach digital literacy we should encourage students – of all ages – to avoid tv news, or to sample it judiciously, with great skepticism.  We should assist them in recognizing when politicians fire up fear campaigns based on poor facts.
  • politicians peddle terror because it often works
  • the negative impacts of such fear – the misdirection of resources, the creation of bad policy, the encouragement of mean world syndrome, the furtherance of racism – the promulgation of real damage
Ed Webb

Students Lack Basic Research Skills, Study Finds - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of High... - 0 views

chronicle.com/...28112

research skills literacies college students

shared by Ed Webb on 14 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • today’s students struggle with a feeling of information overload. “They feel overwhelmed, and they’re developing a strategy for not drowning in all information out there,” she said. “They’re basically taking how they learned to research in high school with them to college, since it’s worked for them in the past.”
  • college students approach research as a hunt for the right answer instead of a process of evaluating different arguments and coming up with their own interpretation.
  • Ed Webb on 14 Nov 10
     
    Comments?
Ed Webb

CNN produces Gothic horror, and this is a problem | Bryan Alexander - 0 views

bryanalexander.org/...c-horror-and-this-is-a-problem

media CNN TV television gothic horror fear opinion

shared by Ed Webb on 27 Mar 18 - Cached
  • Remember that for *decades* American violent crime has gone steadily down, but most Americans have been convinced we lived under a nightmarish crime siege. CNN plays a key role in that, as I and others have shown. CNN has continuously celebrated violent crime stories far, far out of proportion to their reality.
  • As an information source, CNN helped skew Americans’ sense of reality in terms of violent crime. As things got better, they took exquisite care to make sure we thought they were the opposite. Why does this matter?
  • remember that Trump won in 2016 in part by arguing that America was under siege from violent crime. Who do you think convinced about 1/4th of American voters of this idea?  Social media played some role, which is in the public eye now, but tv’s huge role is underappreciated
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  • A key driver for gun ownership is self defense. CNN teaches viewers that they live in a dangerous hellscape, with terror about to attack at any moment.  Put another way, CNN is the NRA’s best secret friend
  • I think if CNN is truly possessed of world class storytellers, they could turn heart disease into a gripping narrative.  (Might I recommend a certain book on the subject?)  They could also choose not to flog a relative handful of crime stories into a national terror wave.  Instead they very carefully selected the violent crime horror route.
  • This is Gothic puffery, a deliberate act of fearmongering, with consequences. And we’re not holding CNN and its ilk accountable.  It’s time we should.
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