Why Do DU'ers Persist In Saying "Mainstream Media"?

[KittyWampus]

and what's slightly less aggravating is the abbv. used "MSM".

Mainstream is one word. But then one might trace the usage of MSM to Freeperland, so this makes sense.

There's nothing Mainstream about the CORPORATE MEDIA

The Mediawhores do not, in any way, represent the true values or opinions of mainstream America although they go the extra mile to influence us toward Corporate Interests.

The Corporate Media does not even present empirical FACTS as they would appear to most mainstream Americans. Rather, they present facts in the best possible light for Corporate Interests.

Every bit of what many call "mainstream media" exists for one reason only and that is to sell products and a vision of America that ultimately has us divided from one another and helpless when it comes to effecting change.

Please consider no longer using MSM or Mainstream Media on DU.

I guess what set this mini-rant off is the NYTimes used the term MSM somewhere recently... and IMO, they WANT AND NEED us to think of their crap as "mainstream'.

Note- there's a big difference between those who incorporate their business and responsibly provide services for communities and those who incorporate with the express intent of escaping responsibility.

[Avalux]

1. I think we should use GCM - government controlled media

or something similar. It's clear the White House filters what's reported.

[KittyWampus]

6. Well, Our Government Is Largely Controlled By Corporations...

so why not just go directly to the source of greatest influence.

[bryant69]

2. Mainstream Media just rolls of the tongue better

It sounds better - the M's flow into each other.

Anyway everybody knows what we mean.

If a new term doesn't stick, one has to assume the problem isn't the people but the term. The message you want to send with corporate media isn't getting through just yet. You can't really argue people into changing their preconcieved mental state.

On the plus sice, Media Whores does seem to have taken off, and has much the same connotation.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[tavalon]

3. Hard habit to break

but important. We need to reframe the discussion in every way. The Rethugs are much, much better at this, even in discussing things amongst themselves.

[Demit]

4. It is not intended as a reference to mainstream America, that's why.

And "mainstream media" has origins that go back 15 years, at least.

[Lars39]

5. It's mainstream because that is what most US citizens pay attention to.

[KittyWampus]

7. What The Actual Mainstream Is Paying Attention Ignores Their Best

interests.

Don't we want to draw attention to this?

Does assuming the propaganda oozing from the tv is actually what mainstream Americans actually want/need helping Democracy or hurting it?

[Lars39]

10. Want or need doesn't enter into it.

It's what most are stuck with until an alternative is available to them.

[KittyWampus]

11. So We Should Say "Public Accounts" When Talking About SS?

cause that's the terminology the 'mainstream' media is now using on cue from the GOP.

[Lars39]

13. I just reread your OP.

You are basically calling anyone here who uses "MSM" freepers.
You need to change that.

[brainshrub]

8. Agree 100%. There is no mainstream, only corporate.

[blm]

9. I'll try to stick to corporate media, but, I also use GOP controlled media

because that pretty much is the way I hear it.

You can almost always count on the GOP spin on any issue being the one that the broadcast media promotes most heavily.

[Gormy Cuss]

12. MSM vs. corporate media

MSM is easier to type. Seriously, using it at DU has a very different impact than using the language to a wider audience. I prefer mainstream media to differentiate it from openly partisan media. Calling it corporate media doesn't convey the sense that it's politically slanted to many people who aren't seeing the bias. I would rather call it the "so-called mainstream media" than corporate, and then question why it is so focused on stands that aren't mainstream. That gets people thinking.

I prefer the reframing "GOP-controlled media" when dealing with someone who pulls out the tired old "liberal media" rant.

my 2 cents.

[newyawker99]

18. Hi Gormy Cuss!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Gormy Cuss]

19. Hi!

Glad to be here.

[ltfranklin]

14. Sure, MSM, but what does MTM have to say about it?

...seriously, I trust MTM much more than the MSM.

Mary Tyler Moore, where are you when we need you? We're not going to make it on our own!

[PATRICK]

15. Wow, finding the perfect word

to encompass a massive lie is really hard. The term mainstream can be defended in its deprive form precisely because it rankles in the way you mention.

The chief national forums, decimated and diversified as they are for most Americans who pay attention at all remain focused on the few corporate multimedia networks and all their affiliate communication businesses. A large part of DU, even among those deliberately cut off from all corporate sponsored news, remains the "MSM" because that is the crucial forum occupied by the enemies of free and critical information. newspapers and the news-wires and many Internet entities, national or small journals make up the whole picture willingly if not enthusiastically. Politicians think and do by the postures of these diseased centers of American news dissemination and "discussion" aware and yet unaware how much advertising and directed PR tactics create the debate, set the rules, break the rules, decide the outcome despite any resistance to the slop on the part of a sane, confused population.

All sorts of terms come to mind but the true horror is that the mainstream OUTLETS have been hijacked so thoroughly that in expanding circles to mainstream America the mainstream public themselves have been largely sucked in despite single absurd Big Lie issue presentations or general antagonism toward the "news".

The situation for many is not to "put new wine in old wineskins" and further tainting the truth by giving this functional lie machine any legitimacy to poison truths flung at it. Mainstream people need the news are are not getting it or getting it diluted with social control medication for the profit of a few. We have a mainstream military and mainstream political leadership composition too that don't act or represent what they are supposed to lately either.

The finger should always be pointed at the very unmainstream Coup puppetmasters who stole all these dangerous strings, the several corporate hog entities, the anti-people, anti-mainstream goals of the same. But the organs of free speech are used mightily to deflect the mainstream population from ever uniting into any awareness that does not serve a minority goal detrimental to the very survival of the human race or its soul.

The Deranged Orchestra, Mammon Media, Goebbels Gerbils, Corporate Pravda, Mainstream Mandrake, Lies are Us? The harsh reality is that America is demonstrably, in comparison even with despotically ruled countries, severely tainted in the big picture of how most people are not informed but formed. In the mainstream of the organs of communication recognized wrongly as the "free press" or "news". So much so that the recognition of this obvious fact cannot move even the awakened honest journalists to effective action against the inertia of fear and money pressures applied with hostility from above. The sole glory of this losing battle is the continued blind resistance of the people to lies and hate in sufficient numbers to discredit the machine and reject its aims. So, in the main, we see a patient(the mainstream of most people), suffering under the tyranny of hijacked mainstream power and central services.

No single word can convince nail the lie machine. Corporate Media grows the overtones of "liberal" attacks on capitalism without getting people to the point. What people remain in need of is real national access to healthy forum not just as a grudging counterpoint to the fakes but as an insurg, and paradoxically closeness to the captive audience for whom we grant legitimacy every day by wading into the "MSM" waterholes.

[Stirk]

16. I've been hearing the phrase "corporate media" more and more.

I've even been hearing it referenced by talking heads *in* the corporate media, on the air. It's certainly a much more accurate term than "mainstream media".

[bobthedrummer]

17. I'll call it a form of mind control, part of Bush's "perception management

plan" to myself and some local citizens. But here I'll call it MSM.

Bush's 'perception mangement' plan
by Robert Parry
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/111804.html