terryl965 said:
I percieve it as people want nothing but bad news, nobody cares about the goods stuff going around when have you ever heard about people going over seas with green peace or other groups to help those less fortunite. we as a society only care about danger and bad news.
Terry
Sorry to disagree (respectfully) Terry, but we as society appreciate and would LOVE to hear more good news than bad. But the human side of us (or more aptly ... the Dark-Side) has a morbid fascination with the bad... as long as it doesn't happen to us directly (9-11 excepting).
I for one care about the good that's happening and would definitely like to hear more of it. It'd certianly help my cynical nature which has grown (partially) because of the bad stuff you hear from the media.
Still one can ask why we are so drawn to horror (fictionous, real-life) when we verbally decry it so much. Again, morbid fascination. Try going to
www.rotten.com and look up their "dead" pictures... (when all the kids are in bed okay), horrible as they are it's very hard to turn it all off.
As Kacey and Bushido pointed out, fear is a big money generating machine... right along with sex. Why else would an unknown first-time author by the name of Bram Stoker suddenly get on the best seller list (in his day), and his predecessors Ed Poe, and then later Stephen King, Dean Koonz, Clive Barker and so on. Alice Cooper in his early years sang about our nightmare and got rich. Dave Cronenberg, Alfred Hitchcock, Earl Hammer, Stanley Krubrick put our fears on the big screen so they're in our faces. Even Speilberg did it with Jaws, Poltergiest and then showed us the horrors of war with Saving Private Ryan and Schindlers List.
Historically bad news helps control the masses... Hitler did it with his Nazi Party and propaganda, Stalin and Lenin did it with Communism followed by Chairman Mao. Everything was done for the good of the people and there was still that undercurrent of fear. Heck even Grand Moff Tarkin said it best: "Fear will keep the local systems in line..."
Using the media en-massed
they bombard us with these images and stories to let loose our fears and ask
them (read: Big Government) to pass more laws that'll protect us better from these horrors, without grasping the fact that we are cutting bits and pieces (however small) of our civil liberties away a little at a time.
It's human nature to be fascinated with the horrors of life. Look how long media coverage of the Tsunami, was drawn out.
While difficult to do, there are millions of us would rather hear the good-stuff; economy improving, lower gas prices, more jobs, peace treaties signed and honored and so forth, I think all we got to do is ask for it and actively seek it out. There is still good in this world and good people in it. When I look, I see it all the time. There is a lot of beauty as well. Like this (too) cute video
http://media.putfile.com/Cute-little-girl-singing-91
(sorry had to put that in there to down play my soapbox...
)
