technoculture314-09

In their book Manufacturing Consent (1988) Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky introduce the paradigm, A Propaganda Model which insists that through the use of a series of filters, the media use “systematic propaganda” to serve the dominant elite. That is to say that perspective, bias and opinion are inherent in mass media. Following last week’s lecture I couldn't help but wonder how the Internet could best be utilized as a source of impartial news… one idea that came to mind was that of consuming a wide and balanced spectrum of what was described as fragmented media. If we accept the idea that all media is biased then is openly biased media a more honest form of media? In an attempt to source a balanced view on New Zealand news I decided to apply this method to the (weird) world of New Zealand political news blogs. So I visited Kiwiblog, Public Address, Whaleoil, and Frog Blog and compared their reporting of the news of the Geographic Board deciding that Wanganui should add and ‘h’ to its name and become Whanganui. Here are some excerpts from what I found.

Kiwiblog – Quotes Chris Trotter who says “WHO IS responsible for this extraordinary policy? Did anyone seek the endorsement of the New Zealand electorate before embarking on what can only be called a campaign of historical ethnic cleansing?”

Whale oil – “They want an ‘H’ but won’t stop bashing their kids”

Frog Blog – “Kudos to those courageous souls at Te Runanga O Tupoho, who have seen this project through over a very long time.”

Public Address features Graham Reid’s article on the Geographic Board’s decision, “the 'h' should be put back in "Wanganui" (where it actually is in much signage anyway) isn't "racist" but "ray-schist" according to the town's mayor Michael Laws.”

Although these sites really are honestly biased they seem to be set up just to reinforce their consumers existing preconceptions and rather than report the news these sites are more likely to critique news that is already reported elsewhere. Compared to using supposedly neutral news sources, I feel that I got very little out of visiting these sites apart from becoming slightly antagonized and wasting a lot of time. It would seem that these blogs pose very little threat to mainstream news sources and are dependent on these sources for their content.