;.cexcerpted theoretic remarks from mb, 5/94
;.l1,6,60,66,1,0,10,75,192,2,15,20,25,127,10,0,
WORKING NOTES ON MEDIA BIAS
AIM:  A theory-of-meaning analysis of media bias

In the past few years I have done occasional analyses of mediabias, mostly from Newsweek & TIME.  My own bias, which I belabourin my analyses, is Likud-Zionist.  My remarks tend to fall intothree levels: (1)  analyses of specific terms and phrases (2)theoretic remarks on the theory-of-meaning techniques used toproduce those bias effects (3) McLuhaneque reflections of the roleof media in contemprary politics. 
In this essay I'll focus on (2).  Ideally, this would be anapolitical, academic philosophy sort of essay in theory ofmeaning.  Realistically, the political context will intrude.
Working through this material, I'm not sure that works.  It wouldbe lovely to think that the quintessence of every trick of mediabias can be found, refined, in a nusance of a theory of meaning. But my sense at the moment is:  to reveal media-bias, you've gotto wallow around in it; this is a matter of delineating unadmittedcultural neuroses; one can't but be offensive, and needs toimprovise a language and methodology.  Academically respectable itain't. 
So to do justice to what I've already got would take a long book,inchoate; a lot more material would be needed to make a shorter,coherent book.
So all I'll get here will be a few academic footnotes.
Oh well.




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mb0103 TIME 1/3/94

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'fanatical settlers and other right-wing Jews'
l2
A nice trick; let's name it the UNQANTITIZED DISJUNCTIVE
l3
There's no (locutionary) 'implication' in the logical sense ofentailment; but the reader is led to understand  or `given theimpression' that virtually all settlers are fanatics; while thewriter remains safe from charges of deliberate falsehood because,by strict logic, the statement could be true of any classcontaining 2 or more `fanatic settlers'.
l2
'fanatic settlers' has become an epithet, like 'fleet-footedAkilles'
l1

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l3
Again, I suggest that one must bring the methodololgic analysis ofsubliminal advertising techniques to bear in analyzing media bias,and recognize that literal as well as visual mass-media commnicateprimarily by conceptual 'images' (which may be ideas, visualimages, or a combination)
l1
THEORY:  Media bias addresses a particular cultural sub-group byevoking images presumably common to that group - it's not newsthat to be au courant -- ie, to be upwardly mobile in themanagerial class -- one must keep up with the fashionable movies,TV shows, etc.  So one may assume that these have been evoked withdeliberate taste, if not necessarily explicit intent.
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l3
Like I say, Sceptical epistemology is the last refuge of ascoundrel.

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mb0114  TIME 01/17/94:  "Playing Hard to Get:

(b) ANALYSIS:  'little more than' -- an unusually straightforwardtechnique.  If one gets 'little more than' then, one may infer,one deserves a bit more.

(2) 'Israel continues to toss the PLO little tidbits, like therelease of 101 Arab prisoners'.
l2
ANALYSIS:  Ditto, but a bit more blatant; 'toss...tidbits' is howa boorish gentleman feeds his dog

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mb1202

Of course, the crucial move in an argument is the set-up of theterms of debate.

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mb1207
NEWSWEEK 12/06/93 (Mark Frankel/Dickey, Bartholet, Taher)
Business:  "The Best Peace Money can Buy"

ANALYSIS OF BIAS TECHNIQUE:  'hindered from trading' is anambiguous phrase, with 'hindered' serving as the 'weasel-word': the connotation is of a complete block to trade, but the strictdenotation of 'hindered' is merely 'impeded'; 'hindered intrading' would be the correct phrase, I think.
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NEWSWEEK 12/06/93 "Breaking the Habit of War" (Bartholet)

ANALYSIS:  There is a need now to determine, with the assistanceof professional Photo and TV news photographers and editors,principles of Photo and TV-news visual bias.
[SEE FOOTNOTE 1]

Briefly:  Where the media is sympathetic to the subject, oneshould looked for both staged and contrived events (staged byphotographers; contrived by demonstrators primarily to bebroadcast by photographers).  
	Where the media is hostile, one should identify misleadingforeshortening of perspective by tele-photo, miseading edittingout of spatial context, misleading editting out of temporalcontext (eg, preceeding provocations to settler reaction).  
The interplay of photo-journalism, esp. TV, with popular myths,including those expresed in popular movies and video, as well asthose that influenced today's reporters, editors, and decisionmakers in their own formative years (usually college) (eg,reaction to USA and UK imperialism).

FOOTNOTE 1:

	The public is often sceptical of spoken statements, on radioon TV; far less sceptical of statements written in the press; andalmost entirely credulous of photographs and TV footage, to thepoint that these have determined Presidential reactions.  

I would suggest that the Palestinian nationalists, esp. the PLO,have very skillfully exploited the shift from decisive physicalconfrontation to a sort of "virtual reality war".  And I wouldsuggest that Israel ought to re-evaluate 18th-century axioms ofdemocratic freedom-of-information in the context of 1990's `globalvillage virtual reality'.  
l3
(I am clumsily trying to coin temporary phrases to earmarksignificant but generally overlooked  causal patterns incontemporary international politics. ) 

In a media bias memo last spring, I noted how Newsweek had croppeda photo to suppress the 'CONTEXT' of the incident, and so createthe impression that what may have been a staged or contrivedincident was (as the viewing public almost always assumes)spontaneous.

It is our loss that McLuhan was not taken seriously enough in histime, and that his insight into culture-wide paradigm-shifts hasnot been applied to the shifts occurring since his time.

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nb1213a REF:  Newsweek 12/13/93 (Deming/bureau) "ZionismTranformed"

l3
	Often I do media analysis by noting and conceptualizing myown reactions.  I did not find this photo of a young man in tallitand tfillin offensive; but I'm too close to all that; to a typicalgentile reader it might convey an impression of Judaism as abarbaric religion.
l2
	As a drop-out graduate student of analytic philosophy in aleading-edge hippy commune of the late '60's, I tried to blockoutside photographers; one recognized -- often from their choiceof subject -- that they would somehow trivialize the project.
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	Israel must face the fact that photography is not necessarilyobjective; photo-journalism is usually tendentious.  I havecontinually tried to suggest that the Palestinian move to takeover at least a part of Israel is being fought primarily in themass media, not on the streets; and that accordingly Israel isjustified in exterting much stricter control over foreigncorrespondents and foreign-media-employed photographers.
l2
	(This issue of Newsweek catches that point nicely in a quotefrom an official in the Finland Defense Ministry:  "The currentstrategic doctrine of the Baltics would probably be best describedas the CNN defense.  The idea is, you resist just long enough sothe whole world can see you have been attacked.")
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mb1214  NY Times Weekly Review 12/12/93 (Haberman)

1)  Florid style with no content:
2)  False equivalence ("plague on both your houses")
3)  Re-setting parameters of argument:  the Jews are sissies
COMMENT:  This is a serious move; it tries to redefine theparamaters of debate such that only a conventional militarythreat, not sustained terrorism, can justify Israel's repressionof Palestinian nationalism.
4)  `Post-Historical' revision:  minimizing the contemporarysignificance of the Holocaust
5)	Dismissing out-of-hand fears that withdrawal to or toward the1948 Armistice lines would be strategically suicidal.
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mb1220  TIME 12/20/93


A disingenous trick:  the writer does not say it happened, onlythat it was 'shown' (which might imply that it did happen, butcould be taken to imply that it appeared to happen) -- on IsraeliTV.

So far, that's just epistemology; but with a quick application: as I noted in a previous memo, both TV and photo-journalism can,intentionally or not, use telo-photo foreshortening ofperspective, and framing/cropping of detail from context, tocreate misleading impressions.  
