;.cGeneral theoretic notes on media bias,  10/96
;.l1,6,60,66,1,0,10,75,192,2,15,20,25,127,10,0,
GENERAL NOTES ON MEDIA BIAS

I have repeatedly argued that the intifada was the first WorldMedia War; the Palestinians won it.
	When I organized small peace and anti-Vietnam-Wardemonstrations in the 60s in NYC I noted, in a short memo, thatthe demonstration aims for impact primarily via the media.  I sawit as a contest of ideas.
	The intifada was a malign cartoon-fest, a contest of imagesin the service of unacknowleged national mythologies, primarilythe mythology of the USA, which held the crucial power-units.
	More precisely, since good national leaders make decisions onthe base of rational realpolitik, not mythology (tho there's nolack of bad leadrers who do the latter), a Media War aims onlypartially at directly impacting the cartoon-consciousness ofmediocre leaders; primarily it aims to soften up the cartoonconsciousness of their constituency if not precisely electorate -"conventional wisdom",. as Newseek puts it -- so the leaders canproceed along lines of realpolitik -- ie, paying off terroristblackmail to those who hold the oligarchs of the oil-block hostagethrough threat of assassination -- without fear of popularopposiiton.

	Intifada I was a simple successful Cartoon Campaign -- thePalestinians succeeded, but sending out unlimited quantities ofadolescents ("pure uncut boy", as Wm. Burroughs put it ) to throwstones at soldiers armed, inititially, only with lethal weapons,in order to get shot in  large numbers in time for Prime Time TV,which has become the major international cartoon-show.   That wasof course reversign the David/Goliath myth.
	It played to two USA Cartoon-mthologies:  Keeping Score andRooting for the Underdog.  The USA, dominated by football andother spectator sports, likes to keep score -- in this case, offatalities -- note how the count of fatalities dominates USA news-- and to root for the underdog. 