If riots like the ones in the UK started in the US, what role would the media play?
Would the mainstream media sensationalize events to grab viewers, or would they downplay the story to prevent panic and spreading?
Setting aside the fact that riot police and the National Guard would be quickly activated and not to mention the probable formation of armed citizen militias, this question is only about the duties of the media in reporting.
If we saw civil uprising, how would (or how should) the major news outlets handle it?
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I don’t know what role media can play but I’m sure they will want to go in the middle of events and do live streams.
The same role the media always plays. Pours petrol on the flames.
All you have to do is to remember the LA riots. The media was the media, as usual.
I think the media would stir the pot, just like they did during the 1992 LA riots. It helps their ratings.
@all That was my first thought. The news channels would be thrilled and say “Yay! A crisis to exploit. Quck, call the sponsors and jack up the advertising rates!”
But, is there any chance that the media would be enlisted to quell panic? Would the govt. have any influence over the way news was reported?
They would perversely love it. Ratings are everything. Wolf would look pious as ever, just itching at spewing the gory details, and Fox would insist on the cracking of skulls. Twitter, facebook, and 24/7 tiresome pundits would make a star out of some glum, dumb, dolt. Logic and perspective would fail to interest anybody. In short, welcome to our brave new world,
semi-related European view on UK riots.
They wouldn’t downplay, they would use the panic to keep people scared and indoors (the same thing happened in Libya). This would serve the purpose of increasing their ratings, decreasing the amount of people on the streets peacefully protesting, and retaining the ability to control information. They’d focus on the civil disobedience and the odd act of violence or looting – distracting you from the reason other, law-abiding, people were upset in the first place.
Broadly speaking, businesses profit from our patronage, which is guaranteed by the propagation of wants and needs from constant exposure to Hi-Def (and often 3-D) commercialism. This is all much easier to get away with if we’re ignorant to things that don’t concern us.
The message seems clear, go back to sleep….
Is it sad that this doesn’t surprise me? Yes.
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