Unhelpful Boycott
It has become trendy in the blogosphere lately to boycott the mainstream media because of political difference. The sentiment is understandable. I myself am disgusted at the sheer manipulation of information by the mainstream media. Yet, it is folly to boycott it.
Why?
A boycott of information channel keeps participants of the boycott under-informed. In battles for the hearts and minds, such action works only to the advantage of the incumbent government which has no desire for a free press. The under-informed cannot effectively win the hearts of minds of those that matter: the voters.
In many cases, it is not clear what is true and what is not. We see the world not just through black and white. Truths and lies are almost never discrete and work in a spectrum of colors. In the best of worlds, truth is easily recognizable but down on earth, reality mars idealism. This is the unfortunate fact we have to live with.
The first step to discern diamond from glass – to borrow an idiom from the Malay language – is to have a benchmark. The reference points of truths and lies have to be established and thereafter the spectrum can be recognized. When information competes, consumers of information are able to form the benchmark by verifying the information from whatever source. Verification of information can be costly but competition lowers the cost. A boycott takes a reference point away and that in turn eliminates competition of information.
No source has a monopoly over truths and lies. We love to believe that there is integrity in every one of us but when the time comes, it is a test we can either pass or fail. Sometimes, the payoff with lies tempts us and there is no guarantee that the better part of us will
prevail. Even when our moral is secured, we can never be sure of others’. Therein lays the problem.
BN loyalists have been accused of believing their own lies. They do not believe in their own lies per se but the lack of competition in information present to them only one source of information which originates from
somewhere within their association. In a situation which information verification is costly, monopoly of information dissemination usually translate into monopoly of truth. Through all this, consumers of information see all events through only rose-colored lens and there
is little the consumers could figure out how jaded the lens is. In rural areas where alternative sources of information is absent, they have only one source to be content with or more dangerously, to believe in. If the source told them of a war well beyond our borders, the tendency is to believe it regardless the truth of it. George Orwell and Anthony Burgess conveyed the same message in Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Wanting Seed respectively.
Truth be told, mainstream media does not have a monopoly on truth, or lies. Lies could also originate from other sources and boycotters risk of believing their own lies, sooner or later. The scenario is the same, only the players differ.
If the mainstream media does indeed spew lies 24/7, a more proactive way to combat the lies is to produce powerful critiques and offer alternative interpretations.
People are not stupid. Most of them are rationale individuals. If they are carefully explained of how the other interpretations are false, flawed or fictitious while appealing to their hearts and minds, they will reconsider the credibility of the mainstream media. But before the action of convincing others is at all possible, one has to read the other interpretation themselves.
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7 Responses to “Unhelpful Boycott”
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boycotting the mainstream media is not a rejection of the premise that the mainstream media has a monopoly on truth. that premise imploded long ago. boycotting the malaysian mainstream media is a rejection of the idea that the government should have a monopoly on the means of information distribution.
yes, with enough effort, you can read between the lines of the mainstream media and discern truth from lies. but why should you have to resort to that?
Why?
I’ve answered that in the article:
If one plans to convince other people, one needs to know what the others believe in first and then show how one’s interpretation is superior to the others’.
the only problem with that is that only one group of people control the means of mass media production and distribution. how do you suppose most people will access non-controlled information? and, even if they did make a comparison and concluded that mainstream media isn’t credible - what action would they then take? a boycott, perhaps?
I wrote that rather than boycotting, a better method is to convince other why the MSM is not credible. And to do so, one first needs to read what is written in the MSM. If one does not know what the MSM says, then one has a hard time to convince others (that exclusively read only the MSM) why the MSM is not credible.
If you don’t know about the lies, how are you going to counter the lies?
It’s about being proactive is better than being reactive. Ignorance does not help in convincing others why the MSM is not credible.
Take for example, an information channel controlled by X accused that you stole something from him but that is untrue. If you and everybody that you interacted with boycotted the MSM, you’d probably be unaware of it until it is too late to repair the damage done on your reputation.
I suggest you re-read the article again. Your concerned has been addressed in the article.
i think the boycott from the rakyat is less effective than say, convincing the advertisers to pull out (geddit?) from the paper.
what is RM1.20 from you and me compared to RM10,000 for a full page advertise revenue?
but i get your point hafiz. i’d rather know the spew and educated those who don’t. then we can get more people … to lobby the advertisers :) after all, dwindling sales doesn’t affect most papers, they just get more advertisers or cut production costs.
if circulation goes down, then sales departments have less to sell advertisers. advertisers are businesses and they’ll advertise where its most effective, and that often means the outlet with the best circulation numbers. therefore a boycott has direct impact on newspaper revenue, both from subscriptions, newsstand sales and advertising cash.
anyway, i understand what you’re getting at - know the beast and all that - but i think on balance, denying an outlet your money is better than giving them your money while trying to convince others not to do so.
Dear Joon,
The ultimate goal of your method and mine is the same. But the effectiveness of boycott is limited. It does little to convince the fence sitters and people on the other side why the MSM doesn’t have the credibility BN would like many of us to believe.
A boycott only appeals to the converted. It’s preaching to the choir.