Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

Obviously on the Inquirer website, advertising is much more important than newscasting.

An unbelievable barrage of commercial garbage accompanies news on the Inquirer website.

On the GMA website, they’ve done it better: newscasting is advertising.

A very insensitive clumping together of a highly sensationalized boxing event and a tragic explosion (currently being linked to the government) in Glorietta Mall in Makati City.

A truly tasteless and insulting clumping together of news (and supposedly investigative reportage) on the recently concluded elections, the verdict on ex-President Joseph Estrada plunder charge, and women in bikini called “Bataan Beauties.” [1]

Incidentally, I have just seen a relevant quote from KG Pontus Hulten’s “The machine as seen at the end of the mechanical age” (1968) as cited by V. Papanek (Design for the Real World, 1970):

“The production of articles that nobody really needs, but which occupy the ground floors of all the big stores, is one of the many outward symptoms of something basically wrong in a world of overproduction and undernourishment. In order to control overproduction, without going through the intricacies of selling the product, it becomes necessary for a willfully destructive war to be going on permanently somewhere. Today, the world is spending over $150 billion per annum on the actual or potential destruction of lives and property, as compared with the capital transfer from rich to poor countries of about $10 billion per year - including a large share for military aid.”

The quote describes the link between mindless consumerism (created by professional market and motivation researchers, mass communication and media, and advertising and design) and war, poverty in the world.

But today, not only is there an overproduction of useless objects, there is also the overproduction of useless (redundant) information to keep its distribution currency afloat. And as demonstrated by the Inquirer and GMA news websites, media which has lost contact with its social and moral responsibilities contribute to this global cancer by trivializing if not sensationalizing as entertainment the socio-political issues that continue to assault and plunder the Filipino people and the world.

As a result, we have the undernourishment of the minds of people even (and especially) in the richest and most powerful countries in the world.

According to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, poverty is a key cause of human rights abuses worldwide and states must make every effort to ease inequalities.

I think that there is something quite not right about this. What if we imagine for a moment that poverty is the EFFECT, rather than the cause, of all the human rights abuses wreaked worldwide, especially by the rich and powerful countries?

So it is quite sad that so many people with presumably good intentions cannot think anymore of the true implications of things such as the UN calling on everyone to “take part in a 24-hour “Stand Up and Speak Out” campaign against poverty.” So many people with presumably good intentions find enough comfort in the belief that if they watch television and see the house-mates in Big Brother House light a bonfire against poverty, or donate money to such causes, then they are doing their part in supporting the cause.

So many people presumably with good intentions have become so confused by the complexity of the relationship between overproduction and undernourishment that they turn to consumption and entertainment as a religion. Artists and media, in turn, supply the soothing balm of mindless entertainment-cum-religion.

In the early 60’s, more people seemed to be aware that the root cause of suffering and inequality in the world is the military-industrial complex. However, as this complex became wider, deeper and more ubiquitous, the less that people became aware especially as they too profited from it.

Hopefully, the minority who still have enough intelligence and sensitivity to know will live to see them impending collapse of this complex.

[1] As of October 31, 2007, GMA News have changed their news banners - “Carnage in Makati” is now clustered with the more serious “Erap Plunder Trial” and “Women of the Peninsula” is now clustered with more trivial news such as the Paquiao boxing match and a university-wide basketball game.

EMail This Post This entry was posted by Fats on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 at 9:48 pm and is filed under Fats, Vitamins & Minerals > Wika at Hirap > Katawan > Media Watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.