Dear ladies and gentlemen,
today we’d like to share some media insights by our appreciated Noam Chomsky:
1 OWNERSHIP
The first has to do with ownership. Mass media firms are big corporations. Often, they are part of even bigger conglomerates. Their end game? Profit. And so it’s in their interests to push for whatever guarantees that profit. Naturally, critical journalism must take second place to the needs and interests of the corporation.
2 ADVERTISING
The second filter exposes the real role of advertising. Media costs a lot more than consumers will ever pay. So who fills the gap? Advertisers. And what are the advertisers paying for? Audiences. And so it isn’t so much that the media are selling you a product — their output. They are also selling advertisers a product — YOU.”
3 THE MEDIA ELITE
The establishment manages the media through the third filter. Journalism cannot be a check on power because the very system encourages complicity. Governments, corporations, big institutions know how to play the media game. They know how to influence the news narrative. They feed media scoops, official accounts, interviews with the ‘experts’. They make themselves crucial to the process of journalism. So, those in power and those who report on them are in bed with each other.
4 FLAK
If you want to challenge power, you’ll be pushed to the margins. When the media – journalists, whistleblowers, sources – stray away from the consensus, they get ‘flak’. This is the fourth filter. When the story is inconvenient for the powers that be, you’ll see the flak machine in action discrediting sources, trashing stories and diverting the conversation.
5 THE COMMON ENEMY
To manufacture consent, you need an enemy — a target. That common enemy is the fifth filter. Communism. Terrorists. Immigrants. A common enemy, a bogeyman to fear, helps corral public opinion.
As we stated oftentimes in the past here, it’s important that indie media like AETHYX MEDIAE exists. Maybe today more than ever. Let us explain.
1 Ownership: we value critical journalism over profit. Of course our margins are small but we’re also a company after all. We have costs, we need resources. Be it the time for writing this text here or when we want to extend our domain with which we are available in the web for another year. However, we share the opinion that journalism needs to be critical regarding profit if it wants to be valuable – and believable. As such, most of the journalism today doesn’t work anymore. It’s oftentimes even up to the individual to change that to the better – which is a shame for our current times.
2 Advertising: what we try here is to give you the control over what is published. That’s the contrary to making you a product for anything. If you want to show ads on your site or sell merchandise, no problem at all. But we have a problem with paradigms and corporations who make you a product. There are social media websites out there who convert individual human beings into plastic products. It’s horrible and needs to be stopped. Currently, it’s not even made out which heavy negative implications it will have on our future on this burning planet.
3 The media elite: we’re honest here – of course we want to be part of that elite too. Who doesn’t? However, we never will be the ones spin doctoring around. We never did and we wouldn’t be around here anymore if we ever did something similar. What we want is to have a “real media elite” full of competence, innovation and surrounded by bleeding edge technology. We want Eliza Cassan media! No, really: of course we want individuals with their blog, app, etc. be part of that “real media elite” but there’s room for AI media too.
4 Flak: this is something which won’t be changeable, unfortunately. If we observe this fluid media webspace correct for the last 20+ years, this won’t go away ever. We shouldn’t mind though, as if we long for the 100% credit and respect in this space, we might achieve maybe 80%. And this number is too damn high regarding the current media channels and outlets out there – and it is still growing. Let us be proud on what we will have achieved in the end, we here would be happy with 55/45. But for the heck of it, let’s long for the 100.
5 The common enemy: there are more than enough targets today which are important for humanity and its future. Let’s focus on those and not on those stupid conflicts between humans themselves. For as long as we humans stay on this planet, and this might not be very long anymore, we shouldn’t go down as the species which valued its own ego above the problems of a whole planet. Or a solar system. We think you get the idea, we should get hold of ourselves before it’s too late.
If we can believe in ourselves, you can too. Start today!
Take care out there and remember to stay real during these fake times,
your aethyx staff
Hello dear readers & customers,
today, we want to introduce to you our one and only “social media expert” Rae McCoy:
Rae is so far our only expert for anything Q&A related for our deluxe premium adult toy store, 53x.toys.
If there is anything open about our toys there, you want to get a Nornenrad tarot sent to your Email mailbox (75€), or just want to chat for a while, don’t hesitate to contact her!
She’s to this day still unmarried, doesn’t want kids, is bisexual and Scorpio too.
Have fun & respect her, please, she has a very tough job on Facebook & Twitter.
Have a nice day and happy masturbating,
the aethyx staff
“Hacking from China!”
…is the new overkill news media buzzword of the yet young year 2013.
EVERYONE ist being hacked: Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook, Apple, EADS, ThyssenKrupp, even your cat!.
And all of these hacks come from China. Of course.
This is ridiculous.
I mean: How do they know it’s not just spoofing to make it look like these hacks originated in the far east?
I think they just don’t have the time or interest anymore to search for the real reasons.
What I know: Most of our visitors speak Chinese. Our stats don’t lie. And I never ever would have imagined to make a project which will be read from there.
So, IMHO, I’m glad that the Chinese are there! I even enjoy their food quite often. I don’t have any problems with them and I think our Western point of view of these people is just full of prejudices. That’s it.
Nothing new here…
Social Media is everywhere. Of course we would like to support that. But Google+ for example won’t let us crosspost our contents inside the individual page. It’s a one-way-communication right now, the API isn’t open. Yet. It’s a new social media network, so we are pretty sure this feature will be available in the (near?) future.
Google says they want to keep this page-thing exklusive. But they even don’t offer smart URLs, Facebook allows this when you reach 30 fans or so.
We will enter this new realm as soon as crossposting is available. Facebook will be coming soon, so stay tuned.
Regards,
the aethyx staff
It is our second commercial project and one of our most important: The gadget blog gizmeo.com.
On April 2012 it will become two years old. But, unfortunately, up to this date it did not have the impact it could have received.
Maybe it is because there are so many gadget blogs out there. Maybe it is because it is in German. Internet trends do not seem to happen in this country.
Or, when they do, they do incredibly late. Compared to other developed countries Germany is not innovative enough in eMedia, although in 2011 65 Million people were online; roughly 80% percent of its population. We see that there is definitely potential, but do you remember a website or an eshop or an application from Germany which you use on the internet? There you go.
Anyway. We keep rolling. We are confident. We are the mediae. No matter where you are, where you are from or what you do: Just stay true and positive.
All the best,
aethyx staff