Thread by @CinephobiaRadio

THE FREEDOM CONVOY 2022

I don't watch corporate news media. I followed the 2016 Bernie Sanders mainstream press quite closely but other than that, the last time I remember watching any mainstream news in any detail goes back to the Gulf War in 1990-91.

At that time, I was quite an obsessive student of media propaganda and I was glued to CNN like I was watching a car crash, only infinitely worse of course.

Of course, many of the stunts used to promote the conflict have since been exposed for what they were: shameless, sloppy..

bits of atrocity propaganda, like the Nayirah testimony for instance. If you're not familiar with this, read and watch these:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_t…



By the Gulf War Part II, the propaganda was so ridiculous, I couldn't tolerate watching any of it..

without feeling like I was losing my mind. So I've avoided the corporate news ever since.

I've been fascinated with media propaganda since the 1970's, since I was a little kid. The Sex Pistols and Johnny Rotten's incredible comments in the press were the gateway drug for me.

I discovered Chomsky, Herrmann, Orwell, McLuhan, Postman...etc in the 80's and in the 90's, I took a more intense academic interest and studied the subject at University.

So after being obsessed with observing and studying and contemplating propaganda and myriad of mechanisms..

that perpetuate it, both consciously and unconsciously (I'm particularly fascinated with the unconscious drivers of propaganda and how propagandists internalize dominant narratives), I've developed two distinct traits over the MANY decades I've been obsessed with this subject:

1. I have developed a heightened sense of how propaganda manifests in popular culture, in even some of the most benign instances.

This is an example of what I'm talking about. I scribbled this up early on in the CoronaPanic, an analysis of a garden variety example of media...

fear-mongering:

"MEDIA LITERACY IN THE AGE OF CORONAVIRUS"

facebook.com/Cinephobia/pos…

And 2. I have developed a hyper-sensitivity to corporate news media (and in fact, corporate cultural products in general).

People who have the misfortunate to know me personally will know...

that I often get extremely agitated and irritated when exposed to certain manifestations of corporate media. So I try to avoid exposure. It not only aggravates me, it makes me feel insane and frustrates me that so many others are oblivious to it.

I'm sharing this with you...

because I want to talk about the Freedom Convoy but I need to preface my comments with this background context so you have some appreciation for where I'm coming from, or at least, my particular disposition with the media in general.

However...

because this preface has already chewed up far too many tweets, you're gonna have to wait for the next instalment before I get to my point.

This is called BURYING THE LEAD and next to JUMPING THE SHARK, it's actually my favourite thing to do in any kind of media adventure.

So come back next time for Part II.

FIN

#FreedomConvoy2022
#FreedomConvoy
#TruckersConvoy
#HonkHonk
#TrudeauMustGo
#TrudeauMustGoToJail

@threadreaderapp unroll