There are only five media stories

https://fallows.substack.com/p/there-are-only-five-media-stories

by marban • 4 years ago

44 22 4 years ago

fallows.substack.com

Given the conclusion of building something new- I actually did. I built an app for posting based on location to boost local communities: https://radiusreport.news/

incomingpain3• 4 years ago

here are really only five possible movie plot lines. Boy meets girl. And then... There are at most five ongoing narratives in U.S. political history. Outsiders take power, to redress grievances. And then … There may not be even five master narratives in world religions. People suffer. But then …

7 plots, there are 7 media stories.

Jaws, overcoming the boogyman/shark.

Cinderella, good personality poor becomes rich and deserves it.

LOTR, you need to bring widget somewhere wierd to save the world.

Hobbit, you adventure to strange lands and come back.

Annie Hall, comedic character has to overcome adversity to get happy ending

Sweeny Todd, flawed main character who fails, then ultimately learns to overcome their flaw and become good and happy.

Groundhog day, time travel forces bad main character to become better.

All these are aligned in the news as discovered by the author. Realistically just following 'hate inc' by matt taibi. Which really the article/author and matt just comes from Hunter Thompson. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzo_journalism

You can imagine, over and over in the election system the characters of democracy play out exactly this way. Once you realize this, it forces you to personally answer the obvious question. Are they doing it intentionally or is this all fake like these fictional movies?

agentwiggles2• 4 years ago

flawed main character who fails, then ultimately learns to overcome their flaw and become good and happy

Ha! I'm not sure that final sentence works for Sweeney Todd. Not a lot of redemption in that story. But the rest of your point is good - although I would think that the "flawed main character" bit covers Groundhog day just fine, and I don't know that Groundhog day deserves its own archetype, as great as it is.

coldtea• 4 years ago

Yeah, like Sweeny Todd? As if that's the best or common recognizable example of the archetype?

(Not to mention Groundhog Day is 100% flawed character, the "time travel" part is redundant).

incomingpain3• 4 years ago

Ha! I'm not sure that final sentence works for Sweeney Todd

Caught that did you? I love johnny depp. Quite possibly the only known musical I like.

although I would think that the "flawed main character" bit covers Groundhog day just fine, and I don't know that Groundhog day deserves its own archetype, as great as it is.

Ya its hard to find another example, perhaps the grinch? It's not my personal cup of tea, but women typically like these. Downtown abbey maybe? Bridgerton? I'm not sure.

The story is basically, "Jerk becomes better person through experiencing why they are a jerk."

It would seem I'm back to not being able to post on HN. Dropped quite negative in my posts, not sure why people dislike this post. Haven't posted in an hour, still going too fast.

edit/ wow 3 hours i couldn't post. impressive brigading this time.

djbusby• 4 years ago

Where is "The Whale (Moby Dick)" - man goes crazy with revenge, makes extreme effort, takes others down with him.

Could Ye and Elon be Ahab?

slg• 4 years ago

Ye isn't going for revenge. Maybe he is billing it that way, but revenge requires an initial wronging, and he was never wronged by the collective Jewish people. Other people referring to him as "seeking revenge" is validating some of his false grievances.

incomingpain3• 4 years ago

Honestly kind of not remembering mobydick right now, but most likely the first one, overcoming the boogeyman, the man eating whale.

This in terms of modern news. "Clinton/Biden are Ahab." They were overcoming the monster which is trump.

In corrolary if looking at the other political spectrum. It's trump overcoming "the swamp"

Both of which are ridiculous but that's the story being spun for either side. When in reality neither is true.

CharlesW• 4 years ago

"Kurt Vonnegut on the Shapes of Stories": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ

(Shapes: Man in Hole, Boy Gets Girl, Cinderella)

VLM• 4 years ago

"people yell at their TVs"

That era ended a long time ago; nobody on a percentage basis watches legacy media any more, almost everyone clicked off. The microscopic fraction of the population who still watch, actually LIKE the five permitted media stories. So changing what's produced would be very risky; might lose the very last few viewers, might not gain any return viewers.

The author is trying to do "startup strategy" in an industry that's in "shutdown mode", that's a tough one.

jjeaff• 4 years ago

They may have a small market share, but they are still the largest and thus have the biggest budgets with few exceptions.

jhbadger• 4 years ago

I think this is generational. Young people may not subscribe to newspapers, whether electronic or paper, or watch TV news regularly, but they are still quite popular among older people. Ask your parents (and your grandparents if they are still living). They don't get their news off the Internet. And these older generations still have a lot of power. In many countries, such as the US, they are still the majority of politicians, for example.

foobarian• 4 years ago

Young people may not subscribe to newspapers,

You know, we just might give it a try - I was amazed at how much my kids enjoy the occasional print magazine, and how little comparable there is in any other medium. I am guessing this will play out with some scale since we're a pretty ordinary family.

layer8• 4 years ago

If you read HN long enough, there’s also only a dozen or so different types of HN submissions.

bilbo0s• 4 years ago

I guess the larger issue is that every information channel plays to its audience. Kinda how things work nowadays, for good or for ill.

csours• 4 years ago

Why are there two sides to a fight? If you investigate something from a scientific point of view, you may look at many different variables. You may come up with a pareto distribution based on your observations.

There's nothing particularly natural about having two sides.

I think there are two sides because of the fight itself. There may be many points of view, but people choose the side closest to their point of view.

After the fighting starts, all the nuance about those points of view disappears.

After the fighting starts, it is disloyal to acknowledge any weakness in the arguments or proposals of your own side.

After the fighting starts, the two main camps will subsume any smaller groups.

----

I think it's interesting to think about times when there were more than two sides: China during and shortly after WWII - think about Japan vs China and KMT vs Communists.

During the Japanese invasion and occupation, the Chinese forces mainly cooperated, or at least tried to appear cooperative. Once the pressure of that fight ended, the Chinese groups were free to fight each other

---

Another: US vs Communism until the end of the Cold War and then Red vs Blue.

---

Do you have any examples?

cafard• 4 years ago

"Stories about the media", that is.

Back before Margaret Sullivan became public editor at the Washington Post, there was a reporter--name forgotten--who wrote about the media. It was possible now and then to read a Post story about the NY Times's reaction to a story in the Post. That sort of thing made you wonder why you were reading it.

rektide• 4 years ago

This take is seductive & alluring for the "I have it all figured out" folk. It tells you there is secret power you can have, a secret truth that describes it all, waiting to be unlocked. It purports to help you decode, to see truth.

In fact, you're just dawning the special filters the author has in mind, a super-skeptical narrow-minded distorted view. The story says it will help you understand, but it is a very biased very particular set of frames it wants to limit you to. To sow distrust, to foster incredulity. This is pure meta-disinformation.

There are only five media stories

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