We inhabit a world that has become a gigantic garble of information pollution. We are literally swimming through various types of data fields all day, every day.
Our biomechanical bodies act as a decoder for the information received by the senses. We know that the light spectrum spans much farther than the human eye can detect. The visible light spectrum for a human is viewed through the colors of the rainbow. The same concept works for the way we hear sound, creating audible tones.
Computers and radios operate the same way when connecting to digital space or receiving electronic airwaves. We use these devices to decode signals into a form that our human senses are capable of receiving.
Everything in the universe contains information. A great deal of it is useless and consequential. However, some information retains a vast amount of wealth and power. As a human, distinguishing good information from bad comprises our greatest challenge progressing into the future.
Sourcing data to determine its origin begins the first step when deciphering and evaluating information. Information always broadcasts through the airwaves for some purpose. If you know the answer to the question, "Who is producing or who paid for a broadcast?" the task of determining the purpose decreases exponentially.
Propaganda is defined as information, ideas or rumors deliberately spread to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc. It can be good or bad depending on your ideals and viewpoints. However, in this day of age, it's a formidable task finding a media outlet that isn't pushing some sort of political propaganda.
When we compare media, mainstream networks come to mind first. Six companies control 90 percent of media outlets. That is, GE, News-Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and CBS are the umbrella corporations which contain NBC, NPR, FOX, ABC, CNN, Comcast, HBO and more.
Most of the major networks tend to swing Liberal (Democrat) with the exception of FOX, which takes the polar opposite Conservative (Republican) stance. But the media create an illusion of choice to keep us participating in a system favoring only corporations.
Politicians, like the media, receive money to push forms of propaganda. Politicians and media require large sums of money to campaign and broadcast, making them susceptible to bribery and corruption.
If the mainstream media only gives us part of story, the question arises, "Where do we get the whole story?"
In recent years, there has a been rise in independent media aggregates and foreign broadcasts producing shows in English for the U.S. These sources are referred to as the "alternative media." RT, Al Jazeera, Vice, Drudge Report, World Newsnet Daily, Infowars, We Are Change, and countless investigative journalists (Ben Swann, Greg Palast, Amber Lyon, Ron Paul, and more) have produced media websites aimed at getting news stories out that don't see the light of day from the corporate media.
These websites can also be skewed towards a certain viewpoint, often the opposite of the mainstream. This leaves us with the same question, "Where do we go for unbiased information?"
The sad truth is, there isn't one magical place that will give us everything we need to know. The only way to truly become informed is to monitor all the media outlets with knowledge of history and formulate our own opinion. Being that most people won't even monitor one media source, getting our society to pay attention to all of them seems impossible.
More people in the country are concerned with the NFL, The Voice, Dancing with the Stars, some pointless viral YouTube video or what Miley Cyrus did on the last awards show. This mentality will continue to produce the same results of corrupt politicians, foreign wars, staggering debt, dependency on government and a sense of entitlement.
George Santayana famously said, "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Thus, we must understand history to understand current events.
Until the population gets informed and then involved, the corrupt corporate power establishment will continue unabated to do as it pleases with our money, economy, military and technology.
Knowledge is power; entertainment promotes complacency.
