Ralph Schism: Inventor of modern citizen/ social media journalism says it has caused more real suffering than good.

New. audio is also on youtube

New paras added above the Unherd example talk.

ADDED link to audio in downloadable m4a file - substack best though...

First draft.

May improve over the next week.

Audio essay for now, to be written up soon,weaving together:

Violence and the spectacle

of bloody imagery that HURTS, all of us so much.

And has simply caused increasing angst in humans over thousands of years. But now - the last 15 years, turbocharged.

From the iron age into the modern, personal broadcast, media age.

meandering through:

Arab wars

Yugoslavia

Syria

Ukraine

Gaza

etc.

but realy its about interpersonal angst.

Plus children and phones

( largest change in child pdychology, ever)

All that matters, as a utilitarian - some stupid postmodern backward thinking smartarses seem to think is a wonky concept, is the greatest good for greatest number... doesnt sound wonky to me...

Over time, more real grassroots ' campaigning' media, I arguably the forerunner of, almost worldwide - in a legal 'licensing' sense, i know has done more real lasting harm to more human beings.

AUDIO ESSAY to be written up one day

Inventor of modern citizen/ social media journalism says it has caused more real suffering than good.

https://open.substack.com/pub/ralphschism/p/inventor-of-modern-citizen-social?r=2jdt8a&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

substack free and no sign up required

The fundamental point is not enough emphasised, in the talk: by supposedly humanising all matters of conflict from personal to international, via more up close imagery, all we have done is sow fear and angst...

If some Russian conscript ' sees' the video of the Russian soldier, being filmed for the social media, being executed by Ukranian soldiers , then that sets a further level of fearful angst in him such that if at a later date he may be faced with a choice to shoot or make peace, he will have so much more hurt and fear of his opponent, and maybe shoot first... rather than Be other...

and in google drive downloadable audio file

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vVEm3PymHjDEN01rfCTGDtdMFYE8Ix7Y/view?usp=sharing

full waffle as an audio on youtube

add in bits:

Obviously this is aside the US constitutional protection there, of freedom to publish, however we WOULD monitor 2005- 10 how US citizens used social media to call out local injustices against the ordinary citizen, and they were not ahead of UK citizen journalism - in fact almost seemed to lag behind.

references

World service programme 0430 today on Land rights

In Malaysian Borneo, indigenous people have struggled for land rights against companies and the state. Using new mapping technology, communities in Borneo’s rainforests are racing to prove their claims. In this episode of Trending we’ll be exploring how technology and

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct5d9k

One of many of the ' new media', poor Constantin must believe in himself... so he can get his wage.... and even if so smugly self deprecates, to get more wages from more endless coverage of more conflict

Without thinking... of really what negative effects may have crept into the real lives of ordinary people....? He one of many new kings of ' alternative media'

The angst that sweeps even the junior school, never mind that which causes 'static,' in the minds of those who matter even more, at the sharp end- those with power to really hurt and shed blood.

Sadly none of these people can ...think

But more importantly, all - every modern comentator on democracy or conflict i ever hear, suffer an elitist myopic viewpoint. " human rights" ... ....oh yes we have better human rights.

But all that maatters is human beings' daily lived life. And all is relative.

I can quite assure that even if Russia, as one of many examples, is said to suffer a deficit in rights, and quite rightly a good thought experiment towards the end about the Russia- critical Russian journalist, nevertheless many many people are hurt .. really emotionally damaged, by many many smaller injustices, yes even in the UK - maybe relatively far more in fact. And even more are damaged over time by selfish atomised ways of life. Or entirely faulty inhuman benefit stsyems and so called good blokes helping the ill people ( remain their pets) , as i described a few weeks ago here.

To ascertain which " humans" have a routinely better ordinary life is not simple and these people.. influential ' journalists' now can never think beyond the showbiz end of human suffering: gulags or war.

Humans are social beasts and it may well be that a healthier ordinary ' society' exists in Russia or other suposedly oppresive regimes. ( despite the corrupt oligarchs and tyrants)

100s of thousands of citizens in the UK suffer terrible lifelong mental injury folowing injustice. I am not Putin fan at all. I am a pacifist. However to pick out bad things happening at the extreme end of Russian life without also considering a wider possible damage - here for example, by kafkaesque injustice, is immature to say the least.

Many 100s of thousands of Brits for example live with great anguish and trauma after false alegatons or the like. I doubt anything like as rampant in Russian society over the whole.