Fastball as Media Analysis
The documentary Fastball, in addition to giving us some fascinating background about baseball, also provides a great method for explaining the power of media. For example, media provide or supplement the narrative or story from which we then base our lives and make decisions and give us a general framework for understanding our environment. And dominant media often tells us or reinforce for us the presets which govern who we think we are individually and collectively, what we believe and what we think we know. But, just like a fastball, the ideas media deliver move faster than we can consciously interpret leaving us often to use ideological presets to fill in the gaps between what we think should be happening and what actually is.
I don’t even like baseball but I get the analogy. Ingenious!
Up to bat, its 0-2. Here comes another media fastball, a real flamethrower,oops, a swing and a miss I strike out- I didn’t see it coming at all. “The Occupation of the American Mind “is the pitcher. He threw a media fastball so fast I became discombobulated, stunned, bewildered. But upon more critical observation, I began to see with more conscious clarity what was actually happening– that media fastball was customized by the Israel government, the U.S. government, and the pro- Israel Lobby, all joining forces, often with very different motives, to shape American media coverage of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict in Israel’s favor.
Up to bat again, assuredly I feel this time I’ll hit that media ball out of the park!
As usual this type of journalism is stunning to the eyes in many facets. Too bad those who use others to speak for them understand the real degree of how divided media has become.