Here’s just one example of how mass media craps in your brain - an article in The Inquirer about Dell laptop explosion. I picked this one as it is number one in Bloglines’ Top Links for June 21, 2006.
Read it. You’ll notice a whole bunch of crap that was intended for your brain. Need any hints? Here are a few:
- “Dell laptop” (why on earth the brand of the laptop is important in this single case?)
- “exploded into flames, in what could have been a deadly accident” (I’m sorry… deadly?)
- “his advice is …stay away, away, away” (
StupidSilly… Unplug the damn thing! Or cut the power in the room. It’s all about electricity.) - “For the record, this is a Dell machine” (for which record? And why are you so sure and concerned about it anyway?)
- “It is only a matter of time until such an incident breaks out on a plane” (Oh, p’lease! It’s just a laptop. Even if something like this will ever happen on the plane, a trained stuard will take of the fire with fire extinguisher. You don’t have to scary everyone just yet.)
There’s more.
Either it’s all is a joke, or I don’t get it. Damn! I don’t get it even if it’s a joke…
4 responses so far ↓
1
Vladimir Ivaschenko
// Jun 23, 2006 at 9:40 am
“crap for your brain” - is there anything else you use to read articles?
Dell laptop - yeah, for a fact I’m *interested* to know make of laptop exploded. Was it a cheap Chinese noname, or a supposed-to-be-properly-designed laptop from one of the big brands.
Deadly accident - yeah, deadly.
On a plane - even though stewards are trained, fire still can spread quickly, or cause a short circuit etc…
I don’t see anything horribly wrong.
2
Leonid Mamchenkov
// Jun 23, 2006 at 10:40 am
I try to avoid mass media. Prefer blogosphere. Those guys dump in my brains too, but their butts are much smaller.
Brand is important, when there are series of explosions. A trend or something. This one particular incident doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it was one bad in a million of good Dell laptops. Maybe it was used inappropriately. Maybe it was too old (worn cabling) or something.
My point is that planes have nothing to do with this particular incident. In the same logic, they could have said something like “Incident like this, if it would happen at a nuclear power station, could have killed millions of people. A single Dell laptop can wipe out a nation of a small country.”
It was a conference where the laptop exploded and noone reported to be harmed. All this “plane talk” and “deadly accident” are very very irrelevant. Looks like they are trying to make a story way too bigger than it actually was.
3
Jon
// Aug 15, 2006 at 7:50 pm
Now it won’t be long before some terrorist hops on a plane with Dell laptop batteries strapped all over his body. I agree, this story is media hype.
4 Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov » Conspiracy of context sensitive advertising // Aug 15, 2006 at 8:58 pm
[...] A reader of this blog left a comment to one of my earlier posts about media brain wash, a story about Dell notebook exploding at some conference. Jon agreed with me that this story was a pure media hype. In his comment he said exactly this: Now it won’t be long before some terrorist hops on a plane with Dell laptop batteries strapped all over his body. I agree, this story is media hype. [...]
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