Do you believe in the western media?

[Bengal_Tiger]

Do you believe in everything you read in the western media?

Are you one of those people who would follow this statement:

"The western media said it, so it must be true"

Please discuss.

[Bengal_Tiger]

I voted for "No, they are generally inaccurate".

I know this from personal experience.


Some here who have been raised and indoctrinated in the west including being processed through the western education system revere and venerate the western media as being unquestionable sources of "truth" and "knowledge".

In the eyes of such people, the western media can never be questioned, challenged, let alone *shudder* disbelieved! (shock horror).

The western media is always truthful.

The western media never lie.

The western media is run by pure white angelic saintly beings who never lie and whose only goal is the noble goal of telling the truth.

Anyone who says something not in accordance with the "truth" as published in the western media is a "conspiracy theorist", even if he actually has facts on his side and can logically prove his conclusions to be true.

In fact western media fanboys are also, apart from being indoctrinated, very lazy, as I have seen many occasions when someone who differs from the western media narrative presents conclusive proof using actual facts, only for it to be dismissed by a lazy western media fanboy who doesn't actually delve in the argument but is simply too lazy to research and goes by the phrase "the western media said it, so it must be true".









[MENTION=1753]Manzareh[/MENTION]
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[MENTION=5723]Kushan Prince[/MENTION]
[MENTION=223]JAMALUDEEN[/MENTION]
[MENTION=1385]Catya Sher[/MENTION]
[MENTION=8995]DSM0305[/MENTION]
[MENTION=17802]mixxedpashtana[/MENTION]
[MENTION=2329]Karachi[/MENTION]
[MENTION=3580]asad71[/MENTION]
[MENTION=17579]Loy Afghanistan[/MENTION]
[MENTION=1201]Toramana[/MENTION]

[Shamlawar Khurasani]

Nobody believes in the Western Media. Western Media is not a monolithic entity. Neither is it a religion.

The Western media is diverse and pluralistic. There are few major corporations who own the biggest tv channels, radio stations and newspapers. They all have an agenda and they all report everything from their own perspective.

However, there are many alternative news sources. Thanks to the popularity of Internet and social media (both are Western inventions) many alternative sources of information have emerged to counter the big corporations.

It is up to the consumer of news to decide who he/she trusts and who he/she believes.

The Western Media is based on market economy. There is a market for right wing reactionary xenophobic news channel like Fox News. People choose to watch it and they like what they see because the channel appeals to their biases and prejudice.

There is also a market for left wing socialist tree hugging coffee shop revolutionaries. People choose to watch how everything is turned into a class struggle. Data, facts and logic doesn't matter.

Ethics of journalism is just politics. You need to claim to be ethical in order to appear respectable. In reality, journalists and media outlets from all sides violate their own code of ethics in order to attract more viewers, readers etc.

People who believe in ethics and standards and expect everyone to abide by the rules are either extremely naive or stupid.

Despite all of this, Western Media is a better alternative to Russian, Iranian, Chinese, Syrian or Arab media.

The market economy which drives Western media has a positive effect on quality of news reports. The fact that there are many alternatives forces people to present a decent picture of what is happening, even if they incorporate some lies and disinformation.

In a non Western news source, there is no competition, no alternatives. This is why Russia Today, Sputnik, Press TV and similar stations are full of crap. Their staff are extremely unprofessional and they are so biased it almost looks like they are trying to compete with Colbert Report.

I am in favor of diversity and pluralism. If there are enough alternatives, people will be able to look and compare news stories and decide what they are going to believe.

Personally, I don't trust anyone. I look at the reports, the stories and documentaries and decide for myself what to believe.

If I would limit myself to only a few sources I would be deliberately deceiving myself. After all, I am biased like everyone else. Therefore I often read what people say who I disagree with. By reading and listening to people I disagree with I learn more than just shutting my ears nd eyes.

I believe I have benefited from plurality in the West. I believe in more openness and freedom of information.

[Shamlawar Khurasani]

I voted for "No, they are generally inaccurate".

I know this from personal experience.


Some here who have been raised and indoctrinated in the west including being processed through the western education system revere and venerate the western media as being unquestionable sources of "truth" and "knowledge".

In the eyes of such people, the western media can never be questioned, challenged, let alone *shudder* disbelieved! (shock horror).

The western media is always truthful.

The western media never lie.

The western media is run by pure white angelic saintly beings who never lie and whose only goal is the noble goal of telling the truth.

Anyone who says something not in accordance with the "truth" as published in the western media is a "conspiracy theorist", even if he actually has facts on his side and can logically prove his conclusions to be true.

In fact western media fanboys are also, apart from being indoctrinated, very lazy, as I have seen many occasions when someone who differs from the western media narrative presents conclusive proof using actual facts, only for it to be dismissed by a lazy western media fanboy who doesn't actually delve in the argument but is simply too lazy to research and goes by the phrase "the western media said it, so it must be true".









[MENTION=1753]Manzareh[/MENTION]
[MENTION=18277]Afghanfootball[/MENTION]
[MENTION=5723]Kushan Prince[/MENTION]
[MENTION=223]JAMALUDEEN[/MENTION]
[MENTION=1385]Catya Sher[/MENTION]
[MENTION=8995]DSM0305[/MENTION]
[MENTION=17802]mixxedpashtana[/MENTION]
[MENTION=2329]Karachi[/MENTION]
[MENTION=3580]asad71[/MENTION]
[MENTION=17579]Loy Afghanistan[/MENTION]
[MENTION=1201]Toramana[/MENTION]

How do you define fact? When you rely on a news report, you rely on the reporters honesty. Reporter can choose to omit certain information to depict a particular picture. As a consumer of news reports you have limited access to what is happening and therefore it is very unlikely for you to know all the facts.

You can't verify stuff independently and you are merely relying on the work of reporters.

[Bengal_Tiger]

Today 09:02 AM
Shamlawar Khurasani This user is on your Ignore List.
Today 07:45 AM
Shamlawar Khurasani This user is on your Ignore List.

Guys please ignore Wahabi Takfeeri, Shamlawar Khurasani, as he is only here to disrupt sensible and productive discussion and declare people as "infidels" and "apostates", he is the forum joke, ignored by sensible people.


Re Topic:

I believe that more and more educated and sincere Western followers of current affairs due to their greater access of information online can now determine how accurate (or not) the western media is.

Prior to the internet/social media age, the western media had a monopoly in the west (and elsewhere e.g. Reuters and other "news" organizations) and there was very little media available which differed from their narrative.

The average person in the west regards the mainstream news media as "bona fide" as reliable just as we would treat a certified/accredited doctor/accountant/architect over someone who is uncertified/unaccredited.

However apart from the lazy, "watch the TV after dinner" type average westerner, more informed people have a plethora of material, blogs, sites to discover information.

They are finding out more and more that the western media is often inaccurate and agenda-driven.


Press TV, RT etc











I would not hesitate to say that Press TV, RT are also propaganda organizations. However to ascribe the qualities of unfairness, being biased and agenda-driven to them alone and then to say that the western media is

- Always fair
- Always truthful
- Free of any agenda
- Composed of angelic souls who never lie

is wrong.

The BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, Fox are all also propaganda organizations, which just as Press TV, RT try to promote narratives which favour their cause, promote narratives which favour the agenda of western governments.

Western media also have a degree of credibility as they are seen to question, challenge, even embarrass their governments, this is merely done to give the notion of a free media and to dispel any perception that they are unfair.

On all major foreign policy issues, they do nothing but parrot the line of their governments.

Some would say this is because they are part of corporate organizations that run western governments that is the media owners own/run the governments.

This would be palatable to "anti-conspiracy theorists".

Others would say that the western governments through their agencies run these media organizations e.g. the BBC, i.e. they are propaganda arms of these states.


Whilst the same western media fanboys could accept this being said about Press TV, RT (which are indeed propaganda arms of their state), they could never accept this about the BBC, CNN etc, as they believe that the BBC, CNN are run by good white angelic people who would never do such a thing, only *darkies* or semi-European Slavs like the Iranians or Russians could do such a thing, not the good, white middle class elite of America and Britain.

However for western media fanboys there is a complete absence of any critical filter to decide if western media content is true or accurate, they give blind, unquestioning loyalty to the western media.

[Shamlawar Khurasani]

Trying to balance Western media bias by looking at Press Tv is like washing dirt stays from your clothes with urine.

[DaZahroJaam.]

i love how it's made to seem as if the reader has 5 different options when it comes to answering but in reality, there is only one and half answers asked in 5 different ways. show how manipulative of a bitch the writer is.

no, i don't trust the media. not south, east, west or northern one. alot of truth can be revealed in the way something is presented to one. is the article that you are reading highlighting/exaggerating any facts?? is it telling everyone's point of view?? are there corners to this story that has not been developed at all?? all of that together tells the truth, not the title or the body of an article you read or a report you hear on tv.

[Shamlawar Khurasani]

Tandulkar considers RT and Press Tv as most reliable source of information.

[Samandri]

Bengali kachray, why you even post such polls and questions when most of the members here are on your ignore list?

[Loy Afghanistan]

Do you believe in everything you read in the western media?

Are you one of those people who would follow this statement:

"The western media said it, so it must be true"

Please discuss.

Tell German girls I AM A JEW that 3 cooperation's owns ALL WESTERN MAINSTREAMS. She will say you lie!

[HalloIsBack]

Tell German girls I AM A JEW that 3 cooperation's owns ALL WESTERN MAINSTREAMS. She will say you lie!

why do you always twist every word of mine?

3 are still more than in russia and in iran with just one cooperation!

[DaZahroJaam.]

[DaZahroJaam.]

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Sandro Botticelli
This article is about the Italian Renaissance painter. For other uses, see Botticelli (disambiguation).
Sandro Botticelli
Sandro Botticelli 083.jpg
Probable self-portrait of Botticelli, in his Adoration of the Magi (1475)
Born Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi
20 April 1446
Florence, Republic of Florence, (now Italy)
Died 17 May 1510 (aged 64)
Florence, Republic of Florence (now Italy)
Nationality Italian
Education Filippo Lippi
Andrea del Verrocchio
Known for Painting
Notable work Primavera
The Birth of Venus
The Adoration of the Magi
Other works
Movement Italian Renaissance
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, known as Sandro Botticelli (Italian: [ˈsandro bottiˈtʃɛlli]; c. 1445[1] – May 17, 1510), was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. He belonged to the Florentine School under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici, a movement that Giorgio Vasari would characterize less than a hundred years later in his Vita of Botticelli as a "golden age". Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century; since then, his work has been seen to represent the linear grace of Early Renaissance painting.

Among Botticelli's best-known works are The Birth of Venus and Primavera.

Early life Edit

Botticelli was born in the city of Florence in a house in the Via Nuova, Borg'Ognissanti to Mariano di Vanni d'Amedeo Filipepi. Vasari reported that he was initially trained as a goldsmith by his brother Antonio.[2] There are very few details of Botticelli's life, but it is known that he became an apprentice when he was about fourteen years old, which would indicate that he received a fuller education than other Renaissance artists. Probably by 1462 he was apprenticed to Fra Filippo Lippi;[3] many of his early works have been attributed to the elder master, and attributions continue to be uncertain. Influenced also by the monumentality of Masaccio's painting, it was from Lippi that Botticelli learned a more intimate and detailed manner. As recently discovered, during this time, Botticelli could have traveled to Hungary, participating in the creation of a fresco in Esztergom, ordered in the workshop of Filippo Lippi by János Vitéz, then archbishop of Hungary.[citation needed]

By 1470, Botticelli had his own workshop. Even at this early date, his work was characterized by a conception of the figure as if seen in low relief, drawn with clear contours, and minimizing strong contrasts of light and shadow which would indicate fully modeled forms.

Maturity Edit


Primavera (c. 1482), icon of the springtime renewal of the Florentine Renaissance, also at the summer palazzo of Pierfrancesco de' Medici, as a companion piece to the Birth of Venus and Pallas and the Centaur. Left to right: Mercury, the Three Graces, Venus, Flora, Chloris, Zephyrus
The Adoration of the Magi for Santa Maria Novella (c. 1475–1476, now at the Uffizi), contains the portraits of Cosimo de Medici, his sons Piero and Giovanni, and his grandsons Lorenzo and Giuliano. The quality of the scene was hailed by Vasari as one of Botticelli's pinnacles. In 1481, Pope Sixtus IV summoned Botticelli and other prominent Florentine and Umbrian artists to fresco the walls of the Sistine Chapel. The iconological program was the supremacy of the Papacy. Sandro's contribution included the Temptations of Christ, the Punishment of the Rebels and Trial of Moses. He returned to Florence, and "being of a sophistical turn of mind, he there wrote a commentary on a portion of Dante and illustrated the Inferno which he printed, spending much time over it, and this abstention from work led to serious disorders in his living." Thus Vasari characterized the first printed Dante (1481) with Botticelli's decorations; he could not imagine that the new art of printing might occupy an artist.


The Madonna of the Book
The masterpieces Primavera (c. 1482) and The Birth of Venus (c. 1485) were both seen by Vasari at the villa of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici at Castello in the mid-16th century, and until recently, it was assumed that both works were painted specifically for the villa. Recent scholarship suggests otherwise: the Primavera was painted for Lorenzo's townhouse in Florence, and The Birth of Venus was commissioned by someone else for a different site. By 1499, both had been installed at Castello.[4]

In these works, the influence of Gothic realism is tempered by Botticelli's study of the antique. But if the painterly means may be understood, the subjects themselves remain fascinating for their ambiguity. The complex meanings of these paintings continue to receive widespread scholarly attention, mainly focusing on the poetry and philosophy of humanists who were the artist's contemporaries. The works do not illustrate particular texts; rather, each relies upon several texts for its significance. Of their beauty, characterized by Vasari as exemplifying "grace" and by John Ruskin as possessing linear rhythm, there can be no doubt. The pictures features Botticelli's linear style emphasized by the soft continual contours and pastel colors.[5]

In the mid-1480s, Botticelli worked on a major fresco cycle with Perugino, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Filippino Lippi, for Lorenzo the Magnificent's villa near Volterra; in addition he painted many frescoes in Florentine churches. In 1491 he served on a committee to decide upon a façade for the Cathedral of Florence.

Influence of Savonarola Edit


The Mystical Nativity
In later life, Botticelli was one of the followers of the deeply moralistic friar Girolamo Savonarola who preached in Florence from 1490 until his execution in 1498, though the full extent of Savonarola's influence remains uncertain.[6]

"Like much of Florence, Botticelli had come under the sway of Savonarola and his art had transformed from the decorative to the deeply devout – The Mystical Nativity (c. 1500–1501) [for example] bears all the signs of this change"[7]

"The story that he burnt his own paintings on pagan themes in the notorious "Bonfire of the Vanities" is not told by Vasari, who nevertheless asserts that of the sect of Savonarola "he was so ardent a partisan that he was thereby induced to desert his painting, and, having no income to live on, fell into very great distress. For this reason, persisting in his attachment to that party, and becoming a Piagnone[8] he abandoned his work."

Botticelli biographer Ernst Steinmann searched for the artist's psychological development through his Madonnas. In the "deepening of insight and expression in the rendering of Mary's physiognomy", Steinmann discerned proof of Savonarola's influence over Botticelli. (In Steinmann's work the dates of a number of Madonnas were placed at a later point in the artist's life). Steinmann disagreed with Vasari's assertion that Botticelli produced nothing after coming under the influence of Savonarola, believing rather that the spiritual and emotional Virgins painted by Sandro followed directly from the teachings of the Dominican monk.

Death and posthumous eclipse Edit


Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist, c. 1470–1475, Louvre
Botticelli was already little employed in 1502. In 1504 he was a member of the committee appointed to decide where Michelangelo's David would be placed. His later work, especially as seen in a series on the life of St. Zenobius, witnessed a diminution of scale, expressively distorted figures, and a non-naturalistic use of colour reminiscent of the work of Fra Angelico nearly a century earlier. After his death, his reputation was eclipsed longer and more thoroughly than that of any other major European artist. His paintings remained in the churches and villas[9] for which they had been created, his frescoes in the Sistine Chapel upstaged by Michelangelo's.

British collector William Young Ottley had however brought Botticelli's The Mystical Nativity to London with him in 1799 after buying it in Italy. After Ottley's death, its next purchaser, William Fuller Maitland of Stansted, allowed it to be exhibited in a major art exhibition held in Manchester in 1857, the Art Treasures Exhibition,[10] where among many other art works it was viewed by more than a million people.

The first nineteenth-century art historian to have looked with satisfaction at Botticelli's Sistine frescoes was Alexis-François Rio; Anna Brownell Jameson and Charles Eastlake were alerted to Botticelli, works by his hand began to appear in German collections, and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood incorporated elements of his work into their own.[11] Walter Pater created a literary picture of Botticelli, who was then taken up by the Aesthetic movement. The first monograph on the artist was published in 1893; then, between 1900 and 1920 more books were written on Botticelli than on any other painter.[12]

Private life Edit


The Birth of Venus, 1486. Uffizi, Florence
Botticelli never wed, and expressed a strong disliking to the idea of marriage, a prospect he claimed gave him nightmares.[13]

The popular view is that he suffered from an unrequited love for Simonetta Vespucci, a married noblewoman. According to popular belief, she had served as the model for The Birth of Venus and recurs throughout his paintings, despite the fact that she had died years earlier, in 1476. Botticelli asked that when he died, he be buried at her feet in the Church of Ognissanti in Florence. His wish was carried out when he died some 34 years later, in 1510.

Some modern historians have also examined other aspects of his sexuality. In 1938, Jacques Mesnil discovered a summary of a charge in the Florentine Archives for November 16, 1502, which read simply "Botticelli keeps a boy", under an accusation of sodomy. The painter would then have been fifty-eight; the charges were eventually dropped. Mesnil dismissed it as a customary slander by which partisans and adversaries of Savonarola abused each other. Opinion remains divided on whether this is evidence of homosexuality.[14] Many have firmly backed Mesnil,[15] but others have cautioned against hasty dismissal of the charge.[16] Yet while speculating on the subject of his paintings, Mesnil nevertheless concluded "woman was not the only object of his love".[17]

Works Edit

Main article: List of works by Sandro Botticelli
Portraits by Sandro Botticelli

Portrait of a young woman, possible Simonetta Vespucci, 1484


Portrait of a Man with a Medal of Cosimo the Elder, 1474


Portrait of a young man with red hat, c. 1485


Dante Alighieri, 1495


Giuliano di' Medici c. 1475


La Bella Simonetta Simonetta Vespucci, c. 1480-1485


Portrait of a young man holding a medallion c. 1480-1485


Portrait of a Young Woman, 1475

Other

Madonna


Cestello Annunciation


Madonna of the Pomegranate (Madonna della Melagrana)


Adoration of the Magi


Angels


Lamentation over the Dead Christ


Calumny of Apelles, detail


Madonna with lillies and eight angels, c. 1478


Despair


St. Sebastian, 1474


Venus and Mars, c. 1483. Tempera on panel, 69 cm x 173 cm


See also Edit

List of Italian painters
Renaissance painting
References and sources Edit

References
^ Patrick, Renaissance and Reformation vol 1, 2007. Other sources give 1446, 1447 or 1444–45.
^ According to Vasari, he was still in school in February 1458; an able pupil, he easily grew restless, and was initially apprenticed as a goldsmith. Lightbown, p. 19.
^ Lightbown, p. 20.
^ Smith, Webster: On the Original Location of the Primavera.
^ R. W. Lightbown (1978). Sandro Botticelli: Life and work. University of California Press. p. 25. ISBN 05-20033-72-8. During the colouring Botticelli strengthened many of the contours by means of a pointed instrument, probably to give them the bold clarity so characteristic of his linear style.
^ Murphy, Mimi (March 21, 2004). "Return of a forgotten master". time.com.
^ The Private Life of a Christmas Masterpiece The Mystic Nativity BBC TV 2009
^ A "Weeper" or "Mourner", as the repentant followers of Savonarola were called. (Vasari text on-line).
^ Primavera and The Birth of Venus remained in the Grand Ducal Medici villa of Castello until 1815. (Levey 1960:292
^ bulletin.us
^ Pre-Raphaelite Art in the Victoria & Albert Museum, Suzanne Fagence Cooper, p.95-96 ISBN 1-85177-394-0
^ This section is based on Michael Levey, "Botticelli and Nineteenth-Century England" Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 23.3/4 (July 1960:291–306).
^ Ronald Lightbown, Sandro Botticelli: Life and Work, New York, 1989
^ Louis Crompton, Homosexuality and Civilization, Harvard University, 2003
^ Michael Rocke, Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence, Oxford University Press, 1996, ISBN 9780195069754
^ Andre Chastel, Art et humanisme a Florence au temps de Laurent le Magnifique, Presses Universitaires de France, 1959
^ Jacques Mesnil, Botticelli, Paris, 1938
Sources
Knackfuss H., Monographs On Artists, VI. Botticelli by Ernst Steinman, Translated by Campbell Dodgson, New York, Lemcke & Huachner, 1901, Pg. 112.
New York Times, Life of Botticelli, November 19, 1904, Page BR783.
Da Vinci Declassified, 2006 TLC documentary
Ullman, H., Sandro Botticelli, 1893
Yashiro, Y., Sandro Botticelli and the Florentine Renaissance, London 1929
Lightbown, R., Sandro Botticelli: Life and Work, London 1989
The New Encyclopædia Britannica, Macropaedia, Volume 2, 1991, Page 413-14.
Further reading Edit

In his book Sandro Botticelli: Life and Work, Ronald Lightbown claims "There are only two books to attempt a catalogue raisonné of the works of Botticelli and his school" (source: page 328 of the 1989 edition). These are the two books:

Salvini R., Tutti la pittura del Botticelli, Milan, Rizzoli Editore, 1958 (in Italian)
Mandel G., Botticelli, 1969 (in English; earlier Italian [1967] and French [1968] versions exist)
External links Edit

Sandro Botticelli Biography, Style and Technique
"Botticelli". Panopticon Virtual Art Gallery. Archived from the original on 21 June 2007.
World of Dante Botticelli's Dante illustrations and interactive version in the Chart of Hell
sandrobotticelli.net, 200 works by Sandro Botticelli
Web Gallery of Art Biography of Sandro Botticelli
Echoes of Botticelli in Early Modern Sources Explores primary sources related to Botticelli and Savonarola
Boticelli, a video analysis about The Birth of Venus, that obscure object of desire.
Colvin, Sidney (1911). "Botticelli, Sandro". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.).
Wikisource-logo.svg "Botticelli, Sandro". The American Cyclopædia. 1879.
Italian Paintings: Florentine School, a collection catalog containing information about the artist and his works (see pages: 159-167).
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[Zarim]

I don't think it's wise to blindly believe any form of media, but especially television as they are in my opinion the most susceptible to corporate/governmental control. They all have some sort of political agenda. In order to really know what goes on in the world, you unfortunately have to follow all kinds of different news channels and cross off the things that they do not have in common. The few things that they do have in common is usually based on facts, whilst the rest is propaganda bs.

[DaZahroJaam.]