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Message no. 1
From: Martin Steffens <chimerae@***.IE>
Subject: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Sat, 11 Jul 1998 11:40:39 +0000
A few days ago I just saw this program on channel 4 (UK) about this
American couple (the Ramseys) who's daughter was killed and were
accused of killing her by the media. The program showed how the whole
media hype was based on nothing more than a load of unsubstantiated
rumours, some of them secretly spread by the police to put the
parents under pressure. It just shocked me to see how quickly this
completely got out of control, simply because nobody checked their
sources, and if one paper mentioned something the others just copied
it and added some juicy bits.
The end conclusion was that it was far from certain that the couple
had anything at all to do with the death (I leave that in the middle,
because that's not really the topic here), but the media, being
controlled by the corps, just had to go for ratings and couldn't
afford losing out on a story by checking it out themselves.
In effect what happened was that one news agency reported something
from a source, they didn't check out that source, or tried to get
some more proof, and everyone else just accepted that as the truth
and published away.
And the end result for the couple was that they had to go through an
absolute hell, being accused of murder, abuse and sexual abuse while
there was no evidence at all.

Now where I want to go with this is to the 20-fifties where almost
all the media is controlled by the corps and the pressure for ratings
is probably much higher than today, so what's the media in the
20-fifties? One whisper in the hall way and your career is doomed?
Journalists accepting everything they hear from the corps as chip
truth because they haven't got the time to confirm a rumour?
And since the cops are owned by corps, how much of what they tell is
true?
Rumours that spread the world in a day thanks to the wonders of
the matrix (just think of the number of chain letters,
"send-a-fax-card to the poor kid with VITAS-3", false virus warnings,
etc.) with a truth to nonsense ratio of 1:100?

How many people just assume that the shadow-rants are true just
because they're in the books (and everything in the books is the
truth)? Heck you can see it happening on the list already with the
leather bound SR3 rumour.
how many GMs litter their players with mis-information, simply
because that's the way the world works?

comments, rants, rumours?


Martin Steffens
(chimerae@***.ie)
-----------------
Hey Butt-Head, what did people do before they invented TV?
Don't be stupid, Beavis. There's always been TV, there's just more channels now.
Message no. 2
From: Smilin' Ted <Tuvyah@***.COM>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 03:54:28 EDT
In a message dated 7/11/98 9:51:39 PM, Martin Steffens wrote:

>A few days ago I just saw this program on channel 4 (UK) about this
>American couple (the Ramseys) who's daughter was killed and were
>accused of killing her by the media. The program showed how the whole
>media hype was based on nothing more than a load of unsubstantiated
>rumours, some of them secretly spread by the police to put the
>parents under pressure. It just shocked me to see how quickly this
>completely got out of control, simply because nobody checked their
>sources, and if one paper mentioned something the others just copied
>it and added some juicy bits.
>The end conclusion was that it was far from certain that the couple
>had anything at all to do with the death (I leave that in the middle,
>because that's not really the topic here), but the media, being
>controlled by the corps, just had to go for ratings and couldn't
>afford losing out on a story by checking it out themselves.

Well... a couple of things.

First, for a look at how the media functions in Shadowrun, try "Shadowbeat",
if you can find it. It's nice background, although not my favorite sourcebook.

Second, about the Ramsey case specifically: You should realize that

(1) The first thing JonBenet Ramsey's parents did was *not* volunteer to help
the cops -- it was to hire a criminal defense lawyer. They then refused to
provide any assistance to the police beyond what they were legally compelled
to do. That behavior is what sparked initial media interest in the story and
suspicion of the parents.
(2) The parents -- particularly the father -- regularly entered the six-year
old girl in beauty pageants and dressed and groomed her like a miniature
adult. If you could have seen the videotape of JonBenet performing like a teen
beauty queen in a little denim miniskirt, with lipstick, earrings, and swaying
hips, you would have been damn suspicious of the parents as well.
(3) Finally, the sad truth is that in any murder (at least in the US, I can't
speak for other countries) the most likely perpetrator is someone known to the
victim, often a family member.

Ted
Message no. 3
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 11:58:05 +0100
Martin Steffens said on 11:40/11 Jul 98,...

> Now where I want to go with this is to the 20-fifties where almost
> all the media is controlled by the corps and the pressure for ratings
> is probably much higher than today, so what's the media in the
> 20-fifties? One whisper in the hall way and your career is doomed?
> Journalists accepting everything they hear from the corps as chip
> truth because they haven't got the time to confirm a rumour?
> And since the cops are owned by corps, how much of what they tell is
> true?

Have you read Idoru by William Gibson? One of the main
characters (Laney) used to work for a TV show that focused itself
completely on making and breaking carreers, mainly those of
famous people. All for good ratings (and because one of the
people in charge enjoyed it).

I would assume shows like that exist in SR as well, although
perhaps not with quite as much impact as the one in Idoru thinks
it has.

> Rumours that spread the world in a day thanks to the wonders
of
> the matrix (just think of the number of chain letters,
> "send-a-fax-card to the poor kid with VITAS-3", false virus warnings,
> etc.) with a truth to nonsense ratio of 1:100?

Just the other day my father told me to be careful for one of those
email "viruses"; at his office he (and a lot of others) had been
warned for one with the title "win a vacation," by none other than
the SYSADMIN...!

> How many people just assume that the shadow-rants are true just
> because they're in the books (and everything in the books is the
> truth)? Heck you can see it happening on the list already with the
> leather bound SR3 rumour.
> how many GMs litter their players with mis-information, simply
> because that's the way the world works?

That's because for some reason people very quickly believe
something to be true once they _read_ it somewhere, as opposed
to when hearing it. The underlying rationale is something like "If
it weren't true, why would it be in print?" which is about as stupid
as you can get, of course...

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
"That's IT, lunchbox!!! We'll go to Shermer, Illinois!"
-> NERPS Project Leader * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-
-> The New Character Mortuary: http://www.electricferret.com/mortuary/ <-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ U P L E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 4
From: peterottwell <peterottwell@*******.COM>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 08:04:46 -0700
> A few days ago I just saw this program on channel 4 (UK) about this
> American couple (the Ramseys) who's daughter was killed and were
> accused of killing her by the media. The program showed how the whole
> media hype was based on nothing more than a load of unsubstantiated
> rumours, some of them secretly spread by the police to put the
> parents under pressure. It just shocked me to see how quickly this
> completely got out of control, simply because nobody checked their
> sources, and if one paper mentioned something the others just copied
> it and added some juicy bits.
> The end conclusion was that it was far from certain that the couple
> had anything at all to do with the death (I leave that in the middle,
> because that's not really the topic here), but the media, being
> controlled by the corps, just had to go for ratings and couldn't
> afford losing out on a story by checking it out themselves.
> In effect what happened was that one news agency reported something
> from a source, they didn't check out that source, or tried to get
> some more proof, and everyone else just accepted that as the truth
> and published away.
> And the end result for the couple was that they had to go through an
> absolute hell, being accused of murder, abuse and sexual abuse while
> there was no evidence at all.
>
> Now where I want to go with this is to the 20-fifties where almost
> all the media is controlled by the corps and the pressure for ratings
> is probably much higher than today, so what's the media in the
> 20-fifties? One whisper in the hall way and your career is doomed?
> Journalists accepting everything they hear from the corps as chip
> truth because they haven't got the time to confirm a rumour?
> And since the cops are owned by corps, how much of what they tell is
> true?
> Rumours that spread the world in a day thanks to the wonders of
> the matrix (just think of the number of chain letters,
> "send-a-fax-card to the poor kid with VITAS-3", false virus warnings,
> etc.) with a truth to nonsense ratio of 1:100?
>
> How many people just assume that the shadow-rants are true just
> because they're in the books (and everything in the books is the
> truth)? Heck you can see it happening on the list already with the
> leather bound SR3 rumour.
> how many GMs litter their players with mis-information, simply
> because that's the way the world works?
>
> comments, rants, rumours?
>
>
> Martin Steffens
> (chimerae@***.ie)
> -----------------
> Hey Butt-Head, what did people do before they invented TV?
> Don't be stupid, Beavis. There's always been TV, there's just more
channels now.



Media is a golden goose that lays scrambled eggs; and it is futile and
probably fatal to beat it for not laying caviar. Anyway, more people like
scrambled eggs than caviar.
-Lee Loevinger, Federal Communications Commission
Message no. 5
From: peterottwell <peterottwell@*******.COM>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 08:10:51 -0700
[Media Executives] are afraid to advertise condoms that could save lives,
but do not blush about telecasting a National Geographic special on
President Regan's pelvic plumbing.
-Martin F Nolan

p.s. just had to through that in there!!!

----------
> From: Martin Steffens <chimerae@***.IE>
> To: SHADOWRN@********.ITRIBE.NET
> Subject: Rumours and Media in 2050
> Date: Saturday, July 11, 1998 4:40 AM
>
> A few days ago I just saw this program on channel 4 (UK) about this
> American couple (the Ramseys) who's daughter was killed and were
> accused of killing her by the media. The program showed how the whole
> media hype was based on nothing more than a load of unsubstantiated
> rumours, some of them secretly spread by the police to put the
> parents under pressure. It just shocked me to see how quickly this
> completely got out of control, simply because nobody checked their
> sources, and if one paper mentioned something the others just copied
> it and added some juicy bits.
> The end conclusion was that it was far from certain that the couple
> had anything at all to do with the death (I leave that in the middle,
> because that's not really the topic here), but the media, being
> controlled by the corps, just had to go for ratings and couldn't
> afford losing out on a story by checking it out themselves.
> In effect what happened was that one news agency reported something
> from a source, they didn't check out that source, or tried to get
> some more proof, and everyone else just accepted that as the truth
> and published away.
> And the end result for the couple was that they had to go through an
> absolute hell, being accused of murder, abuse and sexual abuse while
> there was no evidence at all.
>
> Now where I want to go with this is to the 20-fifties where almost
> all the media is controlled by the corps and the pressure for ratings
> is probably much higher than today, so what's the media in the
> 20-fifties? One whisper in the hall way and your career is doomed?
> Journalists accepting everything they hear from the corps as chip
> truth because they haven't got the time to confirm a rumour?
> And since the cops are owned by corps, how much of what they tell is
> true?
> Rumours that spread the world in a day thanks to the wonders of
> the matrix (just think of the number of chain letters,
> "send-a-fax-card to the poor kid with VITAS-3", false virus warnings,
> etc.) with a truth to nonsense ratio of 1:100?
>
> How many people just assume that the shadow-rants are true just
> because they're in the books (and everything in the books is the
> truth)? Heck you can see it happening on the list already with the
> leather bound SR3 rumour.
> how many GMs litter their players with mis-information, simply
> because that's the way the world works?
>
> comments, rants, rumours?
>
>
> Martin Steffens
> (chimerae@***.ie)
> -----------------
> Hey Butt-Head, what did people do before they invented TV?
> Don't be stupid, Beavis. There's always been TV, there's just more
channels now.
Message no. 6
From: Spike <u5a77@*****.CS.KEELE.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 15:50:49 +0100
And verily, did peterottwell so hastily scribble the stuff below that he was
too lazy to edit the text, or even put it AFTER the quoted text..*sigh*...
|
|[Media Executives] are afraid to advertise condoms that could save lives,
|but do not blush about telecasting a National Geographic special on
|President Regan's pelvic plumbing.
| -Martin F Nolan
|
| p.s. just had to through that in there!!!


But did you *have* to through <sic> in the entire article TWICE?
Ever heard of editing?
First, here, catch. It'll probably smell for a few weeks, but...


##### # # # # ## #####
# # # # # # # # #
# ###### # # # # # #
# # # # ## # ###### #####
# # # ## ## # # #
# # # # # # # #


Second, read the FAQ. I believe Gridsec have already mentioned the correct
method of quoting text this weekend. DO IT!

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|u5a77@*****.cs.keele.ac.uk| Windows95 (noun): 32 bit extensions and a |
| | graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit |
|Andrew Halliwell | operating system originally coded for a 4 bit |
|Principal Subjects in:- |microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company, that|
|Comp Sci & Electronics | can't stand 1 bit of competition. |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|GCv3.1 GCS/EL>$ d---(dpu) s+/- a- C++ U N++ o+ K- w-- M+/++ PS+++ PE- Y t+ |
|5++ X+/++ R+ tv+ b+ D G e>PhD h/h+ !r! !y-|I can't say F**K either now! :( |
Message no. 7
From: Wordman <wordman@*******.COM>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 11:00:43 -0400
>A few days ago I just saw this program on channel 4 (UK) about this
>American couple (the Ramseys) who's daughter was killed and were
>accused of killing her by the media.

I suppose it was inevitable that this story would eventually pollute
international airwaves. The problem I had with this story is that it just
really isn't interesting enough to warrant the long media exposure it
received. I could see this being the top story for a single day, then in the
top five or so for the next few days, but this story was heavily covered for
months. You can still see the kid on the tabloid covers.

About the only thing that "knocked it off the charts" so to speak was the
even more inane Monica Lewinski story.

The American fascination with gossip in media is destroying the U.S. and
it's getting worse. I'm sure you can find hosts of people who know every
facet of Monica Lewinski's life, but couldn't tell you who the governor of
their own state is. By 205X, I imagine that the "news" will be making up
stuff, since obviously no one is paying attention.

On the other hand, there have been a bunch of news items recently who have
been shafted for reporting false stories, so maybe _someone_ is paying
attention. The most famous was the Vietnam War nerve gas thing, but there
have been many more recently than I can remember happening before. I saw an
editorial cartoon showing a TV news anchorman saying "we'll be right back
with weather, sports and retractions".

>Now where I want to go with this is to the 20-fifties where almost
>all the media is controlled by the corps and the pressure for ratings
>is probably much higher than today, so what's the media in the
>20-fifties?

The first thing is that any given major news service will likely be a subtle
(or not-so) propaganda machine for the megacorp that owns them. Usually this
ownership is not obvious, so people are generally unaware what the bias is.
I used to write News Intellegencers for my players with an Ares bias. For
example, stories about Lone Star tended to focus on their negative aspects
and mistakes. If you have news owned by a corp that doesn't like metahumans,
you can bet their news have stories about metahumans on a rampage, welfare,
whatever rather than the "metahumans thrive in spite of the system designed
to oppress them" stories that a pro-metahuman corp might feature.

The backside to this kind of journalism (from the media's point of view) is
that the ever-increasing bias and fluff factor will probably make more and
more people totally ignore the news media, or at least start assuming that
everything the media says is a lie. This will probably not be enough people
to affect ratings, but it will be a larger group (percentage-wise) than
currently. These are the people that run (and probably more often fund)
Shadowland and similar places.

Wordman
Message no. 8
From: Martin Steffens <chimerae@***.IE>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 15:21:09 +0000
and thus did Gurth speak on 12 Jul 98 at 11:58:

> Have you read Idoru by William Gibson?

I have it, and will start reading it immediately.

> Just the other day my father told me to be careful for one of those
> email "viruses"; at his office he (and a lot of others) had been
> warned for one with the title "win a vacation," by none other than
> the SYSADMIN...!

Ack, that's a disgrace for the profession...

> That's because for some reason people very quickly believe
> something to be true once they _read_ it somewhere, as opposed
> to when hearing it. The underlying rationale is something like "If
> it weren't true, why would it be in print?" which is about as stupid
> as you can get, of course...

Yes, or "it's true, it was on TV". But what I was wondering about is
whether the continuation of today's media practices will change that
in the future. Do people still believe everything they see, or did
constant exposure make them immune and very sceptic?
I tend to be very pessimistic about this and believe that in 205X
people still digest their pre-chewed pieces of news without checking
what's in them.

Martin Steffens
(chimerae@***.ie)
-----------------
Hey Butt-Head, what did people do before they invented TV?
Don't be stupid, Beavis. There's always been TV, there's just more channels now.
Message no. 9
From: Martin Steffens <chimerae@***.IE>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 15:21:09 +0000
I came up with some pretty nasty ways to make this whole media thread
more practical:

scenario:
A group of runners (lets call them Team Alpha) hits a Corp, an the
Corp decides to get them back and make some money from it too. That
excludes killing them, so they send a message through the usual
channels to one of their news channels to check out the story. The
reporter goes to the raided site in question and gets the highly
biased news feed the Corp thinks he should have:
The truth is: 4 guards tranquilized and two chips are stolen.
The reporter hears twelve guards dead (show bereaved families and
tell some compelling stories about what they did for the community),
sees some (edited) footage of heavy damages and research set back
months (research was of course in something very beneficial for
society).

The next few days the reporter keeps the story alive by airing some
more damaging stories: Runners killed a woman and her three children
(show never released footage of brutal attack, conveniently shot in
a secret studio with some actors). Of course the murder happened in
real, but was committed by someone else, but that doesn't matter.
Show enraged neighbours telling how good the woman was and that her
kids were little angels. By now some of the other news channels
should pick up on the story and by carefully feeding some of them
little bits of equally faked footage (or not faked, depending on the
runners in question).

In a week the public will cry out for action by Lone Star, who will
in return chase the runners more vigorously to get this crap of their
backs. The first of their contacts will disassociate herself from the
runners and might go public with her side of the story for a hefty
amount of credit (with a few bonuses to make it more compelling).
After that the remaining contacts will either believe the stories and
start telling on them, or will find the media attention offensive and
tell the runners to leave them alone.

Around the second week the reporter might have found the runner's
hide out and start broadcasting from the neighbourhood with some
compelling, dramatic stories told by the people from the hood
(generously supplied to them by the channel, and sworn to be the
chip-truth for a few hundred nuyen by the person in question).
The story will now get massive media attention and all kinds of shows
start specials about things like "the Evil that is called
Shadowrunning", "Shadowrunners the cancer in our modern society", and
"confessions by a shadowrunner, the horror of the shadows" (some
oldtimer who want to make a quick buck rants about the damages and
effects that shadowruns can have).
Other shadowrunners might get a bit annoyed at the attention and
don't care if Team Alpha is right or wrong, they just want to make
sure that their activities are left alone and that they do not become
Team Beta in next weeks media circus. so they might just decide to
get rid of Team Alpha themselves, or leak their hide-outs to the
media to solve the problem without getting dirty (hey, sorry Chummer,
biz is biz).

At the start of week three the team is probably falling apart. It's
impossible to get work for them, everywhere they go they encounter
reporters or hostility. Depending on team loyalty one of the runners
might decide that enough is enough and squeal on the rest of the team
in return for a hefty bonus and a full facial make-over (tonight, the
final conclusion of our story of the horrors of Team Alpha. Discus, a
member of the team confesses life in front of the camera his crimes
and those of his fellow shadowrunners).

End conclusion: Corp has it's revenge; Team Alpha does not exist
any more or had to leave the country, plus they made a nice profit
with a who bunch of exclusives (not suprisingly).

Nasty or what?

Martin Steffens
(chimerae@***.ie)
-----------------
Hey Butt-Head, what did people do before they invented TV?
Don't be stupid, Beavis. There's always been TV, there's just more channels now.
Message no. 10
From: Martin Steffens <chimerae@***.IE>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 15:21:09 +0000
and thus did Wordman speak on 12 Jul 98 at 11:00:

> I suppose it was inevitable that this story would eventually pollute
> international airwaves. The problem I had with this story is that it just
> really isn't interesting enough to warrant the long media exposure it
> received. I could see this being the top story for a single day, then in the
> top five or so for the next few days, but this story was heavily covered for
> months. You can still see the kid on the tabloid covers.

And that's the part that interests me: how do you keep the public
interested long enough to make the damage lasting?
From what I've seen it works a lot like the Product-Life-Cycle that
marketeers use. The story has a very short PLC of course, so after a
few days you have to "add" something new to it. Instead of features
you add another twist to the story and thereby add a few extra days
to it. After a few weeks or so it becomes so difficult to keep
the story alive that you have to come up with some pretty strong
stuff, but by then you should have worked up the people reading it
into a public outrage which makes it easier to maintain an interest.

And why does the media go through all that trouble to keep a story
alive?: simple, follow the rules of in product marketing. A healthy
mix would be one or two brand new stories, a few that gather
interest, a few more that are getting a lot of interest and coverage
and then a whole bunch of so called "milk cows", older stories that
are kept alive just to generate a steady income. Of these stories
only the last two generate a lot of profit, so if corps own the media
it would make sense that they would prefer the emphasis to be more on
the cash making stories. and that would explain the drift away from
short news items that last a short time to sensational stories that
last for months.

> On the other hand, there have been a bunch of news items recently who have
> been shafted for reporting false stories, so maybe _someone_ is paying
> attention. The most famous was the Vietnam War nerve gas thing, but there
> have been many more recently than I can remember happening before. I saw an
> editorial cartoon showing a TV news anchorman saying "we'll be right back
> with weather, sports and retractions".

Heheh, sad but true, but I think that those retractions don't really
matter that much. In newspapers they're always put somewhere in the
back, and in tv news also. Like in product marketing some stories
don't make it (and some lies are discovered), but there are enough
other eggs in the basket. And it could just make a new story,
specially if your station picked that false story up from someone
else, exposing a competitor as a bunch of frauds should be enough to
draw any attention away from your own station's gullibility in
accepting that story.

> I used to write News Intellegencers for my players with an Ares bias. For
> example, stories about Lone Star tended to focus on their negative aspects
> and mistakes.

Did they discover this bias already? Sometimes it's very hard to find
out what's behind it, and since most people prefer their news to be
quick and in easily digestible chunks, they never bother.

> If you have news owned by a Corp that doesn't like metahumans,
> you can bet their news have stories about metahumans on a rampage, welfare,
> whatever rather than the "metahumans thrive in spite of the system designed
> to oppress them" stories that a pro-metahuman Corp might feature.

Ah, yeah, but it's the nasty bits that stick in people's minds. The
fact that an ork committed a murder is more likely to be remembered
than the latest co-operation party by the Better Meta-Human Relations
office, specially if the news reader is paid indirectly by Humanis
to put as many occurrences of the word Ork in his report and put a
slight emphasis on it every time she speaks. It wouldn't suprise me
if the Night of Rage was sparked of by something like excessive media
coverage.

> The backside to this kind of journalism (from the media's point of view) is
> that the ever-increasing bias and fluff factor will probably make more and
> more people totally ignore the news media, or at least start assuming that
> everything the media says is a lie. This will probably not be enough people
> to affect ratings, but it will be a larger group (percentage-wise) than
> currently. These are the people that run (and probably more often fund)
> Shadowland and similar places.

That would make sense, it also would explain the increase in pirate
news channels.

Karina & Martin Steffens
chimerae@***.ie
Message no. 11
From: Martin Steffens <chimerae@***.IE>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 15:21:09 +0000
and thus did Spike speak on 12 Jul 98 at 15:50:

> But did you *have* to through <sic> in the entire article TWICE?
> Ever heard of editing?
> First, here, catch. It'll probably smell for a few weeks, but...
>
>
> ##### # # # # ## #####
> # # # # # # # # #
> # ###### # # # # # #
> # # # # ## # ###### #####
> # # # ## ## # # #
> # # # # # # # #

you might want to add "Best viewed in courier 12" because it looks
like squiggles in any proportional type-face :) and we don't want the
big thwaps to lose impact ;).


Karina & Martin Steffens
chimerae@***.ie
Message no. 12
From: Martin Steffens <chimerae@***.IE>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 15:21:09 +0000
Scenario 2:

Runners dig up some nasty info on Corp big-wig (lets call her A) and
their employer is a media channel. They show the footage and start a
discrediting campaign against A, which of course is sponsored by A's
biggest rival B. A sees her career of thirty years go down the drain
in two weeks if she doesn't do anything quickly, so she hires
other runners to discredit team Alpha and thereby their information.
the more dirt they can dig up the better it is to expose the news
channel as a bunch of liars.
from here on a campaign of mis-information starts between A and the
channel with two runner teams in between, getting a lot more
attention than they're used to.
It could go all kinds of directions from here, but it should prove to
be an interesting run.

Karina & Martin Steffens
chimerae@***.ie
Message no. 13
From: Martin Steffens <chimerae@***.IE>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 15:21:09 +0000
and thus did Smilin' Ted speak on 12 Jul 98 at 3:54:

> Well... a couple of things.
>
> First, for a look at how the media functions in Shadowrun, try
"Shadowbeat",
> if you can find it. It's nice background, although not my favorite sourcebook.

Yeah well, I got that one, but I think the role of the media in SR
could be more interesting (I'm one of those "buy first, worry about
contents later" types).

> Second, about the Ramsey case specifically: You should realize that
[snip, snip]

Like I said I only mentioned the case because it made me think and
after seeing Wag the Dog the week before that, it had me thinking of
the role of media in the future. I don't know if they're guilty or
not, and don't care. It just shows that the media is taking
over the role of Prosecutor, Judge and Jury, while their traditional
position lay more in the investigative sector.
Your first two reasons for them being guilty show this already. I'm
pretty sure that you've used the media as a base for your conclusions
and the report I saw checked and really investigated all the main
gripes against that couple and most of them had no real basis. I
don't want to turn this into an OT thread about those Ramseys, I just
used it as an example.


Karina & Martin Steffens
chimerae@***.ie
Message no. 14
From: Lehlan Decker <decker@****.FSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 10:24:16 -0500
>
> and thus did Gurth speak on 12 Jul 98 at 11:58:
>
> > Have you read Idoru by William Gibson?
>
> I have it, and will start reading it immediately.
>
> > Just the other day my father told me to be careful for one of those
> > email "viruses"; at his office he (and a lot of others) had been
> > warned for one with the title "win a vacation," by none other than
> > the SYSADMIN...!
>
> Ack, that's a disgrace for the profession...
>
No comment. Those individuals are everywhere.


> > That's because for some reason people very quickly believe
> > something to be true once they _read_ it somewhere, as opposed
> > to when hearing it. The underlying rationale is something like "If
> > it weren't true, why would it be in print?" which is about as stupid
> > as you can get, of course...
>
> Yes, or "it's true, it was on TV". But what I was wondering about is
> whether the continuation of today's media practices will change that
> in the future. Do people still believe everything they see, or did
> constant exposure make them immune and very sceptic?
> I tend to be very pessimistic about this and believe that in 205X
> people still digest their pre-chewed pieces of news without checking
> what's in them.
>
I figure most wage-slaves believe 98% of everything they hear/see.
After all most trust the corp they work for to take care of them, and the
corp wouldn't lie would it. The average sinless folk, are probably alot
less trusting. Education has always played a part in this as well if I
remember correctly.

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Lehlan Decker (850)644-4534 Systems Development
decker@****.fsu.edu http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~decker
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Morality is moral only when it is voluntary.
Message no. 15
From: Spike <u5a77@*****.CS.KEELE.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 15:38:34 +0100
And verily, did Martin Steffens hastily scribble thusly...
|you might want to add "Best viewed in courier 12" because it looks
|like squiggles in any proportional type-face :) and we don't want the
|big thwaps to lose impact ;).

Oh come on....
Anyone who uses a proportional font in e-mail deserves to iss out on all the
funny ASCII art and THWAPS....

:)
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|u5a77@*****.cs.keele.ac.uk| Windows95 (noun): 32 bit extensions and a |
| | graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit |
|Andrew Halliwell | operating system originally coded for a 4 bit |
|Principal Subjects in:- |microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company, that|
|Comp Sci & Electronics | can't stand 1 bit of competition. |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|GCv3.1 GCS/EL>$ d---(dpu) s+/- a- C++ U N++ o+ K- w-- M+/++ PS+++ PE- Y t+ |
|5++ X+/++ R+ tv+ b+ D G e>PhD h/h+ !r! !y-|I can't say F**K either now! :( |
Message no. 16
From: Sommers <sommers@*****.UMICH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 10:55:43 -0400
At 03:21 PM 7/13/98 +0000, you wrote:
>and thus did Smilin' Ted speak on 12 Jul 98 at 3:54:
>
>> Well... a couple of things.
>>
>> First, for a look at how the media functions in Shadowrun, try
"Shadowbeat",
>> if you can find it. It's nice background, although not my favorite
sourcebook.
>
>Yeah well, I got that one, but I think the role of the media in SR
>could be more interesting (I'm one of those "buy first, worry about
>contents later" types).
>
>> Second, about the Ramsey case specifically: You should realize that
>[snip, snip]
>
>Like I said I only mentioned the case because it made me think and
>after seeing Wag the Dog the week before that, it had me thinking of
>the role of media in the future. I don't know if they're guilty or
>not, and don't care. It just shows that the media is taking
>over the role of Prosecutor, Judge and Jury, while their traditional
>position lay more in the investigative sector.

There's been much more of a backlash against the media here than you might
have heard in other countries. Last time I checked Congress had a higher
believability rating than the media, and those in the US know how bad that is.

There have been several high profile cases where the media jumped the gun
and were called to the mat very publicy on it. The CNN story about the US
nerve gassing deserters in Vietnam has been big, and Ted Turner just made a
very big apology. Its also brought up the responsibility of the "talking
heads" to know what they're reading and check that its factual.

Another was a full paged ad in a Cincinatti paper about one of the big
fruit companies, Chaquita IIRC. They accused them of all sorts of bad 3rd
world practices and other such evil and it was found that the story was
EXTREMELY flimsy. So 3 days they took out front page headlines apologizing
about it, becuase they had so many complaints about the story.

I think that the pendulum goes back and forth about how much responsibilty
the media chooses to exercise. Right now everyone is saying that they long
for 50 years ago when Edwin R. Murrow was the pinnacle of journalistic
integrity. Then they forget 100 years ago and the newspapers that started
wars. I think it was Pulitzer who sent some reporters down to Cuba to
report on the war down there. The reporter said there was no war. Pulitzer
reponded by saying that the reporter should write the stories, and he would
provide the war. He didn't start it, but he did egg everyone on with his
papers to start the Spanish American War.

So who knows, maybe in another 50 years we'll be back to the new Murrows
who think of themselves as the lastion bastions of Truth(tm).

>Your first two reasons for them being guilty show this already. I'm
>pretty sure that you've used the media as a base for your conclusions
>and the report I saw checked and really investigated all the main
>gripes against that couple and most of them had no real basis. I
>don't want to turn this into an OT thread about those Ramseys, I just
>used it as an example.

It does sound a little like your news people did the same thing, and
investigated from the point of view that they are innocent. First, it is
true that most murders are from someone that is known to the victim. The
ransom note had indications of that, citing personal information. SOP is to
ask about these people, but the Ramsey's were very uncoperative and
lawyered up. Then there was the fact that she wasn't found for 2-3 days,
when it looks like she was killed and left in their own basement.

Granted, its very circumstantial, but their unwillingness to cooperate very
much with the police does throw suspicion their way.

>Karina & Martin Steffens
>chimerae@***.ie
>

Sommers
Who does agree that we've seen WAY too much of this...
Message no. 17
From: Smilin' Ted <Tuvyah@***.COM>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 13:45:51 EDT
In a message dated 7/13/98 6:24:30 AM, Martin Steffens wrote:

>Your first two reasons for them being guilty show this already. I'm
>pretty sure that you've used the media as a base for your conclusions
>and the report I saw checked and really investigated all the main
>gripes against that couple and most of them had no real basis. I
>don't want to turn this into an OT thread about those Ramseys, I just
>used it as an example.

Well, be fair, Martin. Didn't *you* use the media as a base for *your*
conclusions? I mean, did you go to Boulder and interview anyone? <g> I didn't
make any conclusions about the Ramseys' guilt or innocence. I just mentioned
two things that made the Ramseys suspects, both of which are true.

Smilin' Ted
Message no. 18
From: Erik Jameson <erikj@****.COM>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 14:04:19 -0400
At 11:40 AM 7/11/98 +0000, you wrote:

>Now where I want to go with this is to the 20-fifties where almost
>all the media is controlled by the corps and the pressure for ratings
>is probably much higher than today, so what's the media in the
>20-fifties? One whisper in the hall way and your career is doomed?
>Journalists accepting everything they hear from the corps as chip
>truth because they haven't got the time to confirm a rumour?
>And since the cops are owned by corps, how much of what they tell is
>true?

Take a look at the most recent James Bond film, "Tomorrow Never Dies" I
think it was. Just saw it this weekend (007 just isn't what it used to
be). Without giving too much plot away, the bad guy is a media mogul that
manipulates world events via the media. You could get exactly the same
sort of thing in 205X.

So why doesn't it happen? First of all, too many media outlets. Which
means too many chances that someone will tell a story that doesn't coincide
with yours. And second, almost all the media is owned by the megas, so
there's competition there. Which means that while a Fuchi owned trid
station may not cover a Fuchi scandal, the SK, Ares, Azzie, etc. trid
channels will.

Now in a more controlled environment like the Arcology, it is entirely
possible that the only media feeds that some of those folks living and
working there are totally controlled by Renraku.

Erik J.

URL almost here...
Message no. 19
From: David Buehrer <dbuehrer@******.CARL.ORG>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 12:18:46 -0600
Wordman wrote:
/
/ >A few days ago I just saw this program on channel 4 (UK) about this
/ >American couple (the Ramseys) who's daughter was killed and were
/ >accused of killing her by the media.
/
/ I suppose it was inevitable that this story would eventually pollute
/ international airwaves. The problem I had with this story is that it just
/ really isn't interesting enough to warrant the long media exposure it
/ received. I could see this being the top story for a single day, then in the
/ top five or so for the next few days, but this story was heavily covered for
/ months. You can still see the kid on the tabloid covers.

Great. It's bad enough I gotta hear about this story at least once a week
on the local news (Denver is 40-60 minutes away from Boulder), now I gotta
see it on the ShadowRN list :(

-David
--
"If I told you, then I'd have to pull a Shadowrun against you. Sorry."
--
email: dbuehrer@******.carl.org
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm
Message no. 20
From: David Buehrer <dbuehrer@******.CARL.ORG>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 12:39:06 -0600
Erik Jameson wrote:
/
/ Take a look at the most recent James Bond film, "Tomorrow Never Dies" I
/ think it was. Just saw it this weekend (007 just isn't what it used to
/ be). Without giving too much plot away, the bad guy is a media mogul that
/ manipulates world events via the media. You could get exactly the same
/ sort of thing in 205X.
/
/ So why doesn't it happen? First of all, too many media outlets. Which
/ means too many chances that someone will tell a story that doesn't coincide
/ with yours. And second, almost all the media is owned by the megas, so
/ there's competition there. Which means that while a Fuchi owned trid
/ station may not cover a Fuchi scandal, the SK, Ares, Azzie, etc. trid
/ channels will.

But in the case of Tommorow Never Dies the bad guy was actually
manipulating events to create is own news, which he would then
"scoop". There was no chance of anyone finding out (well, except for
Bond :)

I could easily see a Corp News Station "creating" news for ratings.

-David
--
"If I told you, then I'd have to pull a Shadowrun against you. Sorry."
--
email: dbuehrer@******.carl.org
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm
Message no. 21
From: Erik Jameson <erikj@****.COM>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 16:39:55 -0400
At 10:55 AM 7/13/98 -0400, you wrote:

>>Like I said I only mentioned the case because it made me think and
>>after seeing Wag the Dog the week before that, it had me thinking of
>>the role of media in the future. I don't know if they're guilty or
>>not, and don't care. It just shows that the media is taking
>>over the role of Prosecutor, Judge and Jury, while their traditional
>>position lay more in the investigative sector.

Wag the Dog. Interesting film with excellent SR potential. DeNiro plays a
*fixer* for cryin' out loud.

>Another was a full paged ad in a Cincinatti paper about one of the big
>fruit companies, Chaquita IIRC. They accused them of all sorts of bad 3rd
>world practices and other such evil and it was found that the story was
>EXTREMELY flimsy. So 3 days they took out front page headlines apologizing
>about it, becuase they had so many complaints about the story.

Part of the problem with that story is that the reporter essentially
"stole" or broke into Chiquitta's voice mail system and listened and
recorded private voice mail messages.

The CNN VietNam nerve gas story was a case of sloppy reporting. There was
almost certainly a kernel of truth, but too many fabrications made it into
the finished story. The Chiquitta thing involved criminal wrongdoing.

There's also that fellow that wrote for, I think, the New Republic. He
also wrote some stories for Rolling Stone. Turns out that he faked and
outright made significant portions of his stories up. Many facts he
reported are indeed true and can be confirmed. But the inclusion of
outright fabrications calls the entire story into question.

>I think that the pendulum goes back and forth about how much responsibilty
>the media chooses to exercise. Right now everyone is saying that they long
>for 50 years ago when Edwin R. Murrow was the pinnacle of journalistic
>integrity. Then they forget 100 years ago and the newspapers that started
>wars. I think it was Pulitzer who sent some reporters down to Cuba to
>report on the war down there. The reporter said there was no war. Pulitzer
>reponded by saying that the reporter should write the stories, and he would
>provide the war. He didn't start it, but he did egg everyone on with his
>papers to start the Spanish American War.

The problem is that 100 years ago, the kings of yellow journalism wanted to
sell newspapers. Truth be damned, they had papers to sell! Journalism
eventually grew up and saw itself as the Fourth Estate, a guardian and
investigator for the public.

Now, it's all about ratings, a total return to yellow journalism. The TV
news doesn't give much thought about the facts of a story (insofar as it
protects them from litigation anyway), or if the story is of real
significance. They are only interested in keeping you watching,
entertaining you so you don't flip the channel during commercials. Anchors
are selected to attract certain demographics; there's a fellow on NBC
Channel 4 here in LA who's real last name is something like Johnson and is
only 1/4 Asian. But on TV, his last name is Chen. And there's also the
barely Hispanic reporters with a Hispanic last name who always make sure
they have a proper Mexican accent on TV, but in real life don't talk like
that. It's *acting* in the news, all for the purpose of ratings.

News stations don't compete with each other anymore, they compete with
sitcoms and dramas.

Newspapers and magazines are caught in a similar trap; with general
readership in a decline, they have to do things to sell their paper, their
magazine. Shock journalism or entertainment stories are what sells, so
that's what's presented, regardless of medium.

Is this the case in 205X Shadowrun? You're damn right.

>So who knows, maybe in another 50 years we'll be back to the new Murrows
>who think of themselves as the lastion bastions of Truth(tm).

I sure as hell hope it doesn't take 50 years.

Erik J.

Who was a Broadcast Journalism major in school...
Message no. 22
From: "Ubiratan P. Alberton" <ubiratan@**.HOMESHOPPING.COM.BR>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 23:21:30 -0300
At 11:00 12/07/98 -0400, you wrote:

>The backside to this kind of journalism (from the media's point of view) is
>that the ever-increasing bias and fluff factor will probably make more and
>more people totally ignore the news media, or at least start assuming that
>everything the media says is a lie. This will probably not be enough people
>to affect ratings, but it will be a larger group (percentage-wise) than
>currently. These are the people that run (and probably more often fund)
>Shadowland and similar places.
>
>Wordman
>


One example of what the Wordman said can be found in the Aztlan book, where
Shadowland displays an article made by an Aztechnology-owned screamsheet,
featuring
all the parts that were edited off...

Bira
Message no. 23
From: "Ubiratan P. Alberton" <ubiratan@**.HOMESHOPPING.COM.BR>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 23:12:57 -0300
At 11:58 12/07/98 +0100, you wrote:
>Martin Steffens said on 11:40/11 Jul 98,...
>
>That's because for some reason people very quickly believe
>something to be true once they _read_ it somewhere, as opposed
>to when hearing it. The underlying rationale is something like "If
>it weren't true, why would it be in print?" which is about as stupid
>as you can get, of course...
>

One example of this was the memorable Time Magazine article on
Net pornography... The thing gets sold in Brasil too, and it was a lot of
fun to hear they had to apologize publicily some time after they published
those
false figures...

Bira
Message no. 24
From: Wordman <wordman@*******.COM>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 21:20:11 -0400
Karina & Martin Steffens wrote
>and thus did Wordman speak on 12 Jul 98 at 11:00:
>> I used to write News Intellegencers for my players with an Ares bias. For
>> example, stories about Lone Star tended to focus on their negative aspects
>> and mistakes.
>
>Did they discover this bias already?

No. I don't think it ever even occurred to anyone.

Wordman
Message no. 25
From: Mike Bobroff <Airwasp@***.COM>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 22:06:47 EDT
In a message dated 7/13/98 1:10:42 PM US Eastern Standard Time, erikj@****.COM
writes:

> >Now where I want to go with this is to the 20-fifties where almost
> >all the media is controlled by the corps and the pressure for ratings
> >is probably much higher than today, so what's the media in the
> >20-fifties? One whisper in the hall way and your career is doomed?
> >Journalists accepting everything they hear from the corps as chip
> >truth because they haven't got the time to confirm a rumour?
> >And since the cops are owned by corps, how much of what they tell is
> >true?
>
> Take a look at the most recent James Bond film, "Tomorrow Never Dies" I
> think it was. Just saw it this weekend (007 just isn't what it used to
> be). Without giving too much plot away, the bad guy is a media mogul that
> manipulates world events via the media. You could get exactly the same
> sort of thing in 205X.

This is the thing here in the home game which is beginning to fuel the CAS-
Aztlan War ... and when this fight is done with, the world is going to now
what the true meaning of an -Awakened- war is ...

> So why doesn't it happen? First of all, too many media outlets. Which
> means too many chances that someone will tell a story that doesn't coincide
> with yours. And second, almost all the media is owned by the megas, so
> there's competition there. Which means that while a Fuchi owned trid
> station may not cover a Fuchi scandal, the SK, Ares, Azzie, etc. trid
> channels will.

There is something else also, as shown in some of the examples (like
Cyberpirates), the media does make some graphical enhancement of certain news
stories. And going with the example from Cyberpirates, the addition of more
blood and gore, more weapons fire, things like that.

Another example of what the media is capable of is also shown in Wag The Dog,
but since I have not seen it, I won't say much more beyond that.

> Now in a more controlled environment like the Arcology, it is entirely
> possible that the only media feeds that some of those folks living and
> working there are totally controlled by Renraku.

Yeah, I can envision there being either only Renraku channels, or at the very
least limited access (ie the person living in the arcology has to pay the
arcology for the trid station to come to their cable box.

-Mike
Message no. 26
From: Martin Steffens <chimerae@***.IE>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 11:50:10 +0000
and thus did Lehlan Decker speak on 13 Jul 98 at 10:24:

> I figure most wage-slaves believe 98% of everything they hear/see.
> After all most trust the corp they work for to take care of them, and the
> corp wouldn't lie would it. The average sinless folk, are probably alot
> less trusting. Education has always played a part in this as well if I
> remember correctly.

Aren't the wage-slaves on average better educated than the sinless? I
do think that the poor wage-slaves have a reputation that's far to
much based on the average Japanese wage-slave attitude, and that's
wrong because each culture needs it's own approach to company
loyalty. I worked for IBM and they were setting up a call-centre in
Ireland using American trainers. Their views on company loyalty were
so different and alien to us that the most they got as a response was
a snigger and a lot of us were angry that they tried to force the
American approach on us.

Face it, how many of us are nowadays wage-slaves? And do you think
you're not an independed thinker any more? The wage-slave could be
highly critical about the activities of her company, but afraid to
speak out because she likes her job. Very likely the high casualty
rate in the average game of SR amongst corp-personnel is based upon a
mistaken idea that runners are morally superior and are wading through
hordes of mindless zombies.

Martin
(Chief Executive Officer of the
Organization for Better Treatment of Wage-Slaves)

Karina & Martin Steffens
chimerae@***.ie
Message no. 27
From: Martin Steffens <chimerae@***.IE>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 11:50:10 +0000
and thus did Erik Jameson speak on 13 Jul 98 at 16:39:

> Wag the Dog. Interesting film with excellent SR potential. DeNiro plays a
> *fixer* for cryin' out loud.

Indeed, but high risk SR potential. Before you know it the feds
are visiting to send you to the Elysium fields :).

Just a few ideas from this film that popped up to use for SR:

[fairly minor spoiler warning if you haven't seen the film yet]




















[end of spoiler warning]

-Runners are hired to be the pretend terrorists with all the inherent
dangers that entails. Only a few people know they are pretend
terrorists. Goal is to stay threatening until the problem is
finished.
-Silence the problem. Deniable assets are hired to remove the problem
the president faces either by blackmail, force or coercion.
-Kill anyone who knows to much about the decoy plays.
-Convince the Albanian government that they are either at war with
the US by sending in a bunch of mercs or that they have terrorist
organizations that destabilise the country.

> Newspapers and magazines are caught in a similar trap; with general
> readership in a decline, they have to do things to sell their paper, their
> magazine. Shock journalism or entertainment stories are what sells, so
> that's what's presented, regardless of medium.

Strange is that crap sells while quality is on the decline. Ah well
maybe it's just like porn, no-one admits buying it, but it sells like
hell anyway :).

> Is this the case in 205X Shadowrun? You're damn right.

Gods, depressing isn't it? Here we are with the faint hope the future
will be better and the World According to Shadowrun is actually a lot
worse. There must be whole generations of people that hoped that the
arrival of magic would improve the world, all those new agers that
were waiting for a change in consciousness, all those people who
thought that the sixth world would mean a clean break with the fifth.
No wonder there are so many terrorist organizations, there must be
load of completely disillusioned people around.

Martin Steffens
(chimerae@***.ie)
-----------------
Hey Butt-Head, what did people do before they invented TV?
Don't be stupid, Beavis. There's always been TV, there's just more channels now.
Message no. 28
From: Martin Steffens <chimerae@***.IE>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 11:50:10 +0000
and thus did Smilin' Ted speak on 13 Jul 98 at 13:45:

> Well, be fair, Martin. Didn't *you* use the media as a base for *your*
> conclusions? I mean, did you go to Boulder and interview anyone? <g> I didn't
> make any conclusions about the Ramseys' guilt or innocence. I just mentioned
> two things that made the Ramseys suspects, both of which are true.

Ah, yeah, you're right, I'm sorry for acting kinda like I had the
source of ultimate wisdom <g>
I was writing the mail and replying extensively on the case, but
realized after a while that it's very OT and might turn into a flame
war, so I deleted a whole piece but forgot to delete that part.


Karina & Martin Steffens
chimerae@***.ie
Message no. 29
From: Martin Steffens <chimerae@***.IE>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 11:50:10 +0000
and thus did Erik Jameson speak on 13 Jul 98 at 14:04:

> Take a look at the most recent James Bond film, "Tomorrow Never Dies" I
> think it was. Just saw it this weekend (007 just isn't what it used to
> be). Without giving too much plot away, the bad guy is a media mogul that
> manipulates world events via the media. You could get exactly the same
> sort of thing in 205X.

How did he do it again? I saw the film but it's a long time ago. Did
he leak false stories to the media or created them himself and then
the rest of the media just reproduced them.

> So why doesn't it happen? First of all, too many media outlets. Which
> means too many chances that someone will tell a story that doesn't coincide
> with yours. And second, almost all the media is owned by the megas, so
> there's competition there. Which means that while a Fuchi owned trid
> station may not cover a Fuchi scandal, the SK, Ares, Azzie, etc. trid
> channels will.

Which would make for extensive coverage of Corp related mishaps. If
Fuchi makes a embarrassing mistake, the other Corps will be likely to
cover that story with a maximum of harm for Fuchi, while the lone
voice of Fuchi channels will try to minimize the damage.

> Now in a more controlled environment like the Arcology, it is entirely
> possible that the only media feeds that some of those folks living and
> working there are totally controlled by Renraku.

That reminds me of a book I've read where travel between cities
was non-existant and each city had it's own special version of the
news specially tailored towards maximum happiness for the citizens.
Their teams would never lose a game, their productivity was better
than the other's, etc. etc. I forgot who wrote it or how it's called,
but it's very likely that the Corp provided Trid-channels are
censored first before broadcast.

Although I don't know how controlled the environment of an average
wage-slave would be. Do they never leave Corp grounds, only have
friends within the Corp, etc. etc.?

Karina & Martin Steffens
chimerae@***.ie
Message no. 30
From: David Buehrer <dbuehrer@******.CARL.ORG>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 08:37:59 -0600
Martin Steffens wrote:
/
/ and thus did Erik Jameson speak on 13 Jul 98 at 14:04:
/
/ > Take a look at the most recent James Bond film, "Tomorrow Never Dies" I
/ > think it was. Just saw it this weekend (007 just isn't what it used to
/ > be). Without giving too much plot away, the bad guy is a media mogul that
/ > manipulates world events via the media. You could get exactly the same
/ > sort of thing in 205X.
/
/ How did he do it again? I saw the film but it's a long time ago. Did
/ he leak false stories to the media or created them himself and then
/ the rest of the media just reproduced them.

Spoiler Space
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/

He jammed the GLS transmision to the US Navy ship and replaced it with
his own signal (having handy telecom satelites in place to do this) and
led the ship into Chinese waters. The ship thought it was in
international waters. He then sunk the ship and stole the nuclear
warheads on board.

It appeared as if the US ship had strayed into Chinese waters and had been
sunk by the Chinese.

The media mogule then scooped the story (which led James to suspect him).

-David
--
"If I told you, then I'd have to pull a Shadowrun against you. Sorry."
--
email: dbuehrer@******.carl.org
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm
Message no. 31
From: Erik Jameson <erikj@****.COM>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 13:17:20 -0400
At 08:37 AM 7/14/98 -0600, you wrote:
(Tomorrow Never Dies stuff snipped)

>He jammed the GLS transmision to the US Navy ship

Dave, it was a British ship. The HMS Devonshire I think it was (I just saw
it last weekend).

Not the best Bond flick, but like nearly all of them, it could be converted
relatively easily into a Shadowrun.

Erik J.


http://www.fortunecity.com/rivendell/dungeon/480/index.html
The Reality Check for a Fictional World
Message no. 32
From: Erik Jameson <erikj@****.COM>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 13:17:48 -0400
At 11:50 AM 7/14/98 +0000, you wrote:

>Face it, how many of us are nowadays wage-slaves? And do you think
>you're not an independed thinker any more? The wage-slave could be
>highly critical about the activities of her company, but afraid to
>speak out because she likes her job. Very likely the high casualty
>rate in the average game of SR amongst corp-personnel is based upon a
>mistaken idea that runners are morally superior and are wading through
>hordes of mindless zombies.

Well, look at today. There really is little feeling of loyalty towards the
companies that people work for. The exceptions are those employers that
offer all sorts of extras: child care, allowing pets in the office, profit
sharing, paid gym time, paid retreats/vactions, etc.

There's clearly a certain amount of uncertainty in today's job market.
Vaulting forward to 205X and all the chaos, most people are going to
consider themselves lucky to be employed, especially if they are metahuman.
Sure, while inside the wage slave may be seriously pissed, but if they
speak up, what happens? In megacorporate 205X, everything from simply
being fired to being killed.

That's quite an incentive to keep you mouth shut and just do your job.

Are wage slaves mindless zombies? Hell no. They are just like the
runners, they are just out to protect themselves and make some ducats. The
wage slave simply chose and had to opportunity to take the much safer
route. Most runners could be wage slaves if they so chose. But they don't.

Thanks Martin. I've now got another topic for the Daily Life section of my
web site.

Erik J.


http://www.fortunecity.com/rivendell/dungeon/480/index.html
The Reality Check for a Fictional World
Message no. 33
From: Smilin' Ted <Tuvyah@***.COM>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 13:54:23 EDT
At 11:50 AM 7/14/98 +0000, Martin wrote:

>Face it, how many of us are nowadays wage-slaves? And do you think
>you're not an independed thinker any more? The wage-slave could be
>highly critical about the activities of her company, but afraid to
>speak out because she likes her job. Very likely the high casualty
>rate in the average game of SR amongst corp-personnel is based upon a
>mistaken idea that runners are morally superior and are wading through
>hordes of mindless zombies.

The wage-slave idea is a hold-over from cyberpunk's origins. When Gibson wrote
"Neuromancer" and made megacorps the big power in the future, there was a lot
of fear of the Japanese in the United States -- so he used a Japanese model.
It's up to the invidual GMs and players how closely they want to adhere to
that model.

Ted
Message no. 34
From: "Ubiratan P. Alberton" <ubiratan@**.HOMESHOPPING.COM.BR>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 13:39:28 -0300
At 15:21 13/07/98 +0000, you wrote:
>and thus did Gurth speak on 12 Jul 98 at 11:58:
>
>> Have you read Idoru by William Gibson?
>
>Yes, or "it's true, it was on TV". But what I was wondering about is
>whether the continuation of today's media practices will change that
>in the future. Do people still believe everything they see, or did
>constant exposure make them immune and very sceptic?
>I tend to be very pessimistic about this and believe that in 205X
>people still digest their pre-chewed pieces of news without checking
>what's in them.
>

That's one of the cyberpunk premisses... :) . Runners are the ones who can
see the facts behind the air-headed screamsheets.

Bira
Message no. 35
From: "Ubiratan P. Alberton" <ubiratan@**.HOMESHOPPING.COM.BR>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 16:33:29 -0300
At 11:50 14/07/98 +0000, you wrote:
>and thus did Lehlan Decker speak on 13 Jul 98 at 10:24:
>
>
>Aren't the wage-slaves on average better educated than the sinless? I
>
>Face it, how many of us are nowadays wage-slaves? And do you think
>you're not an independed thinker any more? The wage-slave could be
>highly critical about the activities of her company, but afraid to
>speak out because she likes her job. Very likely the high casualty
>rate in the average game of SR amongst corp-personnel is based upon a
>mistaken idea that runners are morally superior and are wading through
>hordes of mindless zombies.
>

I think that the definition of wage-slave in Shadowrun goes for the
kind of person who would
believe anything their corp said. There are othe rkinds of worker, but they
are not "official wage-slaves"...

Bira
Message no. 36
From: Martin Steffens <chimerae@***.IE>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 10:22:26 +0000
and thus did Erik Jameson speak on 14 Jul 98 at 13:17:

> Well, look at today. There really is little feeling of loyalty towards the
> companies that people work for. The exceptions are those employers that
> offer all sorts of extras: child care, allowing pets in the office, profit
> sharing, paid gym time, paid retreats/vactions, etc.

Well exactly, and why wouldn't there be any of those companies in
205X? It works today, and it certainly should increase productivity
and reduce turnover.

> There's clearly a certain amount of uncertainty in today's job market.
> Vaulting forward to 205X and all the chaos, most people are going to
> consider themselves lucky to be employed, especially if they are metahuman.
> Sure, while inside the wage slave may be seriously pissed, but if they
> speak up, what happens? In megacorporate 205X, everything from simply
> being fired to being killed.

I personally think that the killing the disloyal employee is a bit of
an exaggerated item in SR. Sure it might happen in a few cases when
the person in question knows to much or is too important to give to
the competition, but otherwise it's not worth the trouble plus it
gives you a really bad rep.
And sure you can rule by force, but it's much easier and better in
the long run to listen to your employees and make them feel involved
in the company.

> That's quite an incentive to keep you mouth shut and just do your job.

Yeah, it is, but it doesn't do wonders for your productivity and
motivation. At the first chance you might just decide it's worth
moving off and try your luck somewhere else.

> Are wage slaves mindless zombies? Hell no. They are just like the
> runners, they are just out to protect themselves and make some ducats. The
> wage slave simply chose and had to opportunity to take the much safer
> route. Most runners could be wage slaves if they so chose. But they don't.

Amen to that. But there is this runner superiority feeling that they
are the real people. The wage slaves sold their soul to the corp and
are already dead, they're just a part of the interior decoration. I
wish more runners (read players) would realize that it could have
been them sitting behind that (security) desk if they (still) had a
SIN.

> Thanks Martin. I've now got another topic for the Daily Life section of my
> web site.

you're welcome :) but I should do something about my own web site,
instead of giving ideas or appearing on other peoples sites :)
<points gun at his own head "work you damn wage slave">



Martin Steffens
(chimerae@***.ie)
-----------------
Hey Butt-Head, what did people do before they invented TV?
Don't be stupid, Beavis. There's always been TV, there's just more channels now.
Message no. 37
From: Martin Steffens <chimerae@***.IE>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 10:22:27 +0000
and thus did Ubiratan P. Alberton speak on 14 Jul 98 at 13:39:

> That's one of the cyberpunk premisses... :) . Runners are the ones who can
> see the facts behind the air-headed screamsheets.

Let me add to that: A lot of the more intelligent wage slaves too,
they just don't feel the need to show how much smarter they are than
the rest because it's impolite ;)

Martin
(CEO of the Organization for Better Treatment of Wage-Slaves)
Message no. 38
From: "M. Sean Martinez" <ElBandit@***.COM>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 08:41:53 EDT
In a message dated 7/15/98 5:27:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time, chimerae@***.IE
writes:

> I personally think that the killing the disloyal employee is a bit of
> an exaggerated item in SR. Sure it might happen in a few cases when
> the person in question knows to much or is too important to give to
> the competition, but otherwise it's not worth the trouble plus it
> gives you a really bad rep.

I agree, it would be far easier to move a disloyal employee to another non-
vital part of the company. Or perhaps undiserable part of the company.

-El Bandit

http://members.aol.com/elbandit/index.html

Reason #173 to fear technology:

() () () () () <() <()> ()> ()
.I. \|. \|/ // X \ | <| <|>
/\ >\ /< >\ /< >\ /< >\
/<

The ASCII Macarena
Message no. 39
From: "Ubiratan P. Alberton" <ubiratan@**.HOMESHOPPING.COM.BR>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 21:39:07 -0300
At 10:22 15/07/98 +0000, you wrote:
>and thus did Ubiratan P. Alberton speak on 14 Jul 98 at 13:39:
>
>> That's one of the cyberpunk premisses... :) . Runners are the ones
who can
>> see the facts behind the air-headed screamsheets.
>
>Let me add to that: A lot of the more intelligent wage slaves too,
>they just don't feel the need to show how much smarter they are than
>the rest because it's impolite ;)
>

The ones who do feel this need turn to the shadows. It's good because we
have such a high
turnover rate here :)...

Bira
Message no. 40
From: "Ubiratan P. Alberton" <ubiratan@**.HOMESHOPPING.COM.BR>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 21:36:02 -0300
At 10:22 15/07/98 +0000, you wrote:
>and thus did Erik Jameson speak on 14 Jul 98 at 13:17:
>
>I personally think that the killing the disloyal employee is a bit of
>an exaggerated item in SR. Sure it might happen in a few cases when
>the person in question knows to much or is too important to give to
>the competition, but otherwise it's not worth the trouble plus it
>gives you a really bad rep.
>And sure you can rule by force, but it's much easier and better in
>the long run to listen to your employees and make them feel involved
>in the company.

That's the point of all those Arcologies, I guess. What better way to
gain loyalty from
your employees than "protecting them from the vicious outside world"? This
way is
also easier to edit media input in order to reinforce this mentality.

Bira
Message no. 41
From: Geoff Morochnick <bodiam@**********.COM>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 01:02:01 -0400
> [Media Executives] are afraid to advertise condoms that could save lives,
> but do not blush about telecasting a National Geographic special on
> President Regan's pelvic plumbing.

I'm sure someone else has already thwapped you severely for not snipping that
post, and for replying in the wrong spot, so I'll just ask you where have you
been not to see all the Trojan adverts lately with the chicks claiming to be
"Trojan Women"?

> -Martin F Nolan
>
> p.s. just had to through that in there!!!
>

<snip article>
--
Geoff
To the French idealisms: Fratenity, Equality, Liberty are opposed
the German Realities: Cavalry, Infantry, Ammunition
Von Schlieefin
bodiam@**********.com
http://www.geocities.com/area51/corridor/8427
Message no. 42
From: Geoff Morochnick <bodiam@**********.COM>
Subject: Re: Rumours and Media in 2050
Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 01:20:05 -0400
<snip>

> I think that the pendulum goes back and forth about how much responsibilty
> the media chooses to exercise. Right now everyone is saying that they long
> for 50 years ago when Edwin R. Murrow was the pinnacle of journalistic
> integrity. Then they forget 100 years ago and the newspapers that started
> wars. I think it was Pulitzer who sent some reporters down to Cuba to
> report on the war down there. The reporter said there was no war. Pulitzer
> reponded by saying that the reporter should write the stories, and he would
> provide the war. He didn't start it, but he did egg everyone on with his
> papers to start the Spanish American War.
>

<nitpick>I believe it was William Randolph Hearst who began the S-A War...
Pulitzer picked it up after the beginning<snip>

> Sommers
> Who does agree that we've seen WAY too much of this...

--
Stonebow
Who has studied the RL backgrounds of Citizen Kane way too much for his own good
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than
any other one thing.
-Abraham Lincoln
bodiam@**********.com
http://www.geocities.com/area51/corridor/8427

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