Mehdi Hasan and the Right-Wing Echo Chamber.
I cannot say that I venture often into the New Statesman. James Macintyre is enough to put me off.
The headline ‘Tory Fiction, media fact’ lured me into these unexplored pastures; I found myself traipsing between cow pats, the autumn air heady with methane gas.
Mehdi postulates the notion that there is a ‘right-wing echo chamber’ at work in this country. The term right-wing echo chamber was coined by Rampton and Stauber in their book of two four short summers ago’ Banana Republicans: How the Right Wing Is Turning America Into a One-Party State – their thesis being that the right-wing parties in America were deliberately feeding misinformation into the army of columnists, bloggers and think tanks as a novel way of destabilising the Democratic movement.
Since I never got beyond page 6 of that turgid tome, I am scarcely in a position to comment on its accuracy vis-a-vis America; if Mehdi’s application of the theory to life in the UK is anything to go by, I had a lucky escape.
The ‘echo chamber effect’ relies on enlisting the help of every media outlet, right down to we ‘ever so humble’ bloggers, to repeat and enhance unsupported allegations until they become ‘accepted fact’.
So far so good. Wait for Mehdi’s evidence!
It seems that Britain’s debt crisis is now such an ‘accepted fact’ – spread about by malicious bloggers. So is the calumny that we have to make spending cuts now. As for the Prime Minister lacking integrity – why it is nothing more than malicious blogg-o-lies…….
Gosh, the current director of the Tax Payers Alliance once worked as a conservative researcher. The plot thickens. He’s not quoting facts and figures at all, it’s all been in our heads, we have been fed black propaganda!
“It is”, he says, “no wonder Labour ministers”, (the ruling party remember, of the most controlling political party this country has ever seen) struggling to make themselves heard above the noise of the right-wing echo chamber, have begun referring to themselves as underdogs”.
Let’s get this in proportion – Labour Ministers, with access to every last seedy inch of arm twisting media control, with the millions of pounds of the Unions behind them, and unlimited technology, are struggling to make themselves heard against an army of unpaid, unprofessional, disorganised, bloggers?
Golly gosh, would you ever?
Repeat after Mehdi, the country is not in debt, we don’t need to pay anything back, and the Prime Minister is a man of infinite integrity. He probably told Mehdi that when he was hanging around the UN kitchens. Sorry, having an intense six hour debate educating Obama, which was wilfully misrepresented by all those present.
Milking time Mehdi, just amble after the one in front.
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September 26, 2009 at 12:15 -
Once locked a bloke in an echo chamber. Couldn’t hear his screams.
Hang on, that was an anechoic chamber. Is that were Mehdi and the Liberal left bloggers have got themselves confused?
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September 26, 2009 at 11:38 -
Re the photo it reminds me of “The bells, the bells”.
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September 26, 2009 at 10:04 -
The Labour party believe that the fawning media coverage that they received between 1995 and 2003 or so should be theirs of right and that any adverse coverage is a sign of bias against them.
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September 26, 2009 at 01:54 -
The term “echo chamber” is a poncey American buzzphrase (or “meme”) to describe a phenomenon which we already have perfectly good terminology for: “the mysterious process by which a consensus is arrived at”.
When I inhale Mehdi Hasan’s article I smell sheer panic. The panic of the Left who recently controlled the echo chamber effect so masterfully through Mandelson and Campbell, and who now see that it has not just slipped out of their grasp but has gone feral due to a massive and chaotic influx of bloggers.
The next general election will, at least as far as the internet is concerned, be a unique and really scarey slug-fest. It will be interesting to see if whoever gets into power legislates to make sure that it never happens again.
p.s. In that picture Brown looks like a boy band.
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September 25, 2009 at 23:54 -
Let’s not even discuss the “left wing echo chamber” which has brought us such joys as a totally controlled and biased MSM especially the BBC, political correctness, illegal criticism of Islam, thought crimes, constant brainwashing with the nanny state… the list is endless but during the last 12 years another 3000+ new laws have been added to the statute books (illegally, as they have been without our consent), most of which in one way or another “echo left wing totalitarian principles” that are meant to control us!
It might have worked had they not overdone it.. but the peasants have woken up and are revolting!
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September 25, 2009 at 23:45 -
What an arsehole. As a right wing blogger, I frequently state that I am worried that the Conservatives will be just as totalitarian as the Labour Party. The only reason I will probably vote for them is because they just have to be marginally better than the total sham we have at present.
I don’t trust any of the parties, not one of them, none of them represent my fundamental rights as a free person of a democracy!
Left wingers are and always have been totally delusional and will blame their demise on anything and anyone rather than take responsibility for the state we are in.
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September 25, 2009 at 22:29 -
September 25, 2009 at 22:20 -
An absolutely terrible picture – the stuff of many a nightmare
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September 25, 2009 at 22:16 -
They better get used to it. On the internet, they can’t control the agenda any more, like they used to be able to with television and the BBC.
The really amazing thing is how few senior politicians actually “get” the new world we are living in!
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September 25, 2009 at 21:13 -
You’d think he’d never heard of that labour mouthpiece and propaganda organisation with the self confessed liberal left bias.
Aka the BBC.
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September 25, 2009 at 20:13 -
Methinks it’s because Mehdi is following a Muslim agenda because he fears that the Cons will curtail the diversity bit and call for integration.
From what I can see all the left fears integration for some reason, which means we should call for it very loudly.
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September 25, 2009 at 20:03 -
This I take it would make the Liverpool Echo a rabid right wing newspaper dedicated to overthrowing the government by a ceaseless campaign of untruths. So todays story about the New Brighton Floral Pavilion unveiling its cast for “Snow White And The Seven Dwarves” at Christman is a dark plot to destabilise the Labour election campaign. Who knows?
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September 25, 2009 at 19:49 -
Mehdi it’s because he’s a Londoner …
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September 25, 2009 at 19:45 -
Who knows if The Tories could have done a better job. I really don’t know anymore.
For the last God knows how many years it seems to have been about keeping the punters happy. And in 40 odd years of my own political awareness, I can only remember three serious monetary problems, all engendered by The Labour Party. Let’s face it, they just don’t understand Money.
It is a fact of life that we can’t all be rich. And no one has been starving in Britain for a very long time. But I would quite like to meet a poor Politician. Or a poor Farmer for that matter.
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September 25, 2009 at 19:19 -
Do you think he Mehd it up?
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September 25, 2009 at 19:23
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