Do you notice any similarities with Albanian TV channels?

As I do every morning, even today I was roaming around the net to some of my preferred sites when I stumbled upon this post by Seth Godin, who is well known marketer. Anyway, the topic of his blog post was “the problem with cable news thinking”. In his post he goes on to give an example of what cable news channels do often, then provides a list of how such channels “amplify the worst elements of emotional reactions” in their viewers!

Here is the list:

  1. Focus on the urgent instead of the important.
  2. Vivid emotions and the visuals that go with them as a selector for what’s important.
  3. Emphasis on noise over thoughtful analysis.
  4. Unwillingness to reverse course and change one’s mind.
  5. Xenophobic and jingoistic reactions (fear of outsiders).
  6. Defense of the status quo encouraged by an audience self-selected to be uniform.
  7. Things become important merely because others have decided they are important.
  8. Top down messaging encourages an echo chamber (agree with this edict or change the channel).
  9. Ill-informed about history and this particular issue.
  10. Confusing opinion with the truth.
  11. Revising facts to fit a point of view.
  12. Unwillingness to review past mistakes in light of history and use those to do better next time.

My first reaction was to agree with him. Though I do not live abroad any more, the issues that he points out are so reflective of the pervasive reality conveyed everyday by the media in Albania. Now there are variations, and while I cannot say that no. 5 is always true, the rest the topics seem to be right on the money.

Just some food for thought!

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the Albanian Blogger

Elvis is an Albanian entrepreneur and freelancer, creator and primary contributor behind AlbanianBlogger.com

He is passionate about what he does on and offline, and wants to be a positive influence on the people he comes in contact with. His desire is to experience life and true friendship, and share the best with everyone.

Since 1998 he has established an ever growing list of ventures, much beloved among which are: Sfida.Pro  and SfidaBiznesi.com and ShtepiaeLibrit.com - libraria ime! He has served as webmaster and digital marketing consultant for names such as: Gazeta-Shqip.com - WVI.org/Albania - Lajmifundit.com - Facilization.com - WebHost.al - CityParkAlbania.com - etc, etc.

This Blog was started in September 2004. You can see his professional profile here or contact him directly through his email: eplaku (at) gmail.com

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