Talk:Inane blather/Archive

(Slight editing for typos, and a resolved bit cut. See the discussion history.)

This entry ... advances the assertion that whatever motive one wants to declare for another party is fair dialogue, when it is evident here that the attributed motive (to demonstrate their illiteracy) is unlikely to the point of absurd. In doing so, it reduces humans (television anchors) to a status so low that other humans have no obligation to consider their real motives. This is the real flaw of this kind of political rhetoric - masked as humor but offered in a serious context, it is intended to inflame. It assumes a slightly inflammed giddy stance of ridicule is an appropriate posture in political dialogue. The real purpose is not to expose inane blather, but rather to excuse silly ridicule and to lay the stage for future reliance on ridicule rather than on dialogue.

Beyond that, it is wrong. A question-and-answer segway involving a brief statement, question and response is hardly the on-and-on verbosity defined as blather. It is rather a perhaps weak attempt to perform a standard broadcast media technique that personalizes the faces on screen while building interest in the subject. Since the authors of this page, and perhaps of the book from which this example is taken don't give us any context, we have no way of knowing if the president's arrival really was dramatic. If it involved a tail-hook landing on a carrier, well that would in deed be dramatic, albeit a bit theatrical. In that case, one cannot slight news commentators from accurately assessing drama i in the presidnets presentation.

It would be better to document the actual technique, with reference to where the techniques are taught (text books) rather than attempt to ridicule the approach because we don't like the subject of the dialogue.

Of course, if the CNN commentator used the following exchange introducing Bono at the Super Bowl singing about AIDS in Africa with the following exchange, it would never be treated as inane blather in liberal analysis.

"Bono is going to sing about the important issue of AIDS in Africa" "How important is it, my fellow sportscaster?" "It's very important, Mr. Anchor. Two million Africans died ..." etc.

There is a difference between inane blather about a contrived publicity stunt (Bush's landing on an aircraft carrier), and a genuinely important issue like AIDS in Africa. Bono wanted to use the Super Bowl as to sing about AIDS in Africa, which would have been an example of using an entertainment spectacle to raise awareness about a serious issue. Bush's stunt on the aircraft carrier was the very opposite: an example of turning a serious issue (war) into an entertainment spectacle. Another difference is that Bush's publicity stunt actually happened, whereas NFL organizers refused to allow Bono to sing his AIDS song at the Super Bowl, telling him that they have a "no issues" policy when it comes to their halftime entertainment.[1] --Sheldon Rampton 13:23 31 Jan 2004 (EST)

Also, the example here offered involving "important" is an actual dialog with crescendo of new, requested, and useful information; whereas the article example of "dramatic" depicts a dialog going nowhere, hence "inane" as in empty of meaning, senseless, and void.

All points well made.

It remains a judgement call - if one believes public spectacle reinforces elements of a nation's pysche, that strong group psyche is important or newsworthy and that a significant part of the public communicates with symbolic behavior as well as with linguistic rhetoric, it would not be inane to note a leaders' use of drama. Seems to me more like idle banter employed for an aural purpose in the context of broadcast programing than inane blather intended to prop up a political ideal. The alternate example ("how important is it"), to me also advances a POV that serves, well, western liberalism, bless its heart. A more Afrocentric POV might introduce Bono as "here to sing about the 'complicated' issue of AIDS in Africa", reflecting a lack of concensus among African scientists about the causes of the syndrome and about the role of hunger and epidemioligical issues related to opportunistic disease, rather than a lock step assertion that "AIDS" is an "issue" that is "important."

My analysis seems to be that the lack of substance in certain moments of telvision network newscasts is a product of the medium as much as a product of the motivation of anchors. NPR occassionally lets through a comparably inane introduction, especially in some reporters' stilted intros to their sound bites.

More generally, lack of substance in public political speech is a product of representative democracy in which constituents need only develop general knowledge of "issues" and rely on supposedly well-informed leaders to work out details along lines least offensive to constituents. In such an environment, the preferred stance vis-a-vis AIDS in Africa, from the perspective of a liberal leader, is to support a national foreign-aid spending package, rather than to address specific land-tenure issues related to cultural empowerment of African descendants living in urban US settings. I'm probably advancing the notion that if progressive minded people relied on truly substantive public dialogue, rather than sound-bite idealism, the political institutions we see today, left, right and center, would not long stand.

It's not about content, but about presentation. The one-time description of an event as "dramatic" is not presented in this article. Rather the double suggestion, followed by the response which adds nothing but reinforcement that an anticipated event already is, in this case, dramatic; and by reporters who are supposed to be reporting on the event, not describing it before it happens.

How about "Let's take you now to our reporter on site. Hello Johnny." "Yo! Wolf. I'm standing by here waiting for the scheduled event with five hundred other reporters eating sandwiches provided for us by the FCC. We're all in our designated locations next to the cameras, of which there appear to be about thirty. Way back around the corner and down a level are some protestors, but I can't tell you anything about them from here. They don't have a press corps, but their soup smells good. There's a huge banner hanging below the bridgedeck above the podium which declares Victory of some sort; but we'll have to wait for the President to arrive before knowing just what Victory is referenced." ...etc.

Well, that would be the way I would prefer the event introduced, more or less, but they wouldn't let the protesters on the aircraft carrier. Anyway, I think it is research in audience attentiveness and listening habits that leads to the idle-banter format. I don't prefer the format, but other viewers do. Giving the news anchors credit that maybe they do correctly understand the value of describing an event in a single word, and that repeating that simplified descriptive in idle dialogue is a legitimate, effective communication technique and that in the case of this event the word would be dramatic, but then agreeing that dramatic aircraft carrier landings are an inane way to declare victory in a perpetual war, then the inane communication here originates not with the television anchors, but with the President. And the anchors, bound by ethics to be neutral, cannot elaborate on how the dramatic, very dramatic landing is inane, very, very inane.