Re: Bali Bombing Meme

From: Bruce Howlett (brucehowlett@northnet.com.au)
Date: Wed 23 Oct 2002 - 12:41:33 GMT

  • Next message: Andrew S. LORD(SED): "VOTE DARWIN!"

    Hi Scott.

    >One cannot expect world media not to react to such atrocities such as the
    >Bali bombing (or the previous events attributed to terrorism). That the
    >terrorists might feed off the attention just highlights the twists and turns
    >of their mental derangement.

    I agree with what you say, but is there an identifiable memetic event in this process? Eg: is the media attitude to report everything regardless of the consequences a memetic phenomena? I am aware of a self imposed ban in the Australian newspaper media on reporting suicides as there is scientific evidence proving such reports cause the suicide rate to increase. While it might be more difficult to measure, the same may be true of terrorism events. I just thought that some people on this list might want to extend this a bit. When this thought first occurred to me, my first reaction was to start writing to politicians to try to get them to reduce the media coverage. But without some scientific rationale they would probably write me off as a nutter.

    Regards,

    Bruce Howlett

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