SPIN: Democracy at work - a documentary by Brian Springer (1995)

Artist Brian Springer spent a year scouring the airwaves with a satellite dish grabbing back channel news feeds not intended for public consumption. The result of his research is SPIN, one of the most insightful films ever made about the mechanics of how television is used as a tool of social control to distort and limit the American public's perception of reality. Take the time to watch it from beginning to end and you'll never look at TV reporting the same again. Tell your friends about it. This extraordinary film released in the early 1990s is almost completely unknown. Hopefully, the Internet will change that.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Spin
• election
• Brain
• Springer
• US
• democracy

[bane349]

Seriously, thank you for posting this. I was only a teenager at the time those dishes were popular, and didn't have a clue. I used to think it was funny seeing them screw up on things, but now that I'm older, it makes me sick to my stomach. This video is every bit as true today as it was when it was made. 10/10

VOTE RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT 2012!

[IIoWoII]

"Bank of America, we'll help you out"

[ideservefavors]

Wow...pay close attention to the segment starting at 15:40. Note the stunning similarities between the media's treatment of Larry Agran then, and their treatment of Ron Paul over the past few years, particularly in the last election cycle. 

[thepatient08]

Why is there a man in military camo setting up that anchor desk around 20:40 ?

[fckyoumotherfscker]

Good thing Larry Agran didn't win.

he wanted to cut defense spending by 50% and invest in ghettos?

can you imagine what a waste of money that would be? double the funding for schools in the ghetto and the results are basically the same.

[theyreoutthere]

Some of this is exactly what is going on with Ron Paul and the exclusion by the Mainstream Media.

[troublemakir]

@StigRossi My point is that as long as most people find SOMETHING to watch on TV for hours a day it doesn't matter in the end if it's Jon Stewart or the NFL. It is a near perfect method of social control and the Internet is being used in a very similar way. Millions of people around the globe staring at lightbulbs at the same time every day for hours on end, that's what aliens watching from above would see. As long as there's something for 'informed' people to enjoy, TV rules.

[StigRossi]

@troublemakir

I watch Jersey Shore AND Im well informed. Well okay fine, I dont watch JS its too stupid even for me. But I dont think that watching pop culture and being informed are mutually exclusive

[troublemakir]

@yngvaibucketrucci But they are still watching Teen Mom and Jersey Shore. Maybe they use the internet, but that's in addition TO watching conventional TV programming. How much of that wonderful Internet time do most young people spend watching the same conventional TV programs, just with a different screen? I remember hearing all this in the early nineties about how now everyone would be super-informed, but instead they're super informed about 9/11 truth and Angry Birds.

[yngvaibucketrucci]

@troublemakir I'm not sure how old you are but effectively all young people in first world coutries grow up on the internet as much if not more than they do with TV now days, it only takes one generation to change everything

[troublemakir]

@yngvaibucketrucci We are a long way from everybody having the internet. I think it will be a good hundred years or more before monopoly-controlled TV stops being a force for controlling Democracy. TV appeals to dumb people, and if you can scare the dumb people watching football enough to get them to vote it doesn't matter what all the nerds watching documentaries on the internet think.

[whatismyname5151]

I heard theres another one earlier that is called Feed. 1992 I think