[tgamba]

Except all video is fake, that is, all videos are artifacts, artificial things.

"We’re not so far from the collapse of reality" -- am I the only one who finds this inane? No video is real.

Critical thinking as applied to the written word applies equally to the image. It's not rocket science.

[royjacobs]

Except everyone has been conditioned over the latest ~100 years to assume that everything they see in a video is real. That is: unless explicitly contextualised as fake, like when watching a movie.

Your premise that everyone should just "apply some critical thinking" directly contradicts the events of the last couple of years, not just in the field of video but within any form of media.

[Senderman]

It sounds like you're agreeing with the original comment, but I think you might be paraphrasing it to highlight the absurdity.

And it does seem absurd, but it's true: almost everyone has been conditioned to accept news footage as 'pure' truth, something at the other end of a reality-scale from, say, movies.

I think it's hard to remember is that the majority of video is tailored with intent to evoke specific a response: To some degree, your reaction and emotions are at the mercy of the video producer - just like in a movie. Except in a movie, you have the safety switch of remembering it's "not real" - I think the lack of a corresponding mental failsafe with news causes subtle hysteria, confusion, and frustration.

Contrary to a lot of conspiracy, I don't think it's malicious (mostly), and I believe fundamentally journalism has noble goals - but I don't see it as deniable that "news" as a whole is under pressure to be compelling, and that, albeit subtly, twists what we're exposed to.

Crying "be more sceptical" isn't very helpful - it certainly wouldn't have helped me. I think more knowledge of what goes on behind the scenes of newsmaking might be more along the lines of what would help people, but I don't really know.

"Fake" almost isn't the right word. "Disconnected from reality" - subtly - that's the phenomenon causing trouble, in my view. But anything that's disconnected from reality, taken as truth, is open to manipulation; scepticism is appropriate.

[icebraining]

Eh, I'm not sure. People have been skeptical of video forever, as long as they feel they have a reason to be. Hell, even the Moon landing videos are doubted by a non-insignificant number of people.

I think the "trust in video" is more a reflection of trust in the establishment, since those were the people who could really broadcast it. People who didn't have that trust in the establishment (e.g. anti-capitalists in the West) already doubted videos as well.

For example, where I'm from there's a significant number of people who are skeptical of the recent videos of the chemical attack in Syria.

[Senderman]

You are not the only one who finds it insane.

A video is recorded, cut, and was subject to selection bias to begin with when somebody hit record; not to mention that the subset of things that are easier to record get moved to the front of the line.

Even if you accept the counter-argument that 'unaltered footage' is 'more real' - the entire act of passing a video around, by media, by people, by whomever - is, to me, far removed from the reality of being an eye-witness.

A 'click-bait' headline can be technically true, but there's a reason people take issue with them.

Maybe "fake" is too evocative of digital or selective editing - I feel you're describing a more subtle form of "fakeness" - the subtle loss of reality as something is encapsulated in text, video, etc. and relayed to someone who didn't witness the original.

That, or I'm projecting how I feel about the subject.

I'll add that, for me sometimes, and for a lot of people I know, it's easy to fall into the trap of getting emotionally worked up about some piece of evidence gleaned from the 'net, taking it in as real information, instead of taking it dispassionately as a simulacrum.