It's like a broken record isn't it? Climate change is only briefly mentioned in passing, yet Marc Hendrickx is there with his denialism.
Tell us Marc, do you have an email alert that tells you whenever the words 'climate' and 'change' are mentioned together on this site, so that you can jump in and give us all the benefits of your ideologically based opinion?
I have a suggestion for you Marc, given that you don't like the sort of group-think that occurs from people who base their opinions on evidence - subscribe to the Australian. I am sure your comments will be welcome there, and you will feel right at home.

I agree Gil

In Victoria readership of Herald Sun 75%; The Age 25%.
In Victoria the last Federal Election 2PP ALP 52%; LNP 48%

No correlation at all.
Therefore lots of ALP voters reading the Herald Sun are obviously not being influenced by Murdoch at all.

Chill out Peter, you are starting to sound like a climate denier spreading doom about the impact of the carbon tax!

No Ken,

I actually welcome Gina planting a few million dollars onto a scratched nag like Fairfax ... I like to have ratbag ideas out where I can see them rather than slinking about in parliaments and the Melbourne Club. And I have the utmost faith in the common sense of Australians to regard her venture into public opinion shaping with the scorn and mirth it deserves. Ratbags on parade.

Plus I'm genuinely looking forward to the SMH/Age resuming their commitment to contemporary Australian verse. Does anyone have some useful rhymes for "special export zones"?

If people are not interested in this sort of stuff then it is up to forums like the conversation to make them interested, isn't that the job of educational institutions? This is first year sociology content, I mean come on, everyone knows that media influences culture (probably with the exception of Marc, I doubt that he could tie his own shoe laces).
Culture can be explained simply as series of ideas that act as a map, or guide, for the way in which people live their lives. There are many factors that influence the way in which each individual builds this set of ideas which in turn effects the way in which they come to understand the world that they live in. Geertz proposes that culture is such an integral part of human existence, that the ability to recognise different cultural practices is instinctive in all of us, and that this ability has been perfected throughout our evolution as a species. His argument is that humans need the ability to be able to follow cultural patterns more than other animals because our societies are much more complicated, this is evident in the following quote from his essay, Geertz, C 1975, 'The impact of the concept of culture on the concept of man', in The interpretation
of cultures, Hutchinson, London, pp. 33-54
'...there is no such thing as a human nature independent of culture...They would be unworkable monstrosities with very few useful instincts, fewer recognizable sentiments, and no intellect: mental basket cases.'
Geertz goes on to state that humans, like other animals, react to their environments in certain ways after being given specific stimuli. He argues that this instinctive behaviour that allows us to function in society and to react appropriately to our ever changing environment and that without this ability we would would be unable to meet the demands of everyday life:
'...even more critical is his extreme dependence upon a certain sort of learning: the attainment of concepts, the apprehension and application of specific systems of symbolic meaning. Beavers build dams, birds build nests, bees locate food, baboons organise social groups, and mice mate on the basis of forms of learning that rest predominately on the instructions encoded on their genes and evoked by appropriate patterns of external stimuli; physical keys inserted into organic locks.' Geertz's argument is that culture, or the ability to follow certain pre-determined courses of action is such a necessary part of human existence, that without it we could not function. Understanding this anthropologically driven argument is important in helping to determine what constitutes human culture in its various forms. It can vary according to time and place, but which essentially help us to navigate our way through differing environments.
Our everyday lives are all a mixture of many different practices which can be attributed to various cultural belongings. This patchwork of varied everyday activity can be explained as cultural practices, and when they are performed in a group, they can be expressed as group culture. Similarly, if those practices are very widespread, they can be described as popular culture. Generally speaking, there is a distinction between what most people consider to be 'high' and 'low' culture. It is this topic that confuses some
people into mistakenly believing that unless they are talking about something that is considered part of 'high' culture, then there is a total void of any kind of culture at all. Darnton, R 1985, 'Peasants tell tales : the meaning of mother goose', in The great cat massacre and other episodes in French cultural history, Penguin, Melbourne, pp. 17-78 explains how culture is represented by the small actions and occurrences that we are involved with every day. He argues that culture is shaped by the environment in which we live, and though it tends to be adapted to that environment it is never
entirely specific. It blurs between boundaries of what is considered to be 'high' or 'low' society, and across varying socio-economic and political boundaries. The following quote contains Darnton's theory on how stories that were related to peasant children in pre-revolutionary France, which
contained so many of the cultural ideas of that time, found their way into the lives of the offspring of the upper classes:
'...all gentle folk passed their early childhood with wet nurses and nannies, who lulled them to sleep with popular songs and amused them, after they had learned to talk, with histoires ou contes du temps passe...that is, old wives' tales...servants and wet nurses provided the link between culture of
the people and the culture of the elite. The two cultures were connected, even to the height of the Grand Sciecle, when they would seem to have least in common; for the audiences of Racine and Lully had imbibed folklore with their milk...Cultural currents intermingled, moving up as well as down, while passing through different media and connecting groups as far apart as peasants and salon sophisticates.''
Darnton elaborates on this point, saying that this cross cultural exchange of ideas is what blurs the line between 'high' and 'low' culture in a given society, and the perceived differences between them. The following quote is useful for helping to understand the theme of Darnton's argument:
'Those groups did not inhabit completely separate mental worlds. They had a great deal in common – first and foremost, a common stock of tales. Despite the distinctions of social rank and geographical particularity, which permeated the society of the Old Regime, the tales communicated traits, values, attitudes, and a way of construing the world that was peculiarly French.'
Darnton believes that even though people of the upper classes between
14th and 18th century France may have believed in a distinction between the cultural practices of themselves and the peasants of that era, in reality they were all exposed to similar ideas about 'how the world is made and how to cope with it'. This localised exposure to common ideas about the world and the values imparted through the telling of stories inevitably lead to the creation of popular opinion on how to think about life in general. This theory is further exlained here:
'In the course of time, the message spread beyond the limits of folk-tales, and beyond the bounds of the peasantry. It became a master theme of French culture in general, at its most sophisticated as well as its most popular. Perhaps it reached its fullest development in Perrault's Puss 'n Boots, the embodiment of “Cartesian” cunning. Puss belongs to a long line of tricksters...The theme still lives...It survives in an ordinary language, as in the approving way one Frenchman will call another mechant and malin (both “wicked” and “shrewd” - France is a country where it is good to be bad).
It has passed from the ancient peasantry into everyone's everyday life.'
Darnton then believes, as Geertz does, that it is impossible for humans to live without culture. His more sociologically driven argument fits with Geertz's theory that humans pass on their ideas about the world and how to survive in it, which eventually become a model for social order and a
way of life. These collectively shared ideas are what can be described as common culture.
The ideas expressed by Geertz and Darnton are reflected in Popkin's essay, 'Journals: The New Face of the News', an article about the newspapers that thrived in post-revolutionary France during the late 18th century. In his article, Popkin describes how the new freedom of the press and the subsequent style of reporting on the revolution influenced the newly emerging democratic culture of the French people. It describes how the newspaper Feuille Villageoise helped to implant ideas in the minds of French people mostly from a rural background, by describing and then explaining the significance of issues raised in the debates during the legislative assemblies: 'The weekly summary of the Assembly's sessions made up only a small part of the paper, considerably less than the space devoted to didactic articles aimed at clarifying the issue...When the paper did break from its normal practice of giving only very short summaries of parliamentary sessions in order to provide fuller coverage of Louis XVI's appearance before the Convention during his trial, it still did not leave readers on their own but told them that this report would show them “the solemn dignity of the representatives of a great people, the humiliation of the former king, his denials, his subterfuges”. In this reading it is possible to see how Geertz and Darnton's theories about how culture is produced by the transmission of ideas from person to person about their environment. In Popkin's reading however, the transmission of ideas through media, i.e. the newspapers that proliferated in the years after the French revolution, take the place of the older generation of peasants that traditionally passed on the cultural ideas of their time through the folk tales that they told their children.

Michael,
Your assertion "This means that voters take little notice of political coverage in newpapers[sic]." is probably wrong.

The now predominantly right-leaning Sun-Herald and Daily Telegraph were once working-class oriented tabloids. But it is their racing and football coverage (with a dose of nostalgia - it's what dad read) that attracts working class readership now. That this is the case, along with the long observed xenophobia of the Australian working classes, could account for the shift to the right in working class people under Howard and their buying into Abbott's simplistic sloganeering and Alan Jones's "Juliar" campaign.

So, the demographics might plausibly work in the opposite direction to the one you implied.

It would greatly help if you could provide a clarification of what you mean by "left". And what do you mean that the environment is a "left" issue? How? What other "left" issues does the SMH champion? Examples, please.

I am surprised that you don't know the meaning of the left and right of politics, Mr. Nolan. They have been around for a very long while and I would have thought that a man of your erudition would have readily grasped the concept. The simplest example I think of is that The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald generally give more favourable treatment in their stories, opinion pieces and editorials to Labor and Labor policies, of which I am sure you must be familiar. I did not say that the environment is a 'left' issue although I would think the preponderance of their support would probably come from that side of politics. The Greens, of course, are very concerned with preserving native forests, preventing the extinction of species, limiting fishing zones, among other things, and supporting the proposition of anthropomorphic climate change. With the exception of the last, the right wing of politics is much less interested in these propositions, and with the last, notwithstanding a number of anti-warmest zealots, are mainly concerned with how to manage increased global warming without resorting to the proscriptive policies of the Greens and Labor. The right of politics is, of course, also interested in economic growth, something which at least some Greens find akin to apocalyptic. Oh, and the Greens tend to be pro-Islam and more than a little anti-Semitic, something which is not generally looked upon with great favour, even in the Labor party.

Yes Sam. I have my own view of what is "left". Me, I'm post left and concerned to put dialogue within the general framework of pro- or anti- democracy rather than remain captive of the class war rhetoric of the twentieth century.

As to nominating the SMH preferential treatment of Labour policies as evidence of a left bias on the SMH - you have to be joking! Labour? Left? You've heard of Mark Arbib, Eddie Obeid, Tripodi, Roozendhal and McDonald, haven't you? By what stretch of hallucinatory imagination do you call these reptiles of Sussex St left?

If you think these characters are of the left then you are so far to the right that you make The Great Khan look like a hippie. In fact, I reckon you're not even of the right but are an ideologue for oligarchy and Putinism.

Did you really just play the anti-semite card? Would you like me to up the ante by ascribing fascist qualities to the Right of Australian politics? And pro-Islam? I don't think resisting the demonisation of minorities by power elites really makes you 'pro' those minorities as opposed to making you 'anti' scumbag.

However, I am fascinated by assertions that the right wing want to 'manage increased global warming without resorting to the proscriptive policies of the Greens and Labor.'

That would be by digging holes, right?

Your resort to personal insults is unedifying and I do not intend to reply in kind. With respect to support for Islam and my anti-Semitic claims, I would refer you to the NSW branch of the Greens. And yes, I think there will be the digging of more holes.

Sam, show me where I personally insulted you. I think your outrage settings need adjusting, a not uncommon result of taking on board too much right wing media hysteria.

Done it again. Good bye.