http://www.blueblood.net/2008/06/astroturfing/ Counterculture Lifestyle Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:11:05 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 http://www.blueblood.net/2008/06/astroturfing/comment-page-1/#comment-200 Blue Blood Magazine Gothic Punk Deathrock Fandom News Photos Forum » GNR Chinese Democracy Faith and Astroturf Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:13:46 +0000 http://www.blueblood.net/2008/06/astroturfing/#comment-200 [...] The problem is that all the astroturfing of recent years has left people very cynical. A lot of consumers thought they were being forward-thinking by using ad-blockers and claiming total resistance to traditional marketing. So the marketers adapted with fake grass-roots support and forced viral marketing. The record labels shunned rock journalism and attempted to replace it with articles written by publicists and bought and paid for out of artists’ future royalties. Add to all that that the record labels decided that the internet age meant they could and should stop servicing journalists and radio. Supposedly they just got sooooooooooo frightened that journalists and DJs would pirate the music and post it to torrents and file-sharing networks, but I think a lot of it was that they did not want to deal with an independent writer’s genuine opinion and they preferred corporate radio’s complete control where the DJ never gets to choose the song. So now we never know whether to trust what a journalist says. And we definitely know (or should know) never to trust what a supposedly random man on the street says. And the radio rarely offers up anything new that we want. [...] [...] The problem is that all the astroturfing of recent years has left people very cynical. A lot of consumers thought they were being forward-thinking by using ad-blockers and claiming total resistance to traditional marketing. So the marketers adapted with fake grass-roots support and forced viral marketing. The record labels shunned rock journalism and attempted to replace it with articles written by publicists and bought and paid for out of artists’ future royalties. Add to all that that the record labels decided that the internet age meant they could and should stop servicing journalists and radio. Supposedly they just got sooooooooooo frightened that journalists and DJs would pirate the music and post it to torrents and file-sharing networks, but I think a lot of it was that they did not want to deal with an independent writer’s genuine opinion and they preferred corporate radio’s complete control where the DJ never gets to choose the song. So now we never know whether to trust what a journalist says. And we definitely know (or should know) never to trust what a supposedly random man on the street says. And the radio rarely offers up anything new that we want. [...]

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