I use a lot of Technology, known for it, and I tended to use specific review sites which started up as people like me, buying stuff, checking it out, and being honest (sometimes brutally) about its shortcomings back in the mid 'Noughties'. Now though the sites I see seem commercialised to such a degree that products are rarely panned if bad and often artfully praised.
There are a few distinct ways this happens which usually accompany a certain scenario such as:
- We've just come back from (Insert expensive overseas destination) to test (Product that doesn't need to be reviewed there)
- This exciting new range (exciting is interchangeable with new, doesn't necessarily mean good)
- Exclusively showed us (under a tight leash about whats reported)
- Available in (unspecified dates) the autumn /winter etc
- Great for (Insert group which will want a specific trumpeted feature but rest of product is a dog)
- A great new range of (insert product that has nothing to do with the review sites focus but it was a free junket)
In the past manufacturers and PR firms had to really listen to users. One user with a blog had enormous power to influence key decision makers to buy. This was often highlighted as a great democratisation of the internet and how the buying public would have an influence on the quality of goods. Unfortunately the PR machine is far cleverer and organised than individuals, and companies such as Future Publishing have bought up many of what you thought were independent blogs and review sites which they regularly publish with fawning editorials and distinctly artfully worded reviews. When the lead story is that phone maker X has released Y in a NEW COLOUR, you know someone's snout is, or will be, in the trough somewhere. When information becomes a commodity then the PR gatekeepers have the power to affect what is said and done.
So what has this got to do with education, with reports and strange swings in approach and marking with English GCSE's? Nothing Mr Gove, or at least that's what your advisers and closely allied educational 'organisations' will tell you. And like the review sites, if that's all you use to form your opinions, objective criticism will be the first casualty.
