NOAM CHOMSKY: “The 10 Strategies of Media Manipulation”

“Thanks to the media propaganda, it has created or destroyed social movements, justified wars, tempered financial crisis, spurred on some other ideological currents, endorsed ethnic cleansing and genocide, and even given the phenomenon of media as producers of reality within the collective psyche. Unfortunately, as we are being inundated with all forms of media, there are many unscrupulous tactics to use subtle and not so subtle ways to target people with sophisticated webs of deceptions and mind control. Therefore, we must reeducate ourselves to learn how the media is used as a directed psychological and emotional operation that is used against the public, in order to get the desired results as premeditated and orchestrated by those who are behind spoon feeding and controlling how these messages are being presented. Thus, pay attention, develop strong discernment (develop your b.s. meter), and do your own research to stay awake and aware in these times of great turbulence and powerful change.”

~Lisa Renee

 

The 10 Strategies of Media Manipulation

1. The Strategy of Distraction

The primary element of social control is the strategy of distraction which is to divert public attention from important issues and changes determined by the political and economic elites, by the technique of flood or flooding continuous distractions and insignificant information. The distraction strategy is also essential to prevent the public interest in accessing the essential knowledge in the areas of science, economics, psychology, neurobiology and cybernetics. “Maintaining public attention diverted away from the real social problems, captivated by matters of no real importance. Keep the public busy, busy, busy, no time to think, back to farm and other animals.” (quote from text Silent Weapons for Quiet War)

2. Create Problems, then offer Solutions

This method is also called problem-reaction-solution. They create a problem, a situation that is referred to cause some reaction in the public or audience, so that this problem is the principal of the steps that they want you to accept. For example: let the problem unfold and intensify urban violence, or arrange for bloody attacks in order that the public is made pliable to accept security laws and policies that are the detriment of personal freedoms. Or: to create an economic crisis and make that acceptable as a necessary evil, while limiting social and human rights, with the dismantling of public services.

3. The Gradual Strategy or Desensitization

To desensitize major issues through cultivating public acceptance to an unacceptable degree, just apply the changes gradually, little by little, over many consecutive years. That is how the radically new socioeconomic conditions (neoliberalism) were imposed during the 1980s and 1990s: the minimal state, privatization, instability, massive unemployment, low wages, and did not guarantee a decent income, so many of these changes would have brought about a revolution, if these changes had been applied all at once. Apply these changes gradually with distractions, in order to desensitize and acclimate people to easily accept these changes.

4. The Strategy of Deferring

Another way to accept an unpopular decision is to present it as painful and necessary, by gaining public acceptance, at the time it will be used for a future application. It is easier to accept that a future sacrifice is necessary than of an immediate slaughter. In the beginning of introducing the idea to the public, people accept it because the effort is not being used immediately. Then, because the public has the tendency to expect naively that everything will be better tomorrow and that the sacrifice required may be avoided in the future. This plays on people’s hope and optimism, getting them to accept something unpleasant in the future. This gives the public more time to get used to the idea of painful changes and accept it with resignation, when the time comes.

5. Go to the Public as a Little Child

Most of the advertising to the general public uses speech, argument, people and particularly children’s intonation, often close to the emotional weakness, as if the viewer were a little child or a mentally deficient. The harder one tries to deceive the viewer, the more it tends to adopt a tone infantilizing. Why? “If one goes to a person as if she had the age of 12 years or less, then, because of suggestion, she tends with a certain probability that a response or reaction also devoid of a critical sense as a person 12 years or younger.” (see Silent Weapons for Quiet War)

6. Use the Emotional Reaction more than the Reflection

Making use of the emotional aspect is a classic technique for causing a short circuit on rational analysis and critical thinking, and finally to short circuit the common sense of the individual. Furthermore, the use of emotional register to open the door to the unconscious mind for implantation or grafting ideas, desires, fears and anxieties, addictions, or inducing certain behaviors.

7. Keep the Public in Ignorance and Mediocrity

Making the public incapable of understanding the technologies and methods that are used to mind control and enslave. “The quality of education given to the lower social classes must be the poor and mediocre as possible so that the gap of ignorance it plans among the lower classes and upper classes is and remains impossible to attain for the lower classes.” (Silent Weapons for Quiet War)

8. To encourage the Public to be Complacent with Mediocrity

Promote the public to believe that it is fashionable to be stupid, vulgar and uneducated. A person can become famous by acting like an vulgar idiot or posting butt or nude shots.

9. Strengthen Self-Blame and Depression

To let individuals blame others for their misfortune, because of the failure of their intelligence, their abilities, or their efforts. So, instead of rebelling against the economic system, or wanting access to education or knowledge, the individual automatically validates their guilt and unworthiness, which creates depression. Depression has the effect to which inhibits any kind of outward action, and generates apathy. When there is no action, and people are apathetic, there is no revolution!

10. Getting to know the Individuals better than they know Themselves

Over the past 50 years, advances of accelerated science and knowledge has generated a growing gap between public knowledge and those owned and operated by the dominant power elites. Thanks to biology, neurobiology and applied psychology, the system has enjoyed a sophisticated understanding of what motivates human beings, both physically and psychologically, perfecting mind control techniques. The system has gotten better acquainted with the common man more than he knows himself. This means that, in most cases, the system exerts greater control and greater power over individuals, because the system has much more knowledge to manipulate others, they know the individual more than the individuals know about themselves.

 

References:

Media Manipulation

http://www.syti.net/GB/SilentWeaponsGB.html