Media Manipulates You
The ability to come to consensus has been ingrained within humans. Our tribal nature is to agree to the beliefs and opinions of the group. Acceptance to the group is extremely important to humans and most do anything it takes to receive it.
The game is never ending. You are constantly playing catch up to align yourself to the views of the crowd and figuring out what is the next move to copy.
There is great comfort that comes with being accepted to a larger group and being part of the consensus. You are insulated and feel safe amongst many. Standing out and being different is too risky and risk can be deadly.
In the past deviating from the tribe brought many problems and was a huge liability. The smaller the tribe the more important it was to stay aligned to the consensus.
The innate need to please the crowd is still ingrained in us and exploited by others.
These psychological evolutions, when understood and properly studied, can be exploited and used for means beyond our control and understanding.
Astute individuals have used human’s innate tribal behaviors to get them to purchase goods, believe in political ideologies, change habits, fight in war and control them on a mass level.
The ability to get humans to do something requires having a certain understanding of how humans work and interact with the world. Figuring out how to create a strategy to lead them towards your direction of choice.
Propaganda, created to influence an audience and push agenda, has always been important in societies. Propaganda is adapted based on the form of governance and objectives that are present.
In democratic societies such as the United States, the role of propaganda becomes far more pervasive and sublime. Unlike authoritarian societies that rely on authority and fear, democratic societies rely on propaganda to create the belief systems that keep authority figures in power.
Power relies on propaganda to increase and preserve power in democratic societies in ways that are far more subtle and therefore demand a higher level of understanding and orchestration.
Edward Bernays, also known as the father of public relations, has been integral in providing the masses with information on the scope and power of propaganda in a democratic society.
Bernays has been credited with large scale psychological experiments that were funded by governments, corporations, and non-governmental agencies that had agendas to shape the minds of the masses and in turn benefit from it.
Bernays was tasked with having women smoke cigarettes and break the taboo that existed. Women smoking cigarettes was socially frowned upon and seen as something prostitutes do, not women of high standard.
Tobacco companies saw a gold mine in breaking the taboo against women smoking and tapping into this new market.
Bernays was able to inject his propaganda into the feminist movement that was happening during that time. He made cigarettes become a symbol for freedom and a way for women to rebel against the existing order that was intrusive to their freedom.
Cigarettes became known as freedom torches and women began to smoke more than at anytime before. The connection between feminism and smoking was solidified. The female rebellion against the patriarchy benefitted the tobacco industry.
The incentives to implement and utilize propaganda are far too strong for any individual or organization to ignore. As technology has improved and the ability to spread information has evolved, the power of propaganda has increased.
Bernays mentions the importance of propaganda in a democratic society:
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.
The better in touch those in power are to the manipulation of the masses the better equipped they are to move the masses in their direction. Understanding and being able to do this on a mass scale is extremely valuable and powerful.
Bernays describes it as constituting an invisible government that governs the masses from afar. Completely hidden.
Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.
Bernays did his best work in the 1920s and 1930s. He already knew the power propaganda played and the fact that there is indeed this “invisible government” that is able to mold the minds of the masses.
Since Bernays we have had significant progress in technology and psychology. Humans are addicted to the internet and social media plays a huge role in our day to day life.
Social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter rely on creating the most addictive algorithms and business practices to hook their users to engage and use their platforms. The level of human psychological understanding has increased significantly and in turn is being used to further exploit the human being.
This is where Media Manipulation comes into play.
In recent years the public has continues a downward trend towards media trustworthiness. The public believes the media less and less. This trend will continue as the problems facing the media are exacerbated.
Mainstream Media has always been manipulated.
Media is an advertising company. Nothing more, nothing less.
Believing the media provides accurate unbiased information is being proud of wearing your sheep skin.
The media has always been manipulated because the incentives are tied to it being manipulated. There is far more upside in having a manipulated press than in having a free press.
Media companies will not bite the hand that feeds them. The hand that feeds them is the advertising budgets of companies. The fundamentals of media truth and unbiased reporting is flawed from the core.
There is little to no money in reporting the truth. It is far too difficult to provide an unbiased account on situations. Media is beginning to show its true colors of being a propaganda machine by the methods it is using to cling to power.
The election of Donald Trump propelled the media to dive into further irrelevancy. They allowed their ties to the Democrat parties, self brainwashing and profit motives to make them go on the offensive against Trump because of the threat he posed to the existing power system.
The Russia Collusion narrative is a perfect example of the manipulation being perpetrated by the mainstream media. For years segments of the population were manipulated into believing that Trump and Russia were colluding. This blatant lie was repeated ad nauseam where it became reality to the minds of many. Now it has been found that there was no connection and yet the mental manipulation is still present.
The media has been at war with social media for decades, but only recently has the war intensified and the true cost of it has become apparent. Television advertising is facing its largest opponent which is the Digital Media advertising faction. Social media has begun to absorb new advertising money that would have normally gone to media companies.
This creates a pressure for media companies to make money in unorthodox ways which has aggravated the decline they are facing.
The addiction the media gave the public on Trump has led them to their grave. CNN president Jeff Zucker notes how integral Trump has become to their numbers and viewers.
People say all the time, ‘Oh, I don’t want to talk about Trump, I’ve had too much Trump,’ ” Zucker told Vanity Fair.
And yet at the end of the day, all they want to do is talk about Trump.
There is a present profit motive to continue to push propaganda about Trump and companies such as CNN are making money doing it. In an industry that is in decline, the ability to still come out ahead and make money becomes irresistible and that is what is happening with the media.
The media is selling itself out any way it can to stay relevant and continue posting profits.
This has always been the case, but it has gotten worse as the reality becomes clearer and the lies begin to be exposed that were normally easily covered up.
In the past the media decided what got covered and what didn’t get covered.
Their ability to hold the attention of the public is decaying and this gives others the opportunity to provide attention to what the public wants.
The ability to push propaganda is therefore becoming democratized. Any person can push propaganda and do so more effectively than these behemoth media companies. We are still too early for this to happen, but we are beginning to see instances of smaller propaganda strategies usurping the power of the media.
Thriving in Media Manipulation
Understanding that the media you are consuming is manipulated and crafted to push agendas beyond our comprehension is necessary to understand.
Having agendas pushed beyond our comprehension doesn’t reflect our level of intellect or awareness (although it could), but rather it reflects the level of sophistication that modern propaganda has on our minds. Modern propaganda is hidden in layers of information.
You won’t realize how you are being manipulated until after you have been manipulated and even then you probably won’t realize the extent. Proper propaganda is hidden and powerful.
This means that you won’t be able to properly protect yourself, but you can be proactive about your ability to see the bullshit and begin noticing the agendas being pushed.
You want to become more aware and observant of what is happening.
You want to understand the masses, feel the masses, and observe the patterns of thought amongst the masses. While also staying detached and separated from the masses.
Becoming part of the masses should be done to study and understand the masses, but doing more will expose you to the systems and manipulations being pushed. You want to have a level of separation from the majority. You want to be involved, but not let yourself become infected.
There is a balance that needs to be created between involvement and detachment. Yin and Yang.
As you begin to detach yourself from the masses and begin to observe their movements you will begin to see the world differently. You become more skeptical of the most recent trends and begin to study how these trends came about and the direction they are headed.
You begin to observe the media as a mouthpiece for propaganda and use that understanding to figure out where the propaganda is being pushed. You begin to get a sense of the masses and the way their thoughts and beliefs are being corralled.
One of the best ways to begin detaching yourself from the masses and thinking for yourself (which is impossible to do, we are all manipulated) is to become skeptical and question what is widespread acceptance. You become a contrarian trying to find everything that is wrong with the beliefs of the majority. When you do this you begin to see things differently because you have a bias to find the flaws in the perceptions of the majority.
Slowly you combine the observations and feelings of the masses, the flaws of dominant psychological trends, and agendas being pushed en masse to begin constructing a more accurate portrayal of reality.
What you are trying to accomplish is constantly building a perspective of the world and acquiring better skills in the ability to build and analyze that perspective. You want to move towards building a clearer picture of the world that sees past the noise and spots the signals.
There are signals all around us we just need the proper perspective to notice it and figure out its implications.
Understanding that the media is pure manipulation will lead you towards the path of becoming observant while the rest continue to sleep.
