Freethinker
10-24-2006, 09:35 PM
Maufacturing Opinion: The Propaganda Machine at Work
http://files.blog-city.com//files/aa/2370/p/f/2002788443.gif
On Being Brainwashed
We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemy's side of the front is always propaganda, and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity and a crusade for peace. — Walter Lippmann
There is the need for free societies to be aware when they are subjected to incessant and systematic campaigns of indoctrination and disinformation, the more so if it is to wage wars of aggression abroad. - Rodrigue Tremblay
Fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled, more susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard-line postures. They may accept and even welcome repression if it promises to relieve their insecurities. - George Gerbner (Former Dean of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania)
It is the merest truism that thought-control is unnecessary in totalitarian societies.
A one-party rule and the repression of freedoms render irrelevant what people think.
But in a would-be free and open society——and especially in a society that aspires to be a democracy——propaganda and thought-control are crucial to the formation of public attitudes.
In a nominal democracy, such as exists today in the United States, shaping the opinions of the masses is crucial to the appearance of legitimacy for the ruling elite.
The public must be guided and persuaded to ratify the policies favored by the wealthy and well connected, while insuring that the general public does not actually interfere with the policies and profits of the corporate rulers.
Above all, the appearance of popular democracy must be preserved.
So the rich and well connected must also still find ways to maintain the appearance of real democracy, even while they are greatly outnumbered by a factor of 50-60 to 1.
Therefore, the ruling elite must find other ways of making up for being vastly outnumbered at the polls.
This is why it is so important for such elites to shape the public mind.
Huge public opinion and marketing machines, along with the advertising industry provide commercial forms of propaganda.
Their success flows from their ability to keep people self-indulgent, to keep people consuming, to keep them on the debt treadmill, and to keep them complacent, self-absorbed, and hedonistic.
If you haven’t read George Orwell’s 1984 or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World for awhile, now is a good time to pick them up and re-read them.
I submit that American society today seamlessly blends the self-satisfaction of Huxley’s Soma with Orwell’s ubiquitous telescreens and the thought-control they engender.
When people are afraid, they need the Soma all the more: fear produces anxiety and hysteria; Soma provides the escapism. - Gary Alan Scott
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views.
That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.
Since the voice of the people is allowed to speak out in democratic societies, those in power better control what that voice says — in other words, control what people think.
One of the ways to do this is to create political debate that appears to embrace many opinions, but actually stays within very narrow margins.
You have to make sure that both sides in the debate accept certain assumptions — and that those assumptions are the basis of the propaganda system. As long as everyone accepts the propaganda system, the debate is permissible.
One reason that propaganda often works better on the educated than on the uneducated is that educated people read more, so they receive more propaganda.
Another is that they have jobs in management, media, and academia and therefore work in some capacity as agents of the propaganda system — and they believe what the system expects them to believe.
By and large, they're part of the privileged elite, and share the interests and perceptions of those in power.
It is much more difficult to see a propaganda system at work where the media are private and formal censorship is absent.
This is especially true where the media actively compete, periodically attack and expose corporate and government malfeasance, and aggressively portray themselves as spokesmen for free speech and the general community interest.
What is not evident (and remains undiscussed in the media) is the limited nature of such critiques, as well as the huge inequality of the command of resources, and its effect both on access to a private media system and on its behavior and performance. - Noam Chomsky
In the West the calculated manipulation of public opinion to serve political and ideological interests is much more covert and therefore much more effective [than a propaganda system imposed in a totalitarian regime].
Its greatest triumph is that we generally don't notice it — or laugh at the notion it even exists.
We watch the democratic process taking place - heated debates in which we feel we could have a voice — and think that, because we have “free” media, it would be hard for the Government to get away with anything very devious without someone calling them on it.
...the new American approach to social control is so much more sophisticated and pervasive that it really deserves a new name.
It isn't just propaganda any more, it's “prop-agenda.” It's not so much the control of what we think, but the control of what we think about.
When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it's the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone's talking about.
And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false “intelligence” and selected “leaks”.
With the ground thus prepared, governments are happy if you then “use the democratic process” to agree or disagree — for, after all, their intention is to mobilise enough headlines and conversation to make the whole thing seem real and urgent.
The more emotional the debate, the better. Emotion creates reality, reality demands action. -------- Brian Eno
http://www.radicalleft.net/blog/_archives/2006/10/22/2426768.html
http://files.blog-city.com//files/aa/2370/p/f/2002788443.gif
On Being Brainwashed
We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemy's side of the front is always propaganda, and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity and a crusade for peace. — Walter Lippmann
There is the need for free societies to be aware when they are subjected to incessant and systematic campaigns of indoctrination and disinformation, the more so if it is to wage wars of aggression abroad. - Rodrigue Tremblay
Fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled, more susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard-line postures. They may accept and even welcome repression if it promises to relieve their insecurities. - George Gerbner (Former Dean of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania)
It is the merest truism that thought-control is unnecessary in totalitarian societies.
A one-party rule and the repression of freedoms render irrelevant what people think.
But in a would-be free and open society——and especially in a society that aspires to be a democracy——propaganda and thought-control are crucial to the formation of public attitudes.
In a nominal democracy, such as exists today in the United States, shaping the opinions of the masses is crucial to the appearance of legitimacy for the ruling elite.
The public must be guided and persuaded to ratify the policies favored by the wealthy and well connected, while insuring that the general public does not actually interfere with the policies and profits of the corporate rulers.
Above all, the appearance of popular democracy must be preserved.
So the rich and well connected must also still find ways to maintain the appearance of real democracy, even while they are greatly outnumbered by a factor of 50-60 to 1.
Therefore, the ruling elite must find other ways of making up for being vastly outnumbered at the polls.
This is why it is so important for such elites to shape the public mind.
Huge public opinion and marketing machines, along with the advertising industry provide commercial forms of propaganda.
Their success flows from their ability to keep people self-indulgent, to keep people consuming, to keep them on the debt treadmill, and to keep them complacent, self-absorbed, and hedonistic.
If you haven’t read George Orwell’s 1984 or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World for awhile, now is a good time to pick them up and re-read them.
I submit that American society today seamlessly blends the self-satisfaction of Huxley’s Soma with Orwell’s ubiquitous telescreens and the thought-control they engender.
When people are afraid, they need the Soma all the more: fear produces anxiety and hysteria; Soma provides the escapism. - Gary Alan Scott
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views.
That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.
Since the voice of the people is allowed to speak out in democratic societies, those in power better control what that voice says — in other words, control what people think.
One of the ways to do this is to create political debate that appears to embrace many opinions, but actually stays within very narrow margins.
You have to make sure that both sides in the debate accept certain assumptions — and that those assumptions are the basis of the propaganda system. As long as everyone accepts the propaganda system, the debate is permissible.
One reason that propaganda often works better on the educated than on the uneducated is that educated people read more, so they receive more propaganda.
Another is that they have jobs in management, media, and academia and therefore work in some capacity as agents of the propaganda system — and they believe what the system expects them to believe.
By and large, they're part of the privileged elite, and share the interests and perceptions of those in power.
It is much more difficult to see a propaganda system at work where the media are private and formal censorship is absent.
This is especially true where the media actively compete, periodically attack and expose corporate and government malfeasance, and aggressively portray themselves as spokesmen for free speech and the general community interest.
What is not evident (and remains undiscussed in the media) is the limited nature of such critiques, as well as the huge inequality of the command of resources, and its effect both on access to a private media system and on its behavior and performance. - Noam Chomsky
In the West the calculated manipulation of public opinion to serve political and ideological interests is much more covert and therefore much more effective [than a propaganda system imposed in a totalitarian regime].
Its greatest triumph is that we generally don't notice it — or laugh at the notion it even exists.
We watch the democratic process taking place - heated debates in which we feel we could have a voice — and think that, because we have “free” media, it would be hard for the Government to get away with anything very devious without someone calling them on it.
...the new American approach to social control is so much more sophisticated and pervasive that it really deserves a new name.
It isn't just propaganda any more, it's “prop-agenda.” It's not so much the control of what we think, but the control of what we think about.
When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it's the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone's talking about.
And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false “intelligence” and selected “leaks”.
With the ground thus prepared, governments are happy if you then “use the democratic process” to agree or disagree — for, after all, their intention is to mobilise enough headlines and conversation to make the whole thing seem real and urgent.
The more emotional the debate, the better. Emotion creates reality, reality demands action. -------- Brian Eno
http://www.radicalleft.net/blog/_archives/2006/10/22/2426768.html