11 Tactics Used By The Mainstream Media to Manufacture Consent For The Oligarchy
Waking Times
The mainstream media is aging and collapsing under the weight of its own hubris and arrogance.
Now entirely
formulaic in presentation and predictable in substance, the ‘major’
outlets of news, which are monopolized under only a small handful of
corporations, serve the purpose of misleading the public on important
issues and manufacturing consent for government and the oligarchs.
The public
is still largely numb to this reality, and in a wicked catch-22 for
modern man, many people are still addicted to the very media that serves
as the primary weapon of social control against them.
The tide is
turning, however, and to help break the spell we bring you this
comprehensive list of 11 tactics used against the public by the
mainstream media to coerce consensus, divide, conquer, ridicule and
stifle truthful or meaningful conversation about the state of our world.
1. Lying by Omission – What is not on the nightly news?
This is the most important question to ask when consuming mainstream media.
The average
hour long broadcast consists of 48 minutes or less of actual news
programming, minus, of course, the chit-chatting, the expensive motion
graphics and the bumpers, highlights and story recaps.
With a
formula like this, full of pomp and grandstanding, the impression given
is that if does not make it on the nightly news, the it is not of
significance.
The most
obvious way in which the mainstream media manufactures consent for
policy makers and advertisers is by omitting from the news reel those
stories and perspectives which may compromise the broadcasters agenda,
whatever that may be.
2. Controlling the Debate
Who is arguing, and for what cause?
News
programs are businesses just like anything else, and as such news
executives keep a go-to list of contacts to fulfill any necessary role
in a program or segment.
If the
government needs credibility, they roll out an ex-president and remind
you that he has ‘gravitas.’ If the military industrial complex needs a
voice, then they roll out a familiar think-tanker to interject in a
debate with a common-sense perspective in favor of national security.
If something
is too complicated for public consumption, then they open the rolodex
to the ‘experts’ page and shuffle some know-it-all in front of the
camera.
The media is
laden with groomed pundits, so-called opinion leaders, and
commentators, and each one has a definite reputation, each one resonates
with a specific target audience, and each one fills a predictable role
in a conversation.
Program
guests are very well vetted, and news is a science, a very lucrative
science that excels in giving the impression of a diversity in ideas
while keeping the debate sequestered in a very well constructed box. The
characters in this box make all the difference.
3. Selecting the Right Anchors, Casters and Presenters
Our lives have been pegged to the dollar, and as such, a ‘good job’ is valued above many genuine virtues.
People like
to keep their jobs, as do news anchors and news casters, and since news
is, again, a business, the voices and faces on news programs are hired
to perform a role, a job description, a task. They are not employed to
pursue morally driven journalism for the benefit of society.
If they
perform as they are required, they advance and gain more exposure. If
they rock the boat, there are a thousand other hungry job-seekers
chomping at the bit to replace them and do exactly they are hired to do.
News anchoring is a job like anything else, and those at the forefront are the best at playing the role.
Related:
4. Scripting and Synchronizing News
One of the
creepier and more blatant efforts to homogenize thought and manufacture
consent is to script the news at high level, then distribute these
scripts to many different locales and anchors to read verbatim, while
they feign authenticity.
This is
partially a result of the business decision to save money by employing
as few actual news gatherers as possible, but is also a key part of the
strategy to achieve conformity amongst people of different backgrounds
and interests.
The
government has also been known to interject itself into the chain of
command for selecting which news scripts are to be disseminated to the
public.
This is the
most fundamental characteristic of propaganda, and is rather
embarrassing to witness once you realize just how disingenuous your
local news presenters are and just how easily duped most people are.
5. Politicizing Everything
Language is
the greatest weapon of social control, and with mainstream media,
powerfully debilitating language is pushed into every corner of our
consciousness.
Conservative
vs. Liberal. Democrat vs. Republican. Right-winger vs. Left-winger.
Good vs. Bad. Left vs. Right. Right vs. Wrong. White vs. Black.
And so on. Ad nauseam.
The truth is
that ideas and opinions are as vastly different as grains of sand on a
beach, yet the media intentionally frames every issue in terms of a
phoney left-right paradigm that has been constructed to pigeon hole
complex ideas and interests into a cheapened thought prison.
No
unorthodox idea or point of view can reach critical mass because
everything is automatically framed in a ‘with us or against us’ mindset,
turning people against each other for no reason other than to appeal to
our desire to be on the winning team.
The
mainstream media is the chief party responsible for creating the
constructs of ‘left’ and ‘right,’ which have been tightly integrated
into our social consciousness as a means of achieving divisiveness and
disagreement among the populace.
This is the
chief tactic of divide and conquer, and when people are compelled on any
issue to ‘pick a team’ and fight the rivalry to it’s bitter end, many
opportunities for true progress are lost and the populace is easily
goaded into a position favorable to the elite.
6. Using the Language of Separation and Labels
Sometime in
the 1990’s, the mainstream media stopped referring to people as ‘people’
or even as ‘citizens’ and began calling everyone ‘consumers.’
Once again,
language is important to shaping reality, and as ‘consumers’ our role in
the affairs of business and state are reduced to hapless bystanders
whose job it is to choose and reject, not interject and affect.
We’ve all
heard the label ‘conspiracy theorist,’ which is the most popular label
used when an idea or story is unfavorable to the mainstream media and
the interests that back them up.
You are a
‘conspiracy theorist’ if you ask questions, assimilate facts in a
logical manner, or pursue justice outside of the main flow of public
discourse on a popular issue.
This type of
language is also part of the process of politicizing everything, and by
also labeling people in accordance with their country of origin,
religion, skin color, economic class, or whatever else, more wedges of
division are driven into the populace, deflating our inherent power in
numbers.
7. Asking the Wrong Questions
Press access
to ‘important’ people in our society is tightly regulated, and the
powers that be don’t like to be confronted with unexpected and hard
questions.
For this,
the mainstream media dutifully uses its access to people in high places
to ask softball, trivial, nonsensical, ignorant questions about
irrelevant and superfluous issues.
Independent
media is winning the long race against corporate/fascist propagandized
media because people are naturally inclined to resonate with common
sense and truth, which is not at all what corporate mainline media is
involved with.
White house
correspondents shouldn’t waste our time and insult our intelligence by
asking a war time president about his pet dog or a recent golfing trip.
But they do, all the time.
8. Closing the Book Too Soon
Moving an
important or complicated issue from the front page as quickly as
possible is a common strategy to remove touchy subjects from the public
conversation.
Sadly, our
national attention span is at an all time low, mostly because we’ve been
trained to move from issue to issue with lightening speed, never
soaking up any one thing for too long.
With such a
short term memory, it is easy to protect a politician, forget a
genocide, ignore the long-term effects of a bank bailout, and so on,
just by moving onto to something new.
Once the
media has signaled that a story has been resolved or adequately
discussed, then any after thought, individual investigation, or further
inquiry is labeled as extremist and ignored.
9. Triviality and Distraction
With all of
the important decisions being made daily by powerful people, decisions
that genuinely affect quality of life for many people, the news outlets
are steadfastly devoted to engaging in gossip, entertainment, murders
and acts of violence, car accidents, disasters and other pablum.
The body
politic is kept confused by celebrity happenings, endless sports
contests and other such pageantry, and the media uses these many forms
of distractions to fill time and brain space so that important issues
are seen as a drag or as a downer, and never given proper reflection.
This is so ubiquitous in our society nowadays that there really is no escape.
10. Outright Lying
When all else fails, just lie, make it up as you go along, sell your air time to the highest bidder, and never look back.
In the
internet age, people are pretty keen on fact checking, rebutting,
arguing, and gathering stats, and there are enough facts available to
prove any side to any story.
In fact,
this has become an art form for major media, and the ability to gather
facts in accordance with an agenda is a profitable skill for the
mainstream media.
Lying has always worked, and the bigger the lie, the more likely it is to be believed.
11. Bonus – Eye Candy and Mind Melting
This one is a
bonus and part of the new era of network news. Rather than employ
virtuous gumshoes and hardcore reporters of truth, mainstream media
instead invests in graphic artists to make each frame of the broadcast
an over-designed motion collage of brain-melting info overload.
Staying focused on what the anchor or guest is actually saying is impossible.
By design,
the news is presented in a mad shotgun blast of competing signals, and
your attention is split in ten directions with tickers, bubbles, stock
footage, gyrating lights and special effects.
The point
here is to exhaust the mind with over-stimulation so that the brain
cannot function methodically and cannot process an issue beyond the
shallow surface. This is also known as hypnotism, or mind-control.
Conclusion
News is a
commodity just like everything else these days, and although many still
believe the point of news is to inform, it is important to accept the
hard truth that the purpose of the news is really just to sell
something, be it a product, an idea, a candidate, a public image, a war,
or whatever.
For this,
the mainstream media is focused on first deciding which issues are to be
discussed in the public forum, then by using a bagful of tricks to
shape people’s perceptions of an issue, the media divides us and pits us
against each other while leading us into consent for an underlying and
hidden agenda.
