Deconstructing the media manipulation that infects America's core

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By Gustav Wynn (about the author) Page 1 of 3 page(s)

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For OpEdNews: Gustav Wynn - Writer

Too much to blog last night? I was struck by a comment left by a sensible sounding visitor on the site for bitterly acerbic right wing columnist Ann Coulter in which scores of insulting comments and diatribes follow her predictably flammable editorials.

In part 'dunkel' wrote: "The playground level tauntings that fly back and forth whenever a dissenting opinion is raised (regardless of the intellectual/logical merits or fallacies of such an opinion) don't add anything to the conversation. Neither side is any more guilty or innocent than the other, and the general commentary posted by authors on these sites is designed to rally their followers into a froth. And it works. Sad commentary on the state of American politics."

Bravo, dunkel, but that's not even the half of it. This is a commentary on the state of American society, in which we are bred from birth to be manipulated. We are taught to see things only one way, but we are also taught to want. We are fed this message from the moment we can focus on the glowing TV tube that fulfilment comes from consumer products and services. We are taught to follow fads and fashion, and customs so old we can no longer even explain their meanings. We are indoctrinated into our parent's religion, given an all too limited number of choices for political parties and ultimately are the pawns in a massive battle for public mind control being waged between enormous media conglomerates and their affiliated political and commercial allies.

You point out what is obvious to any teacher who corrects simple middle school essays. We are not building discussions out of mutual inquiry, deductive or constructive reasoning, discussing and challenging one another's cases and opinions, we are merely recycling the summaries of our media heroes as casually as memory permits, while inserting smarmy quips to score juvenile jabs against strangers. These blogs have also lost most civility, making dunkel's comment a rare exception. But that's what Ann Coulter designs for us, that's what Townhall thrives on, and just as some for-profit sites do on the left, they have us all clacking away endlessly on keyboards without really listening or learning from one another.

A few months back, I posted a comment on an Ann Coulter essay pointing out that her article was essentially a democrat/liberal smear which didn't even address her own stated topic. When middle school kids are taught to construct a persuasive essay, it's most basically done by stating a premise, supporting it with facts and opinion, clearly differentiating what is research-based and what is commentary, and making logical connections to sway neutral readers. Ann's essay not only mixed fact with opinion, but humor with actual calls for killing foreigners. Her points were random, unrelated to her opening statement and her comments grossly insulted and degraded her subjects, as is her trademark. She aims to demean those who don't share her viewpoint, roundly perceived as fomenting mob-style hatred against fellow Americans, with a level of verbal abuse few other professional commentators maintain. In the end, Ann's commentary distinctly fits the definition of propaganda, however her underlying motives may be more complex then seeking publicity or book sales.

The media does not care if we are at eachothers throats as long as they are generating profit. They know provocative hosts make little sense, and they know well-reasoned, intelligent commentary is too challenging for the type of viewer they ideally want to sell advertising to. McNeil-Lehrer or BBC reports present two sides of an issue and highly qualified guests in quick order, cutting right to the heart of an issue and leaving it to the viewer to form their own conclusions. But that doesn't sell hemorrhoid cream, so networks hire nuts like Glenn Beck and Dan Rather. Suddenly you aren't listening and learning, you're talking back to your set and cheering (or swearing) - this is because responsible, informed journalism breeds discerning thinkers who don't respond to ads well - they are more likely see through marketing and sales hype.

Our primary usefulness to those in power is to buy products, pay taxes, vote for specific candidates and send our young into service. For most everything else, they want us docile and complacent. In order for us to do this however, there must be motivation, otherwise why would we want to do someone else's bidding? The solution for this is something called Bernaysian manipulation and it works like a charm. This deliberate control of the masses is meant to achieve all of their ends, including the seemingly impossible task of convincing the middle class that laws should cater to the upper class.

But it works and here's how: in order to get you to buy a product, they convince you you want it. Pretty simple really, for example, to sell clothes they show you they same items being worn by a beautiful model. Your subconscious does the rest, turning your desire to look good into an association with that product - it's well proven. We do respond, we buy these clothes to project the qualities of the beauteous model onto ourselves, a promise made by the ad but carried out us, acting just as expected. The average consumer is ordinary - a model is gorgeous. Like clockwork, the formula proves true - our hidden desire to be extraordinary triggers the impulse to buy the product. But this is small potatoes - Bernaysian manipulation actually has us projecting the prestige and power of the wealthiest elite onto ourselves though similar "associative bait and switch" means, even enlisting us to advocate their causes to our own detriment.

Let's look at higher ticket items next: To sell you a car, they show you how empowering it is with nifty animated effects, basically creating a fantasy perception of an ordinary vehicle. Americans are complete suckers for this, while the rest of the world gets more fuel efficient every year, we still buy wasteful SUVs because it fills personality voids, addressing insecurities, such as the need to be noticed, the need to wield power or the need to impress or compete with others. We could buy a modest car, they're safe, reliable and are fine values - but the American consumer is brainwashed to feel "entitled" our whole lives long - told that we need to be above average, special, unique. Ads sell us on the idea that a really fast car, or extraordinary handling is what we "deserve", though any buyer with the same amount money can obtain the same car. We're trained that we will gain "status" by associating our self with a prestigious brand, even though most drivers today just sit in traffic and commute, we're sold many types of oversized guzzlers and luxury models. Once we've seen these dazzling ads, we do the rest, justifying the cost and other factors to ourselves to chase the fantasy we saw in the ad.

This works too, we've been buying these models like crazy, to the point where all American car manufacturers have lost sight of the world market and gone into horrible losses and horrendous export deficits for years now. Our advertising is that effective, it works time and again because we haven't been trained to see through and deconstruct it.

An excellent consumer product really needs no advertising - it just adds to the cost. But it's so ingrained into our lives, we may not even know it wasn't always this way. During our agrarian days, most luxury items were considered by heartland Americans to be frivolous and needlessly expensive, for those who needed to "buy" their self-worth. Then a man came into the picture that would profoundly change almost every facet of our culture. His name was Edward Bernays, the Austrian born nephew of Sigmund Freud. He came to America and took the country by storm, deeply versed in Freudian theories before Freud's works were widely published.

His early successes included selling Europe on the idea that President Wilson was a hero and liberator in the aftermath of World War I, achieved by staged rallies and planted news stories. Yes, Bernays is considered the "father of public relations", opening the first P.R. firm with the U.S. government and the largest U.S. corporations all lined up as clients.

Bernays also brought us the 'publicity stunt', such as the famous 1928 event in which women were enlisted to light up cigarettes in the NYC Easter parade. The papers were told they were suffragettes, openly defying the societal ban on female smoking in public, lighting "torches of freedom" a la the proud Statue of Liberty. This ran on front pages everywhere, but in reality the girls were hired by Bernays on behalf of his client American Tobacco, whose sales doubled, rising $28 million that year alone. Bernays smugly commented that women everywhere began to smoke because they wanted a surrogate "penis" of their own.

Bernays was key to the development of "consumerism" itself as a lifestyle, convincing Americans to buy things they don't need by conning them using more of Freud's insights into the subconscious. Lehman Bros. and others bankrolled the development of huge "department" stores, using Bernaysian techniques to persuade people to purchase a host of products that they never would have thought to otherwise buy. Shopping became recreation rather then a chore as Bernays perfected the concepts of product placement, the celebrity endorsement, and the more insidious psuedo-scientific product endorsement. The public responded exactly as predicted -- the wasteful overspending on a mass scale directly contributing to the crash of 1929.

Bernays became so powerful he actually came to control his uncle Sigmund's publishing rights, leaving the genius to struggle in war torn Vienna with just enough to get by. Unfortunately, Bernays published many books of his own, including "Crystallizing Public Opinion" in 1923 and "Propaganda" in 1928 (yes, the original "Propaganda") which Joseph Goebbels as the Nazi propaganda minister made abundant use of throughout the Holocaust, often crediting Bernays.

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(OpEdNews Editor) GW is a proud New Yorker, concerned about media manipulation and overconsumption. He believes in fiscal responsibility, small government and strict ethics. He recently changed careers to become an inner city schoolteacher. A firm (more...)

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