Media manipulation - advertising and politics and what type of society do we want?

This is a complex, long but worthy article concerning the issues facing our collective western societies and is in part of a larger conversation of the world we want to live in over the coming decades.

Deconstructing the media manipulation that infects America's core

A lesson on the roots of Public relations, the ransacking of community radio , media literacy, the power of politics and its misuse, and a world where commerce pervades every aspect of our lives.

For hard right wingers this is going to feel a bit rich, but I am prediposed to agree

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.

Money talks is the cliché - but as Alan Fletcher once said you stroke a cliché until it becomes a metaphor.

So enter the master of the metaphor

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.

For BAT

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 was into selling cigarettes, Wars and anything else that was going by all accounts

For example

We now know the report of an attack in the Gulf of Tonkin to start the escalation in Vietnam was false, but the administration ignored the subsequent retraction once they had the provocation that they wanted.

And the author gets stuck into the last gulf war - its reasons WMD and the consequent discreditation of Colin Powell and the co-opting of the talk show host both on radio and TV. Here the author focuses on the radio

But perhaps the strongest vehicle assisting Bush's war never-ending pro-war media campaign is the for-profit talk radio industry, led by nationally syndicated hosts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Completely one-sided and in lock step with war-pimping, capitalist and imperialist ideology, these highly successful hosts, including the improbably rich Limbaugh have garnered incredible ratings and revenues by remaining steadfastly in the neo-con corner, transforming many listeners into agents for dispensation of their talking points.

There is a call to educate our children to be more media literate. To recognise the difference between truth and propaganda. Question the motive - is the thrust of the argument.

And the history of US radio?

Many don't realize that the U.S. wasn't always like this. From the early adoption of the radio around 1916 till the early 20s, there were no ads on the air because the scientific community was determined to make radio a positive and socially uplifting medium for information and relaxation. When radio began to use advertising to produce revenue, it was suspended during prime evening and "family" times because ads were considered noise pollution, a detriment to mental health, like that annoying "tom-cat on top of the back fence". During the depression, however, radio stations had to give in to the demands of advertisers for their survival, and ads have been part of commercial American radio ever since. Now they are everywhere, from our TV sets to web pages, movie previews, supermarket floors, and whole new waves of highway billboards as localities lease highways to private firms.

I think its not a perfect conclusion, but it is interesting, thought provoking and requires us to question what role and purpose has the media in the 21st Century? Where are the checks and balances? Who is in charge? If anybody.

There is a great line that the truth will out and perhaps that truth will "out" more often than those in power would us want to see.

What does that mean? Well it means greater scrutiny, or a desire for more tighter manipulation. But the reality is that as each technology revolution happens from Gutenberg to mobile/web, the wider community engages in the debate and the conversation.

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