HOW THE MEDIA MANIPULATES YOU

[madmusic]

The fact of the matter is, you can't trust anyone. Your favorite news anchor may be lying through her teeth and not even know it. That great science article you read could be paid propaganda. The statistics you repeat could be so wrong they are laughable.

So, a thread on media manipulation. Or, How to be a good skeptic. Please feel free to add thoughts and links.

First...

http://www.prwatch.org/books/experts.html">Trust Us, We're Experts



* You think that nonprofit organizations just give away their stamps of approval on products? Bristol-Myers Squibb paid $600,000 to the American Heart Association for the right to display AHA's name and logo in ads for its cholesterol-lowering drug Pravachol. Smith Kline Beecham paid the American Cancer Society $1 million for the right to use its logo in ads for Beecham's Nicoderm CQ and Nicorette anti-smoking ads.

* You think that you're witnessing a spontaneous public debate over a national issue? When the Justice Department began antitrust investigations of the Microsoft Corporation in 1998, Microsoft's public relations firm countered with a plan to plant pro-Microsoft articles, letters to the editor, and opinion pieces all across the nation, crafted by professional media handlers but meant to be perceived as off-the-cuff, heart-felt testimonials by "people out there."

* You think that a study out of a prestigious university is completely unbiased? In 1997, Georgetown University's Credit Research Center issued a study which concluded that many debtors are using bankruptcy as an excuse to wriggle out of their obligations to creditors. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen cited the study in a Washington Times column and advocated for changes in federal law to make it harder for consumers to file for bankruptcy relief. What Bentsen failed to mention was that the Credit Research Center is funded in its entirety by credit card companies, banks, retailers, and others in the credit industry; that the study itself was produced with a $100,000 grant from Visa USA and MasterCard International Inc.; and that Bentsen himself had been hired to work as a credit-industry lobbyist.

* You think that all grassroots organizations are truly grassroots? In 1993, a group called Mothers Opposing Pollution (MOP) appeared, calling itself "the largest women's environmental group in Australia, with thousands of supporters across the country." Their cause: A campaign against plastic milk bottles. It turned out that the group's spokesperson, Alana Maloney, was in truth a woman named Janet Rundle, the business partner of a man who did P.R. for the Association of Liquidpaperboard Carton Manufacturers-the makers of paper milk cartons.

* You think that if a scientist says so, it must be true? In the early 1990s, tobacco companies secretly paid thirteen scientists a total of $156,000 to write a few letters to influential medical journals. One biostatistician received $10,000 for writing a single, eight-paragraph letter that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. A cancer researcher received $20,137 for writing four letters and an opinion piece to the Lancet, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, and the Wall Street Journal. Nice work if you can get it, especially since the scientists didn't even have to write the letters themselves. Two tobacco-industry law firms were available to do the actual drafting and editing.

[spag68]

1. Excuse me

I'm 64, a labor liberal all my life, they can't manipulate you if you read and consider the truth.

[stillcool]

2. the problem is...

that people leave their televisions on 24/7,...and the advertising companies have gotten very subtle over the years. People are so busy, they do not think...they just buy. My sister...54 yrs of age, wonders why she has a swifter mop, a swifter dust thingy, and swifter cleaner pads, all packaged in plastic which she pays to dispose of. What ever posessed her to shell out all this dough and throw away the mop and bucket she'd used for thirty years? Perhaps a little simplistic of an analogy, but the pharma/chemical industry, the food industry...it seems the bigger the industry the more covert the advertising.

[madmusic]

7. True, true...

But have you found it is easier to get manipulated if it is in the direction you already want to go?

For example, it is near impossible to convince me something is true when I know it's false - no one could convince me Iraq had WMDs, for example, and I was sure of it before we invaded.

However, if it is something I already want to believe, it may be easier to manipulate me, even though I'm skeptical of most everything everyone says.

[jrw14125]

3. just read their "Best War Ever" - great book

[trumad]

4. They can't manipulate you if you pay attention.

[Jacobin]

5. You can always manipulate people who don't think for themselves

or who aren't a bit cynical and do some research when they hear about issues that don't sound quite right.

[madmusic]

6. The Signs of Our Time. - book reviews

Psychology Today, April, 1989 by Dianne Cole

Decoding the '80s

The next time a seductive advertisement beckons you to a trendy restaurant, insists that you revamp your wardrobe or undertakes to change your vote, you might do well to remember Jack Solomon's motto in The Signs of Our Time (Jeremy P. Tarcher, $17.95)--"Look before you get taken."

The advice may sound like common sense, but when Solomon says look, he is drawing our attention to the rather arcane-sounding discipline called semiotics.

Semiotics, Solomon explains in his engaging, informative, often provocative (and sometimes irritating) introduction to the subject, is the science of looking beneath the surface of things to discover their unconscious "signs" or symbols. Such scrutiny, semioticians like Solomon argue, will reveal the deeper cultural myths and social assumptions we live by.

Only begin to see with the critical eye of the semiotician, Solomon asserts, and even the most mundane aphorism ("I'm bringing home the bacon"), the most well-known logo (the Apple computer trademark), or seemingly straightforward news image (a politician giving a speech) may reveal that larger, more complicated, and often more troubling cultural and political assumptions are at work.

more: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1175/is_n4_v23/ai_7502273