Media Literacy
The job of controlled mainstream media is not to inform, but to misinform the public, making it harder for people to make informed decisions about things that impact their own lives and that of their families. Mass media is used to divert public attention from important issues and changes that are decided upon by the political and economic elites, through the technique of derailing important facts or information through the continuous flood of distractions, mindless entertainment and insignificant information. The controlled media and press have mandates to provide all news and related media content to be written or presented at no greater level than what a 12-year-old child (or less) could understand. If all we have access to in the mainstream news and entertainment is being produced at a child’s level, what kind of impact does that have on significantly lowering literacy levels and human intelligence?
All forms of media are being used in a variety of targeted propaganda strategies that are designed to manipulate the way information is being relayed to the public, therefore manipulating and gaining control over popular public perception. We must look to identify how the monikers, memes, ridicule, public shaming and labels that are coined by the media are used to throw people off from accessing the truth or facts in the matter, and further to incite anger, fear and division in the public. Each side is separated to appear as the opposition, as it divides and designs victimizer archetypes to polarize people into enemy patterning, while it refuses to allow an intelligent or productive dialogue or recognize support for diverse opinions. No one is listening for the larger perspective, only crucifying any position or person that they do not agree with, when they know little to none of the facts. The mainstream media is paid hefty sums to incite division, aggression, character assassination, attack free speech and generate obfuscation and chaos at every turn.
Media Literacy
To become more media literate, we have to be willing to drill the message down and seek its motivation, in order to comprehend what we are really looking at when we are reading or accessing different forms of media. We also have to be willing to see the incentives of who is benefiting from the media being presented, and not take media at face value and blindly accept what is being presented as factual information that is actually true. Discernment skills as well as comprehending how the negative ego functions in people and in ourselves, are critical skills required in developing media literacy. In all controlled press and media, the undisciplined negative ego and unhealed pain body are targeted by silent weapons used to control the public. This is why gaining neutrality and developing inner emotional clarity is also important when being saturated in different forms of media that is being used to influence or control the popular perception. When we access information reported or presented in the media, we should be considering the following questions to ask ourselves, to help gain a larger perspective.
Media literacy skills can help us all:
- Develop critical thinking skills
- Understand how media messages shape our culture and society
- Identify the target within the marketing strategies
- Recognize what the media maker wants us to believe or do
- Name the techniques of persuasion that are used
- Name the controller programs that are being used to subdue the public
- Recognize bias, spin, misinformation, and lies
- Discover the parts of the story that are not being told
- Evaluate media messages based on our own experiences, skills, beliefs, and values
- Create and distribute our own media messages
- Advocate for media justice, telling the truth, giving the whole picture
Media literacy has a long history and over the years a number of different terms have been used to capture the skills, competencies, knowledge and habits of mind that are required for full participation in media-saturated societies. This is about developing people's critical thinking and analysis skills when it comes to mass media, popular culture and digital media. Media education is the process and media literacy is the outcome. When people better understand how media and technology actually work to influence thoughts and shape narratives, they are able to access, analyze, evaluate and discern the information being presented.
To better understand the most common forms of media manipulation, let us revisit Noam Chomsky’s list, which describes this tactic so well. By understanding these manipulation tactics, it will serve to help develop and improve one’s discernment with media literacy and to perceive the blatant mind control propaganda that is perpetrated against the masses.
The 10 Strategies of Media Manipulation
1. The Strategy of Distraction The primary element of social control is the strategy of distraction which is to divert public attention from important issues and changes determined by the political and economic elites, by the technique of flood or flooding continuous distractions and insignificant information. The distraction strategy is also essential to prevent the public interest in accessing the essential knowledge in the areas of science, economics, psychology, neurobiology and cybernetics. “Maintaining public attention diverted away from the real social problems, captivated by matters of no real importance. Keep the public busy, busy, busy, no time to think, back to farm and other animals.” (quote: Silent Weapons for Quiet War).
2. Create Problems, then offer Solutions This method is also called problem-reaction-solution. They create a problem, a situation that is preferred to cause some reaction in the public or audience, so that this problem is the principal of the steps that they want you to accept. For example: let the problem unfold and intensify urban violence, or arrange for bloody attacks in order that the public is made pliable to accept security laws and policies that are at the detriment of personal freedoms. Or, to create an economic crisis and make that acceptable as a necessary evil, while limiting social and human rights, with the dismantling of public services.
3. The Gradual Strategy or Desensitization To desensitize major issues through cultivating public acceptance to an unacceptable degree, just apply the changes gradually, little by little, over many consecutive years. That is how the radically new socioeconomic conditions of neoliberalism were imposed during the 1980s and 1990s: the minimal state, privatization, instability, massive unemployment, and low wages that did not guarantee a decent income. Many of these changes would have brought about a revolution, if these changes had been applied all at once. Apply these changes gradually with distractions, in order to desensitize and acclimate people to easily accept these changes.
4. The Strategy of Deferring Another way to accept an unpopular decision is to present it as painful and necessary, by gaining public acceptance, at the time it will be used for a future application. It is easier to accept that a future sacrifice is necessary than of an immediate slaughter. In the beginning of introducing the idea to the public, people accept it because the effort is not being used immediately. Then, because the public has the tendency to expect naively that everything will be better tomorrow, they believe that the sacrifice required may be avoided in the future. This plays on people's hope and optimism, getting them to accept something unpleasant that will happen in the future. This gives the public more time to get used to the idea of painful changes and accept it with resignation, when the time comes.
5. Go to the Public as a Little Child Most of the advertising to the general public uses speech, argument, people and particularly children’s intonation, often close to the emotional weakness, as if the viewer were a little child or mentally deficient. The harder one tries to deceive the viewer, the more it tends to adopt a tone that is infantilizing. Why? “If one goes to a person as if she had the age of 12 years or less, then because of suggestion, she tends with a certain probability that a response or reaction also devoid of a critical sense as a person 12 years or younger.” (quote: Silent Weapons for Quiet War).
6. Use the Emotional Reaction more than the Reflection Making use of the emotional aspect is a classic technique for causing a short circuit on rational analysis and critical thinking, and finally to short circuit the common sense of the individual. Furthermore, the use of emotional register to open the door to the unconscious mind for implantation or grafting of ideas, seeding into the subconscious desires, fears and anxieties, addictions or intending to induce certain behaviors.
7. Keep the Public in Ignorance and Mediocrity Making the public incapable of understanding the technologies and methods that are used to mind control and enslave them. “The quality of education given to the lower social classes must be as poor and mediocre as possible so that the gap of ignorance it plans among the lower classes and upper classes is and remains impossible to attain for the lower classes.” (quote: Silent Weapons for Quiet War).
8. To encourage the Public to be Complacent with Mediocrity Promote the public to believe that it is fashionable to be stupid, vulgar and uneducated. A person can become famous on social media by acting like a vulgar idiot or posting butt or nude shots.
9. Strengthen Self-blame and Depression Let individuals blame others for their misfortune, because of the failure of their intelligence, their abilities, or their efforts. So, instead of rebelling against the economic system or wanting access to education or knowledge, the individual automatically validates their guilt and unworthiness, which creates depression. Depression has an effect which inhibits any kind of outward action and generates apathy. When there is inaction and people are apathetic, there is no revolution for change!
10. Getting to know the Individuals better than they know Themselves Over the past 50 years, advances of accelerated science and knowledge has generated a growing gap between public knowledge and those owned and operated by the dominant power elites. Thanks to biology, neurobiology and applied psychology, the system has enjoyed a sophisticated understanding of what motivates human beings, both physically and psychologically, perfecting mind control propagandist techniques. The system has gotten better acquainted with the common man more than he knows himself. This means that in most cases, the system exerts greater control and greater power over individuals, because the system has much more knowledge to manipulate others. Thus, they know the individual more than the individuals know themselves.
Be aware that the world of television and digital media has become a tool of de-evolution, propaganda and social control. Nearly unlimited resources have been applied to understand how to manipulate the human psyche through television and other forms of mass media. What we have today is an increasingly sophisticated full-spectrum assault on the free will and psychological well-being of all people, and we have come to a point where it is no longer even necessary for media institutions to attempt to hide their blatant work of manipulating public opinion, manufacturing consent, and creating winners and losers in the minds of the already mind controlled public.
Whether for marketing or for manufacturing consent, the media industry is guilty of using subtle and not-so-subtle tactics to influence our conscious and subconscious minds to influence our opinions and behavior. There are countless examples of these practices and discerning, awake people would be well served to be vigilant of this when consuming modern media in any form. As informed people, we must acknowledge that we are being lied to and that the institutions we should be able to depend on for bringing us an objective view of the world, are anything but objective, they are paid sponsors of the Power Elite agendas. Thus, pay attention, develop strong discernment (develop your b.s. meter), and do your own research to stay awake and aware in these times of great turbulence and powerful change.
We need the brave, courageous, empathic, trustworthy people dedicated to truth and love for life, to rise to fill the void of getting the humanitarian messages back into circulation. Pay close attention and do not feed into the insanity of the psychological operations made against the public. Stay calm, neutral and carry on with speaking your truth, living from your heart, and never give up your purpose and mission.[1]
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