Noam Chomsky - “10 strategies of manipulation” by the media

Renowned critic and always MIT linguist Noam
Chomsky, one of the classic voices of intellectual dissent in the last
decade, has compiled a list of the ten most common and effective
strategies resorted to by the agendas “hidden” to establish a
manipulation of the population through the media.Historically the media
have proven highly efficient to mold public opinion. Thanks to the
media paraphernalia and propaganda, have been created or destroyed
social movements, justified wars, tempered financial crisis, spurred on
some other ideological currents, and even given the phenomenon of media
as producers of reality within the collective psyche. But how to detect
the most common strategies for understanding these psychosocial
tools which, surely, we participate? Fortunately Chomsky has been given
the task of synthesizing and expose these practices, some more obvious
and more sophisticated, but apparently all equally effective and, from a
certain point of view, demeaning. Encourage stupidity, promote a sense
of guilt, promote distraction, or construct artificial problems and then
magically, solve them, are just some of these tactics.
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. distraction strategy is also essential to prevent the
public interest in the essential knowledge in the area of the 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 from text Silent
Weapons for Quiet War ).”
2. Create problems, then offer solutions


This method is also called “problem -reaction- solution. “It creates a
problem, a “situation” referred to cause some reaction in the audience,
so this is the principal of the steps that you want to accept. For
example: let it unfold and intensify urban violence, or arrange for
bloody attacks in order that the public is the applicant‟s security laws
and policies to the detriment of freedom. Or: create an economic crisis
to accept as a necessary evil retreat of social rights and the
dismantling of public services.
3. The gradual strategy


acceptance to an unacceptable degree, just apply it gradually,
dropper, for consecutive years. That is how they radically new
socioeconomic conditions ( neoliberalism ) were imposed during the 1980s
and 1990s: the minimal state, privatization, precariousness,
flexibility, massive unemployment, wages, and do not guarantee a decent
income, so many changes that have brought about a revolution if they had
been applied once.
4. The strategy of deferring


Another way to accept an unpopular decision is to present it as
“painful and necessary”, gaining public acceptance, at the time for
future application. It is easier to accept that a future sacrifice of
immediate slaughter. First, because the effort is not used immediately.
Then, because the public, masses, is always the tendency to expect
naively that “everything will be better tomorrow” and that the sacrifice
required may be avoided. This gives the public more time to get used to
the idea of change 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
weakness, as if the viewer were a little child or a mentally deficient.
The harder one tries to deceive the viewer look, the more it tends to
adopt a tone infantilising. 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 (see Silent Weapons for
Quiet War ).”
6. Use the emotional side more than the reflection


Making use of the emotional aspect is a classic technique for causing
a short circuit on rational analysis , and finally to the critical
sense of the individual. Furthermore, the use of emotional register to
open the door to the unconscious for implantation or grafting ideas
, desires, fears and anxieties , compulsions, or induce behaviors …
7. Keep the public in ignorance and mediocrity


Making the public incapable of understanding the technologies and
methods used to control and enslavement. “The quality of education given
to the lower social classes must be the 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 (See „
Silent Weapons for Quiet War ).”
8. To encourage the public to be complacent with mediocrity


Promote the public to believe that the fact is fashionable to be stupid, vulgar and uneducated…


9. Self-blame Strengthen


To let individual blame for their misfortune, because of the failure
of their intelligence, their abilities, or their efforts. So, instead of
rebelling against the economic system, the individual autodesvalida and
guilt, which creates a depression, one of whose effects is to inhibit
its action. And, without action, there is no revolution!
10. Getting to know the individuals better than they know themselves


Over the past 50 years, advances of accelerated science has generated
a growing gap between public knowledge and those owned and operated by
dominant elites. Thanks to biology, neurobiology and applied psychology,
the “system” has enjoyed a sophisticated understanding of human beings,
both physically and psychologically. 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 great power
over individuals, greater than that of individuals about themselves.