Manipulation of media and influencing public opinion in the present day, Part I.

Media Manipulation in the Present Day I.

Because I have worked for a long time in the media field at various levels, and throughout that time I have dealt with media and information manipulation, I decided to share my knowledge with readers. I believe that what is needed is not only the ability to understand that the media are manipulating us, but also to know why they do it, what purpose it serves, and for whom this manipulation takes place within today's autocratic system. Most importantly, how to recognize manipulation and how to defend against it. Believe me, this is a very broad, important, and extensive topic. I will try to summarize it in a comprehensible form. It is no coincidence that some of the first and most extensive investments after 1989 were made in information and mass media. I ask myself, why?

The Power of Information

Information itself does not necessarily mean that you will simply read it or have it conveyed to you. We must also take into account the information we receive through our senses. We see a color and immediately know that we should not cross the street, or we hear a siren and know that it is probably a test of the sirens. Someone gets cut and immediately has the information that it hurts and they need to seek medical attention. But I don't need to describe this in detail. Basically, "whoever has information, or who has power over it, literally has real power." Personally, I believe that one of the most important pieces of information for us is the information we do not have access to, so that we can put everything into context.

The Degree of Political Influence

Influencing public opinion is a fundamental element of manipulative control mechanisms. In both the good and bad sense. Politicians call the media "soft power." The very name implies that the media are a real tool of power.

The Factor of Ownership Relationships

Here, one of the basic conditions comes into play, which is simply necessary. You must either own most of the media outlets or, at least, control them, preferably from key positions. It is also necessary to have control over the main information channel. In every country, the main news agency is the primary source of information, and most major media outlets buy information from it and draw from it. Therefore, what this agency prints or publishes appears in virtually all media.

This source has the advantage that all major media receive information from the main news agency, and these media have a significant influence on public opinion.

A special chapter is the tabloid press. And how are things with ownership relationships? For example, as we wrote before, our most sensational newspaper, BLESK, belonged to Ringier, which merged with another publisher to form the publishing empire Ringier Axel Springer CZ. This company was the publisher with the highest profit not only in the Czech market but also throughout Europe. In the world, they are de facto the sole owners, Mr. Ringier from Switzerland and Mr. Springer from Germany. In 2015, it generated a net profit of 422 million CZK in the Czech Republic, with revenues reaching 2.096 billion CZK. After being taken over by new owners, it was renamed Czech News Center. And if I'm not mistaken, it is still owned solely by Czech News Center Holding. The ultimate owners in the Czech Republic are Daniel Křetínský and Patrik Tkáč. Whose interests will these mainly tabloid media defend? Do they even have any moral problems with something like driving someone to suicide (the case of singer Iveta Bartošová)?

Manipulative Methods and Modifications

This is the most interesting and perhaps the most extensive chapter of this topic. There are countless manipulative methods and combinations. This includes mixing truth with disinformation, withholding essential information (even deliberately fabricated), judging problems regardless of their actual causes, confusing cause and effect, manipulating visual media and film, selecting information, and using the order of presentation to distract from important topics (a technique known as "spin").

As Noam Chomsky, a professor of linguistics at Harvard University in the USA and a critic of powerful institutions, particularly in the USA, has pointed out, he listed ten strategies used by the media to manipulate people, stating: "In the past, our mass media in the US have created or destroyed social movements, justified wars, mitigated financial crises, and encouraged or undermined certain ideological trends."

Let's briefly recap and list these ten methods of Chomsky:

*The Distraction Strategy

A fundamental element of social control is the strategy of diverting public attention from important issues and changes driven by our political and economic elites, using techniques that flood the public with constant distractions and irrelevant information.

*Creating a Problem Followed by Offering a Solution

This method essentially highlights certain symptoms while concealing the underlying causes. For example, it points to violence in cities or details of bloody attacks without investigating the root causes of these problems. It also creates and manipulates crises related to the economy or violence in order to force the public to accept a necessary evil in the form of restrictions on civil liberties or the gradual elimination of public services.

*The Gradual Strategy

This essentially means gradually introducing destructive social policies that would be unacceptable if imposed suddenly. This is what was implemented during the 1990s under new socio-economic conditions by the radical right. These include privatization, insecurity, mass unemployment, a reduction in purchasing power of wages, and a lack of guarantees for a decent income. All these changes would trigger widespread rebellion if implemented all at once. This method is reminiscent of the Overton window strategy.

*The Subjugation Strategy

Another way to gain public acceptance for unpopular measures is to present them as "painful but necessary," with the aim of gaining public understanding for their future implementation. This is similar to the gradual strategy. It is easier to accept future sacrifices than an immediate defeat, because the effect is not felt immediately. Later, the public is encouraged to believe that "everything will be better tomorrow." This gives the public more time to get used to the idea of unfavorable changes and to accept them with resignation when the time comes.

*Treating the Public Like a Child

Many advertisements and propaganda use childish language and intonations, as if the viewer or listener is a small child or mentally impaired. The rule is that if you treat people like they are twelve-year-olds or younger, they tend to react without criticism, just as children do.

*Encouraging Emotional Reactions Instead of Reflective Ones

This is a classic technique for bypassing rational analysis and critical thinking. It also opens the door to the subconscious mind, where plans, desires, fears, anxieties, compulsions, and desired irrational behavior are implanted.

*Bombarding the public with trivialities to maintain their ignorance

It is important to make people incapable of understanding the technologies and methods used to enslave them. The quality of education provided to lower social classes is deliberately kept poor and inadequate, so that they can be manipulated like sheep.

*Promoting public acceptance - being happy with mediocrity

This involves promoting the idea among the public that it is fashionable to be stupid, vulgar, and uneducated, when everyone is encouraged to believe that these are the characteristics essential for wisdom gained through age.

*Promoting guilt and self-blame

This is an extremely perverse strategy. It involves constantly blaming people for their own misfortunes due to a failure of their intelligence, their abilities, or their efforts, so that they do not investigate the structural flaws in the social and economic system that enslaves them. One of the most twisted control myths of Western society is that if you work hard enough and long enough, you will be successful and become wealthy. This sometimes happens to some people, and their success is widely publicized to the public by the media. A few times it happens, and then we are constantly reminded that if those people were able to do it, so can you. However, if you work hard and don't get rich, then the problem is that you didn't work hard enough or weren't smart enough, and you end up as a failure. So no matter what happens to you, the myth remains intact, and America remains the land of opportunity.

*Knowing individual people better than they know themselves

Over the past 50 years, scientific progress has generated a growing gap between what the public knows and the knowledge possessed by dominant elites. Thanks to biology, neurobiology, and applied psychology, "the system" has acquired advanced knowledge of the physical and psychological nature of people. This knowledge is cynically used to manipulate the public, as if they were a herd of sheep.

These 10 methods defined by Noam Chomsky are, of course, not exhaustive, and there are no combined strategies or strategies of complete lies, where the actual reliance is on the fact that only a minimal number of people will verify the source, or that an ordinary citizen has no way to verify the source. For example, when U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell showed test tubes at a key press conference supporting the invasion of Iraq and claimed that Iraq had a secret nuclear program, therefore it was necessary to militarily intervene in this country. Ultimately, it turned out that everything was fabricated, but it was too late. Nearly a million people died in Iraq, especially civilians. And in 2015, it was calculated that Iraq had 4.4 million internally displaced persons who had to leave their homes. No nuclear weapons were found. Iraq as a state lost its absolute military, economic, and political defense capabilities. They have a "democracy," but the state does not own most of its strategic raw materials. Here are some more methods.

Overton Window

We often encounter what is known as the Overton Window strategy, which involves gradually transforming public opinion over medium to long-term periods (depending on need). It usually begins with citizens discussing a topic that seems completely unthinkable. In a later phase of discussion, the issue becomes characterized as radical or controversial; then experts enter the debate—often presenting one-sided and frequently pseudo-scientific views—until the subject finally becomes acceptable, even reasonable. At this point, it is simply popularized until it becomes common practice, at which politicians take over to legislate on what was originally an unthinkable proposal and establish it as a social norm.

Here in our country, there is a well-known example: In the second half of the 1990s, former chairman of the Council of Czech Television Milan Uhde began discussing how Czech society demands so-called low culture, while high culture is only for those who can benefit from it or perceive it, because only these chosen ones are capable of understanding high culture. Today, tickets to the National Theatre are practically unaffordable even for the lowest social strata.

I recalled this when I spoke in St. Petersburg with a veteran woman of the Leningrad Blockade who told me that after the Great Patriotic War (WWII), children received free tickets to theaters, operas, and classical music concerts; every Saturday featured classics by Dmitri Shostakovich, Leo Tolstoy, Chekhov plays, and similar works. This veteran woman, Klavdia Ivanovna Kulishova, was positively influenced for her entire life. It follows that even a ten-year-old child is capable of emotionally understanding such art, which has a significantly positive effect on their all-round development.

Media Leaders

We encounter this method today very frequently—perhaps most often. If you wish to influence either the entire public opinion or a smaller target group, it is enough to have an impact on 25% of people within that target group. And here we find media leaders as one strategy among the most widely used because they are highly effective. Here, well-known personalities—often from acting circles, famous politicians, but frequently also experts—are utilized. For example in France, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is considered an extreme left-wing politician there and often labeled a communist, was declared to be a communist; with several of his social slogans he effectively attracted—or rather connected—a significant portion of voters. These people themselves identified as communists because they stood behind Mélenchon and his slogans, yet held diverse views. Groups from the left, environmentalists, greens, anarchists supported him, and eventually many actual communists also came to believe in him.

(to be continued next time)

Jan Vojtěch , Editor-in-Chief of General News