Mass Media Brainwashing

Category: Advertising, Belief, Mass Media, Propaganda

Last Updated: 17 Aug 2022

Pages: 7 Views: 1534

People behave, think and act according to mental manipulation and programming. Industries, mass media, attorneys and the CIA bombards desires, anger, fear, guilt, repeatedly throughout the day. Emotions manipulated by visual images, education, implied threats, high profile staged crimes, false implications of security, entertainment, television programming, radio programming, repeated suggestions by experts, music videos, songs, and advertising provokes people to act or make decisions seemingly on impulse. Mental programming begins before consumers are introduced to the product.

Fifteen second commercials repeated over and over subliminally convince people their lives are incomplete without the product or service. Television programs persuade viewer’s opinions, emotions and mentality. Television sponsors remind the viewer his or her life is not wonderful without the product or services. Targets eventually act on beliefs that a product or service is an advantage. “A large portion of the population makes a living simply by getting others to comply with their requests” (Rhoads, 97-04).

Programmed individuals mindlessly following subtle suggestions or suddenly find themselves believing they cannot exist without particular services or products viewed over and over is brainwashing, not free will.

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Manipulation techniques involve social, compliance, propaganda, brainwashing; thought control or thought reforming and persuasion. Social psychology influences beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. It is persuasion. Industries persuade people to purchase their products. Politicians persuade people to vote for their party. Social psychology does not have to be accurate or have any truth to it for it to be affective. It does not necessarily involve direct communication. In social psychology, the ones influencing individuals do so by controlling their own behavior, not the targets. Compliance technique is instant. The target mindlessly follows the commands. It does not change attitudes, beliefs or opinions. Consumers donate to a charity cause in shopping malls.

Customers tip the clerks at Starbucks. Propaganda is education. “Propaganda must be repetitious and simple” (Northstarzone.com). Persuasion technique changes the lifestyle of an individual. This technique takes a while to be effective. It is highly effective. The results are harder to change and last longer. Persuasion is much more difficult. Successful persuasion changes the person unconsciously. The industry has an objective to improve everyone’s health. More commercials would advertise protein drinks, and multi-vitamins. Advertisements for cigarettes and junk food would decrease. After a couple of years watching active and people living fitness lifestyles running along side a beach everyday on television results in a stronger desire for healthier alternatives to cigarettes or sodas.

A dark side of brain washing persuades the individual that having certain products or services are to his or her advantage. The product or service is always, without question, to the disadvantage of the target. Thought control, thought reforming or brainwashing destroys a persons identity and beliefs. This type of manipulation replaces an individual’s original beliefs and values that he or she strongly resist. An example of thought reforming is an attorney or prosecutor preparing for opposition in court convincing the person in question he or she needs psychiatric counseling. Professional and so called trustworthy people, persuades, manipulates and influence the person counseling is an advantage to him or her.

When subtle suggestions and all the other social influences fail to work, implied threats, fear and unjustified demands are used. The manipulators, prosecutors or attorneys, are the ones with the disadvantage if their target refuses to go to counseling. Another example; the manipulator contacting every person the target becomes associated with. The target is not supposed to realize the people they are associated with is being controlled, either through reward or punishment. It starts off with reward; When the individual finds out, the promises are transformed into avoiding threats.

Advertisers and marketers hardly, if ever use these tactics. It is highly illegal. It discredits the manipulator. Politicians and educational and other government institutions use these strategies Of course, when the plan does not turn out as expected, the government entity, police departments or politicians provide no legal protection. In fact, the politicians leave very little, if any, evidence of any association with the people being bribed.

Social psychological manipulation deceptively implies that targets make choices by their own free will. Nothing is further than the truth. Visual aspects of social manipulation involve something like decorating the business to satisfy the target audience. Choosing the right furniture, appropriate music, and dressing mannequins combined with premeditated advertising through commercials, television, movies and magazine ads that the individual chose to view are a combination of social psychological manipulation and over coming resistance.

A store sporting hot pink bean bag chairs, oversize posters of Beyonce and the Pussy Cat Dolls, playing the latest hot music songs, even music video screens and a mannequin wearing the same green mini skirt and black halter top, that the stars wear on sitcoms, in latest magazines and in music videos break records sales with the outfit costing $350.00. Consumers decision to purchase the over priced item started long before they were aware the outfit existed. Does the consumer who spent $350.00 on the name brand outfit have more friends, more money, a better physique or more fun than the consumer who bought a comparable outfit from the clearance dollar bin at Wal-Marts? Advertising sold more than just an outfit. They sold false beliefs.

In the comical scene, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCwKbUVyHLY, uses social and compliance techniques. The wife walks in, interrupting her husband while he is very involved in a sporting event on television. She wants to know if the outfit she just bought makes her look fat. The scene implies if the outfit makes her look fat, her husband does not love her. The woman in the clip is not fat, no matter what she wears. Her attitudes and beliefs, feeling loved by her husband, are affected according to what she is wearing. Her husband, whose money was used to purchase the outfit, mindlessly follows the commands in the second scene. The message from her husband; I love you because of the outfit you are wearing.

In the very graphic trading cards, http://yorick.infinitejest.org:81/1/cards.html, compliance, brainwashing, thought control and thought reforming are strongly used here. This is a clear cut example of Bush’s and the Texas governments work. The trade cards are photos that create fear, horror, and would make someone cry. They shock people, not in a good way. The message implied is to stop the horrible incidences, vote for Bush. People are not supposed to analyze the facts. They are supposed to mindlessly follow the government’s commands.

Seven years after the World Trade Center Attack, the media has yet to produce any solid evidence that any middle-eastern nation is our enemy. There is no evidence Bin Laden exists. Hurricane Katrina, exaggerated or not, made an easy opening for any enemy nation to attack America. That World Trade Center attack was an excuse to go to war, a way to hide money foolishly spent, and hide the fraud within the American government. In the very funny, but very true paintings; the facts about brainwashing are vivid.

In the Axis of Evil drawings, the implied messages from the White House, are spelled out in plain English. The paintings are visual effects showing how America’s behavior was manipulated without realizing it. Bush administration used fear, surprises, and shock. In another drawing, “New propaganda slogans are being overtly and subliminally implanted by Bush and his gang through their speeches and actions” (LiverGood). War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is strength are examples of how the human mind can be totally transformed. At the beginning of Bush’s reign, anyone hearing these messages straightforward would have rejected it. People would have automatically said that was absurd. Over time, through a series of events, instilling such beliefs is possible.

Education institutions, state and city organizations blindly accept bribes to psychologically manipulate individuals that Bush sets out to target. They may not realize the orders are coming from Bush. When people allegedly with high integrity and high morals are riding in wheel chairs to send someone a message, it does not matter if they realize where the suggestions they followed in the beginning are coming from.

This type of psychological brainwashing involves individuals Bush wishes to target, not just the populations. When a government organization bribes a group, a student or an individual, that government organization is on the verge of losing all financial funding. Anyone taking suggestions from these organizations, no matter how attractive the promises, is very risky.

Its leaders and attorneys are barely staying above criminal indictment. The patterns of behavior that students, professors and other government people are blindly following were repeated on that individual for years. The individual knows instantly. The people following the orders do not get what they were promised. The people blindly following the orders are no longer anticipating a gain. Their behavior is now avoiding a loss. People acting out of fear act and behave in ways that could have them committed. Bush is strongly applying this psychological technique. Bush sees one thing. The people he made promises too, are not coming through with what they told him they could do.

Advertisers, government, and industries shape and form society’s actions through manipulation, repeated suggestions and numerous psychological methods. People refusing to educate themselves are easy targets. Timothy McVeigh, the Columbine high school kids and the majority of people in maximum security prisons are examples of high tech brainwashing. In perfect society’s, people make their own choices. In a real society, others status, wealth, and credibility depends on persuading and influencing people. People isolating themselves as much as possible, risk being profiled as anti-social.

This is another form of powerful brainwashing. Brainwashing shows up in more forms than sales manipulation. Good natured citizens are serving time in prison because they wanted to do good, cooperate with authorities even under questionable circumstances. Those people in law enforcement are not going to stand by the individual who did everything they said to do. Leaving information, filling out questionnaires, and government organizations do not always use information for intended purposes. Manipulators continue to suggest services or products to reluctant targets. People refusing initial suggestions need to be aware that manipulators do not stop. Targets hearing the same suggestions repeated by different people must realize their behavior is being controlled. The persistent suggestion of the product or service is a disadvantage for the target.

Notes;

LiverGood, Norman D, “Brain Washing America” http://www.hermes-press.com/brainwash1.htm

Rhoads, Kelton Ph.D, “How Many Influence Tactics are there.” Working Psychology.

(1997-2004) : WWW.Workingpsychology.com

“Mass Media BrainWashing”

http://www.geocities.com/northstarzone/NSTRPREZ.html (March 11, 2007)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCwKbUVyHLY, No other info given.

http://yorick.infinitejest.org:81/1/cards.html