The book Manufacturing Consent and leaked secret service documents have been guiding forces for many to wake up to our reality. We are easily manipulated: manipulated to believe right-wing politics are on the side of workers, manipulated to see immigration as ruining our public services, and manipulated to believe our biggest issues are what might be in someone’s trousers, so much so that we can tarnish political figures by asking, “What is a woman?” We openly see political parties practicing doublespeak, yet the media hardly reports on it or reports with bias.
The worst part is the new form of news: bot farms churning out tweets and Facebook posts with automated sharing, liking, and AI-generated comments. As social creatures, we follow the herd. We look to what seems to be grassroots movements without realizing who those movements benefit, like the anti-climate change rhetoric preached by red-pilled peddlers or the class wars we see between race, gender, and sexuality, along with the return to Christian values.
How we fix this: its no easy task, its a systemic issue and requires systemic change which wont be possible in a system that profits from our lack of media-literacy, our need for outrage; best i can offer is don’t blame our brothers and sisters as they are victims instead seek to enlighten them.
I was just complaining to my therapist that Manufacturing Consent has been available for decades and yet few people seem to be conscious of how much bias exists in mass media. I alternate between educating and accepting what I cannot influence.
Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. Those who know history are doomed to know that it’s repeating. Those who have sought to develop media literacy are doomed to recognize the horror-show that is mass media and the effectiveness of it.
nice to meet a fellow reader and i hope therapy helps, therapy has helped me in recent years. although i found doing advocacy work was what really put me in a better direction.
and well said.