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gatheringbones · 2 years

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[“With factories pumping out war-level streams of products Americans had yet to come to depend on, companies were forced to devise a way to sell them. This resulted in the birth of modern advertising. Built on the psychological theories of Sigmund Freud, advertisers used appeals to the unconscious needs and fears of the American consumer. Freud’s own nephew, Edward Bernays, trailblazed this new approach that leveraged the mind against its owner in order to create new markets.

Soon, products and behaviors with no relation to gender were being imbued with male and female attributes and the unconscious insecurities for men and women, mainly that men could not live up to artificially created masculine roles and women could not achieve their inorganic expectations.

These insecurities were exploited for financial gain and through careful framing and subconscious appeals these products were marketed as opportunities to supplement these concerns, an ingenious and insidious ploy, as gender expectations were always unachievable anyway.

This new arena fundamentally changed culture forever. In the past men and women could rely only on their families and communities as reflections on how they were faring in their adherence, but now, with the advent of mass media and anxiety fostered by advertising, their insecurities and fear of failure were multiplied as, according to their televisions, everyone else in the world was adhering to their roles. In addition, mass media reflected gender roles back to a society that then reflected them back onto mass media. Men watched John Wayne and saw the ideal man they tried to emulate. Veterans who’d survived World War II but had served in fear or suffered PTSD as my grandfather had would then consume simplistic movies that portrayed them as fearless, unshakable warriors, a portrayal the men in turn began to mirror.

In essence, American masculinity, or rather the lie of American masculinity, became another product in the same vein as a fridge from Whirlpool that cooled the family’s groceries or the new Chevy glimmering in the driveway of the suburban home.

Transactional advertising was just the beginning. The lie of masculinity, an ancestor of the worldview that’d helped men survive torturous industry, proved politically advantageous for those in power. Hazardous conditions and mistreatments by employers had long been challenged by labor unions and movements, but in the postwar period employers and controllers of industry undercut unions using masculine insecurities against laborers in the form of “The Red Scare,” or cultivated fear of Soviet infiltration. The panic played on male insecurity as protectors of their family and essentially convinced them to turn against their own interests in exchange for continued propagation of the masculine role. This worked then, much as it does now, because of the remaining identity of laborers and their worth being determined by their ability to provide and protect.

In the absence of union influence, laborers like my family settled into a life where they were paid little, but their worth was based on, and their insecurities salved by, continued consumerism. This new stasis allowed the wealthy who owned the means of production to consolidate power and pad their wealth without the threat of unionization or collective action. Over the successive years, the gap between the laborers and the wealthy expanded at inconceivable speed, and whenever laborers began to show frustration with their lot in life, or began to overcome their predilection for stylized “rugged individualism” in favor of collective action, those old tactics of fearmongering and playing upon the inherent insecurities made sure to put down any potential threat from organized labor. This worked well for so very long, in part because the Greatest Generation had internalized a worldview where advancement was secondary to fulfillment of societal responsibilities. They also existed in a time where America’s economy was still booming and a person could work nearly any job and fulfill the necessary requirements of a breadwinner. There were jobs for nearly everyone, and having one meant employment, more than likely for life, a guarantee that meant a car, a home, an education for their 2.5 children, and all the trimmings of an ideal American life. The lie survived as long as people could stay afloat and experience at least a slice of the American Dream.”]

jared yates sexton, from the man they wanted me to be: toxic masculinity and a crisis of our own making

#jared yates sexton #gender stuff #history stuff #currently reading

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kaylor · 3 years

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Taylor pays for multimillion-dollar PR campaigns to make her look straight, and the father of Public Relations, Edward Bernays (Sigmund Freud's nephew), literally used the same tactics he used in his PR campaigns to help the CIA overthrow the Democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954. PR works, it works the exact same way that US government propaganda works.

Anyways, Taylor herself is the one who made female homosexuality taboo in her fandom by rewarding lesbophobic fans specifically for being openly lesbophobic in the wake of K*ssgate, so of course her fans refuse to believe that she could ever like women because she's made it crystal clear to her fans that she will reward them handsomely with things like Secret Sessions and one-on-one personal attention if they're violently lesbophobic

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antoine-roquentin · 5 years

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i’ve noticed that my shorthand critique of the “south park caused anti-semitism” theory of media has been getting some attention, and it’s funny cause it dovetails with another round of “the youtube algorithm is responsible for turning everybody into nazis” rhetoric as well, sparked by a recent new york times article. this sort of navelgazing is pretty popular because it works nicely with beliefs that both elites and liberals in general have, namely, that public opinion needs to be managed by an enlightened few, that some people are too stupid to participate in civic life and that’s why right wing populists get elected, and that if people are educated correctly, they will simply accept that liberalism is the best model for society. in short, it’s behaviorism, namely, the hypodermic needle model of media.

the liberal elite in interwar america believed themselves to be creating a better society through management of public opinion. figures like walter lippman were committed to benevolent elite rule through the manipulation of opinion, the “manufacturing of consent”. many of them came out of the milieu of manipulating popular opinion through propaganda work in the first world war, successfully convincing americans to join and support the british side in that war. edward bernays, for instance, worked for the committee on public information, the “largest propaganda machine the world had ever seen“, before becoming the intellectual forebear of the public relations industry in america. he and other similar figures, like lippman, carl byoir, and charles merriam (who combined behaviouralism with political science), were the leading lights of the “Progressive” movement of the time. they relied on the notion that media was passively consumed by people, who simply accepted the claims made without hesitation and then acted accordingly. the psychological theories behind this found form as a body of work known as behavioralism. human beings had a set of limited or “latent” responses to stimuli. by providing the correct stimuli, human beings could be made to behave accordingly. one day, society would be governed by the truly intelligent who would suss out the correct stimuli through trial and error and then apply them to the masses, a society of pavlov’s dogs. this top-down model not coincidentally empowered liberal elites to do what they will without any input from the masses.

this was termed the “hypodermic needle” or “magic bullet” model of media. both of these are medical terms, the latter referring to a drug that treats only the disease without any side effects, and that’s quite telling. american progressives have traditionally exalted medicine as a neutral, rational way to develop a better society. many were advocates of eugenics as a form of medicine, “cleaning” the human race of its “unfit” members. recently, there’s been a strong resurgence of interest in eugenics, behavioralism, and the use of medical terminology to describe media (viral video, using the metaphor of contagion).

proponents of the model in the 1930s referred to the success of the nazis in their use of mass media (ironically, using the same propaganda techniques they’d developed. joseph goebbels was known to be a reader of bernays’ books) as well as the payne fund studies, a series of works done on the responses of children to movies with poor methodology and funded by oil magnates hoping to drive moral panics (the hays code was strongly influenced by them), and the panicked reaction to the 1938 orson welles radio production of war of the worlds in support. of course, all three of these shared very specific material conditions of the people involved that drove them to react in the manner they did apart from the media involved in persuasion. for the decade after the first world war, while germany muddled along without growth but also without significant collapse, the nazis failed to attract more than a few percentage points of electoral support, despite consistently using similar tactics. it was only after the economic collapse of germany, when the economy had shrunk by about a quarter, that the nazis gained traction. even then, this was by using the failures of a liberal constitution to turn their electoral base, only one third of voters who were largely based in rural areas and included almost nobody in the major cities, into a workable governing coalition, particularly by playing on the fact that german liberals feared communism much more than nazism. likewise, the panic over war of the worlds was largely a myth created by newspapers which feared they were losing their audience to a new, more dynamic form of media and wanted to stoke a moral panic (see a parallel with the nyt story?). those who were convinced that an invasion was occurring, according to a study done afterwards (in part by theodor adorno), for the most part had only heard a bit and were concerned about a german invasion, given the heightened geopolitical tensions at the time, or were from the town of concrete, washington, which suffered a blackout midway through the performance.

you can see the same sort of threads in the nyt story, while the important parts go ignored by twitterati eager to engage on the most superficial level. “young men discover far-right videos by accident“ thanks to “YouTube and its recommendation algorithm“, “the most frequent cause of members’ “red-pilling”“ according to a study done by the NED(ie western intelligence)-funded bellingcat, after which they fall “ down the alt-right rabbit hole” as passive subjects reacting to stimuli. clearly, these videos spread like a contagion, and it’s our job to ban them in favour of much more legitimate content that supports major western foreign policy objectives. oh wait, hold up, mr cain was a “college dropout struggling to find his place in the world“, at a time of wage stagnation and a tough job market for newer entries that’s especially pronounced as you go further down the education ladder? he “grew up in postindustrial Appalachia”, an area destroyed by rapacious neoliberalism that has increasingly seen its industries move offshore in search of lower wages, its most dynamic members leave for major cities due to a lack of jobs, and those that remain become increasingly socially isolated, prompting them to either resort to social media or kill themselves through drugs and guns in what famed economist angus deaton calls “deaths of despair” (not to mention the limiting of public spaces to those who can pay, another aspect of neoliberalism, which particularly drives teens like mr cain into "online games with his friends”)? in a world where capitalism justifies itself by telling those it fails over and over that it’s their own fault, that they need to improve themselves and that there is no such thing as structural problems because, in the words of margaret thatcher, “there is no such thing [as society]! only individual men and women”, mr cain was drawn to propaganda masquerading as a self-help grift with an emphasis on supposedly knowing more than the brainwashed masses (”To Mr. Cain, all of this felt like forbidden knowledge“)?

most of all though is the fact that most of the people cain watched are either funded directly or take most of their talking points from a network of right wing intellectuals cultivated by major dark money backers for decades. david rubin takes money from dennis prager, who in turn is funded by fracking billionaires and evangelical christians the wilks brothers, and the bradley foundation, who have funded literally every major right wing cause of note. lauren southern is only famous because she worked for rebel media, funded by much of the oil industry including the kochs as well as the bradley foundation. paul joseph watson is associated with ukip and its funder arron banks. gad saad is funded by molson coors, whose corporate heads not only once praised hitler but founded the most famous republican think tank in the country, the heritage foundation. two of the major members of the “intellectual dark web”, charles murray and christina hoff sommers, work directly for the heritage foundation. and other youtube luminaries of note, like alex jones, thunderf00t, and stefan molyneux, make their money solely by doing interviews with these people and by citing material produced from these think tanks. in a world where inequality is increasingly dividing the rich and the working class, the former spend more and more on maintaining the division, while the latter are driven into a state of fear in which absurd theories about the collapse of western civilization and their replacement with latin american and muslim people seems much more reasonable. There’s also the social isolation that makes youtube celebs and discord chat buddies seem less like distant weirdos and more like the only friends one has.

the solution, of course, is to modify youtube’s algorithm. just a bit of top-down tweaking to educate the masses on their correct course. surely, nobody would be stupid enough to think that the material conditions created by the neoliberal elite in the past few decades has driven a complete collapse in trust in american society, to the point where only a third of americans "trust their government “to do what is right”“, compared to over 80% of chinese people. surely this breakdown in trust is due to youtube and not the complete economic decimation of the country by its elites, to the point where many rural counties have not even recovered the jobs they lost a decade ago. a redistribution of wealth should not even be on the table, because material conditions play no part in how people react to media. just accept your daily helping of bullshit from the bourgeoisie and never question them when they say certain people need to be censored, because the powers you let them have will never be abused or turned against you in any way. and hey, don’t listen to any critiques of behaviorism, because it’s not like anarchists blew that shit out of the water in the 1950s.

#this is like the fifth time i've seen a mass media article about an alt-right converso who cites contrapoints as key to his damascus moment #i think the only time i saw one of her videos i was annoyed with how she failed to critique some of the deeper issues with what she discusse #something about that golden boy swedish guy i think #other than that all i know about her is the heavy critiques that a lot of trans people have levelled against her #it feels like she's being promoted by the media as an acceptable left winger in the gatekeeper model #but i really don't know enough about her to say whether that's true or not #if anybody's got any thoughts or whatever #cause there's no way i'm sitting through a bunch of fucking youtube video essays #i should stop writing these while drunk in the middle of the night over the course of 2 hours #i can't even tell whether i brought all the themes together in the ending paragraph because i don't remember what i was thinking in the intr

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cultml · 5 years

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Edward Bernays, whose 1928 book “Propaganda” directed modern tactics for advertising and politics, wrote that the intentional manipulation of societies, and of the habits and opinions of people, “is an important element in democratic society.”

“Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society,” he wrote, “constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”

The manipulation of symbols is one of the tactics at the foundation of many other tactics. And to understand how these broader tactics work, we first need to understand how propagandists break down how a person views the world, and how they can trigger people’s emotions. This ties to one’s “mythos” and “cycle of meaning.”

The “mythos” is used to describe a person’s system of values and perceptions of the world. It can be your interpretation of right and wrong, your beliefs shaped by religion, and your worldview shaped by stories and experiences.

Propagandists look to alter a person’s “mythos” by subverting what’s described as your “cycle of meaning.” This is the cycle that makes people interpret things as symbols.

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thinkveganworld · 6 years

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This is long, but I thought I’d post on the outside chance anybody might find it worth reading. It’s part two of a three-part series of articles I wrote years ago, and it includes information on modern day U. S politicians’ use of political propaganda.

Goebbels and mass mind control: Part Two How PR opinion-shapers undermine environmental protection

In part one, we examined the fact that Hitler's propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, admired Edward Bernays, a self-proclaimed founder of the public relations industry. Goebbels used Bernays' book "Crystallizing Public Opinion" in his campaign against Germany's Jewish population. Now we'll look at specific propaganda techniques shared by Goebbels and today's corporate PR teams, and at how those techniques undermine today's environmental movement.

Public relations can be used for good or ill. When PR spin is used to convince people that harmful things are good for them, or to turn people against their own best interests, it is used for ill. Goebbels practiced propaganda as a black art.

He helped organize Hitler's "brown shirts," and incited them to violence. He instigated the events leading to "Kristallknacht," the infamous nights of widespread brutal attacks against the Jews, November 8-9, 1938. He helped create the "fuhrer cult," spinning Hitler as Germany's great redeemer and convincing millions that the Nazi state was vital to their well-being.

Goebbels believed in using stealth tactics, or "institutional lying," and in using "fronts" to promote anti-Semitism and Nazi policies. For example, Goebbels set up a film office in July 1933, made it part of a branch of the Reich Cultural Chamber, and then used films to influence mass audiences. Klaus P. Fischer writes in "Nazi Germany: A New History" that most of the entertainment films "presented a sanitized image of carefree life under the protective umbrella of the Nazi regime."

When pro-Nazi or anti-Semitic propaganda came from the mouth of a popular German movie star on the screen, instead of directly from Goebbels, the public perceived it differently. In the same way, today's PR firms use front groups (fake grassroots, or "astroturf " groups) or specific so-called "third parties" to speak for corporations.

In "Global Spin," (Chelsea Green Publishing, 1997) science lecturer Sharon Beder writes that Merrill Rose, executive vice-president of the PR firm Porter/Novelli, said: "Put your words in someone else's mouth . . . There will be times when the position you advocate, no matter how well framed and supported, will not be accepted by the public simply because you are who you are. Any institution with a vested commercial interest in the outcome of an issue has a natural credibility barrier to overcome with the public, and often with the media."

John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton point out in "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You," that on behalf of tobacco company Philip Morris, the PR company, Burson-Marsteller, "created the [front group] 'National Smokers Alliance' to mobilize smokers into a grassroots lobby for smoker's rights . . . To defeat environmentalists, PR firms have created green-sounding front groups such as "The Global Climate Coalition" and the "British Columbia Forest Alliance."

Both Goebbels and today's PR firms have used euphemisms and Orwellian newspeak and doublespeak to influence the public mind. For example, corporate PR spinners have told the public that polluting-corporations are friends of nature; that weapons-manufacturer General Electric does no harm but merely "brings good things to life;" that spreading sludge on farm fields is "beneficial use;" that human beings killed in war-for-profit are "collateral damage."

American corporations have at times managed to circumvent the U.S. Constitution and ignore laws designed to protect our own workers and the environment by moving their companies offshore, in the name of "freedom." In Hitler's Germany, the euphemistically named "Law for Terminating the Suffering of People and Nation" (or, the "Enabling Law") gave governments such "freedoms" as the right to deviate from the constitution, ultimately helping Hitler undermine democracy and gain political power.

Goebbels presided over a communications monopoly in Germany by denouncing intellectualism and urging book burning. Today, U. S. corporations have a Goebbels-like communications monopoly, because virtually all television networks and the vast majority of other media outlets in the country are owned by a handful of corporations.

Klaus Fischer writes, "On May 10, 1933, an appalling event in the history of German culture took place-the burning of the books . . . This particular 'cleansing action' (Sauberung) was carried out by the German Student Union."

Of the book burning, Goebbels said, "The age of extreme Jewish intellectualism has now ended, and the success of the German revolution has again given the German spirit the right of way." (J. M. Ritchie, "German Literature Under National Socialism," 1983.) Today corporations discourage Americans from educating themselves about corporate wrongdoing by, as Stauber and Rampton say, "burning books before they're printed."

For example, science writer David Steinman obtained obscure government research from the Freedom of Information Act and used the information in his book, "Diet For A Poisoned Planet." Steinman wrote that many U.S. foods contained contaminants and gave readers a chance to make safer food choices by comparing the amounts of toxins contained in various foods.

Right away, corporate PR firms, including a "pesticide industry front group with deep Republican connections" went to work attacking the book. The Ketchum PR agency (representative of Dole Foods, the Beef Industry Council, Miller Brewing and many other corporate food clients) markets itself as a specialist in "crisis management," according to Stauber and Rampton. A Ketchum memo to the CALRAB food safety team read: "The [Ketchum] agency is currently attempting to get a tour schedule so that we can 'shadow' Steinman's [book promotional] appearances; best scenario, we will have our spokesman in town prior to or in conjunction with Steinman's appearances."

Stauber and Rampton's source inside Ketchum said the PR firm called every talk show where Steinman was booked, saying the shows shouldn't allow Steinman to appear without also presenting "the other side of the issue." The firm also tried to portray Steinman as an "extremist" without credibility.

According to Sharon Beder ("Global Spin") corporate front groups are a fairly recent phenomenon in America . . . a response to the rise of genuine citizen public interest organizations. One front group, the American Council on Science and Health, receives funds from Burger King, Coca-Cola, NutraSweet, Monsanto, Dow, Exxon and other corporations.

Dr. Beder, author of numerous books, and a professional engineer and senior lecturer in Science and Technology Studies at the University of Wollongong, Australia, writes that "the American Council on Science and Health is one of many corporate front groups which allow industry-funded experts to pose as independent scientists to promote corporate causes. Chemical and nuclear industry front groups with scientific sounding names publish pamphlets that are 'peer reviewed' by industry scientists rather than papers in established academic journals."

On the subject of corporate front groups, Beder quotes Mark Megalli and Andy Friedman ("Masks of Deception: Corporate Front Groups in America,"1991): "Contrary to their names, these groups often disregard compelling scientific evidence to further their viewpoints, arguing that pesticides are not harmful, saccharin is not carcinogenic, or that global warming is a myth. By sounding scientific, they seek to manipulate the public's trust."

The goal of pseudo-scientific corporate front groups, says Beder, is to cast doubt on the legitimacy of authentic environmental problems. For example, the Global Climate Coalition is a front group for various gas, oil, coal, automobile and chemical corporations; and it has battled restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions.

Global Climate Coalition has sent journalists videos claiming increased carbon dioxide levels will help feed the world's hungry by increasing crop production. The coalition has lobbied against mandatory emissions controls and asked the Clinton administration to avoid agreements that would reduce greenhouse emissions, claiming they "would damage the U. S. economy."

Corporations have worked to shape the next generation's environmental perceptions "through the development and distribution of 'educational' material to schools," writes Beder. Of course, the "educational" materials promote a corporate slant on environmental problems.

Conservative think-tanks have also opposed environmental legislation, working to cast doubt on greenhouse warming, industrial pollution and ozone depletion. These think-tanks mingle with lobbyists, consultants, interest groups and others and, as Beder says, "seek to provide advice directly to the government officials in policy networks and to government agencies and committees."

The think-tank employees ultimately "become policy makers themselves," and act more as pressure groups or interest groups than as academic institutions. Even so, says Beder, think-tank employees are treated by the media as "independent experts" and sources of expert opinion. Most conservative think-tanks promote free-market ideas, including corporate deregulation and lower taxes for the wealthy.

Corporate and think-tank PR spin doctors typically show little respect for the targets of their propaganda, and little regard for democracy. In another book by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, ("Trust Us, We're Experts!" - Tarcher/Putnam, 2001) the authors write, "If you ask the managers of these ever-more-expensive propaganda campaigns why they have vulgarized the democratic process [with, for example, fake grassroots campaigns], they will frequently tell you that the problem is not with them but with the voters who are too "irrational," "ignorant," or "apathetic" to respond to any other kind of appeal."

Stauber and Rampton quote Bill Greider's "Who Will Tell The People:" "On issue after issue, the public is belittled as self-indulgent or misinformed, incapable of grasping the larger complexities known to the policymakers and the circles of experts surrounding them. The public's side of the argument is said to be 'emotional' whereas those who govern are said to be making 'rational' or 'responsible' choices . . . The reality, of course, is that the ability to define what is or isn't 'rational' is itself loaded with political self-interest."

Hitler's spin doctor, Joseph Goebbels, also expressed contempt for the people and democracy. Klaus Fischer quotes the propagandist: "We go into the Reichstag in order to acquire the weapons of democracy from its arsenal. We become Reichstag deputies in order to paralyze the Weimar mentality with its own assistance. If democracy is stupid enough to give us free travel privileges and per diem allowances for this service, that is its affair. We do not worry our heads about this."

Fischer also points out that the Nazis were beneficiaries of popular anti-democratic theories of their time, and of a "totalitarian mood," which included "a wish to dismantle the egalitarian welfare state." Again, Goebbels' techniques and attitudes and the fruits of his propaganda were different in degree from those of today's corporate propagandists, but they were clearly of the same basic nature.

Goebbels and today's corporate PR firms often practice public relations as a black art, however some citizens inform people in helpful ways that produce the fruits of increased public health, safety and well-being.

For example, registered nurse and environmental activist Terri Swearingen worked to prevent the building of one of the world's largest toxic waste incinerators. When accepting the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, Swearingen said, "There are experts who are working in the corporate interest, who often serve to obscure the obvious and challenge common sense; and there are experts and non-experts who are working in the public interest."

Swearingen added, "Citizens who are working in this arena-people who are battling to stop new dump sites or incinerator proposals, people who are risking their lives to prevent the destruction of rain forests or working to ban the industrial uses of chlorine and PVC plastics-are often labeled obstructionists and anti-progress. But we actually represent progress-not technological progress but social progress. We have become the real experts, not because of our title or the university we attended, but because we have been threatened and we have a different way of seeing the world."

In part three, we'll take a closer look at propaganda and politics.

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kontroversy · 3 years

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The United States has become a small room where a single whisper is magnified thousands of times.

There are two divisions in media: commercial and organized group information systems.

Today’s leaders have become more remote physically from the public, yet, at the same time, the public has much greater familiarity with these leaders through the system of modern communications...Increased influence of mass media is due to widespread and enormously rapid diffusion of literacy.

With the aid of technicians in the field who have specialized in utilizing the channels of communications, [some leaders] have been able to achieve purposefully and scientifically what we have termed "the engineering of consent".

The freedoms of press, speech, petition and assembly, the freedoms which make the engineering of consent possible, are among the most cherished guarantees in the Constitution of the United States.

Under no circumstances should the engineering of consent supersede or displace the educational system, either formal or informal, in bringing about understanding by the people as the basis for their actions. The engineering of consent often does supplement the educational process.

The chief function [of the profession] is to analyze objectively and realistically the position of its client vis-a-vis a public, and to advise as to the necessary corrections in its client’s attitudes towards and approaches to that public.

It must be remembered of course that good will, the basis of lasting adjustment, can be preserved in the long run, only by those whose actions warrant it...The public relations counsel has the professional responsibility to push only those ideas that he can respect, and not to promote causes or accept assignments for clients he considers anti-social.

As in physical engineering, a feasibility study must be done and a budget drawn up.

The engineer of consent must be powerfully equipped with facts, with truths, with evidence before he shows himself before a public.

Bernays recommends World Almanac with lists of thousands of associations across the United States – a cross-section of the country.

The public’s attitudes, ideas, presumptions or prejudices result from definite influences. One must try to find out what they are in any situation in which one is working.

Democratic society is actually only a loose aggregate of constituent groups...To influence the public, the engineer of consent works with and through group leaders and opinion moulders on every level.

Research furnishes the equivalent of the mariner's chart, the architect's blue print,the traveler's road map.

Themes must appeal to the motives of the public. Motives are the activation of both conscious and subconscious pressure created by the force of desires

Organization also correlates the activities of any specialists who may be called upon from time to time, such as opinion researchers, fund raisers, publicity men, radio and motion picture experts, specialists for women's clubs or foreign language groups, and the like.

Set in motion a broad activity, the success of which depends on interlocking all phases and elements of the proposed strategy, implemented by tactics that are timed to the moment of maximum effectiveness.

The developing of events and circumstances that are not routine is one of the basic functions of the engineer of consent.

The Engineering of Consent

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artandlivingenergy · 4 years

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“Because it is the interaction between the envelope protein of the virus and cell-surface receptors in the recipient cell that dictates the ability of a virus to infect a particular cell, pseudotyping can alter the cell types that a virus is able to infect,” Calloway and Luo. — “The modern propagandist studies systematically the material they are working with in the spirit of a laboratory,” Bernays. — “The wétiko disease has corrupted thinking and the wétiko behavior and wétiko goals are regarded as the tactic of evolution,” Forbes from On Columbus and Other Cannibals. — I slipped away from the math conference to go up the road to isolate to paint. It’s always when the painting is terrible and I am lost that someone comes to chat or to observe. Some of the work is awkward and I don’t know how to do it, but the overarching reason to paint is to collect the ability. It’s raw. It’s hard to go against what things look like to paint energy. Not that many people function with surprise. Every act is a matter of finding the way. We visited the mathematicians’ palatial apartment the next week in Rome. Many stories on the road. Elon Musk recommenced a book to read on twitter yesterday. The first paragraphs are on the second frame. We are all subtle beings if we can step out of the frames. With love from silence. https://www.instagram.com/p/CCV0xWynP1N/?igshid=jisqf97781tu

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badbookreviewclub · 4 years

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Complete Review - Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala

This review is one of my pre-written ones and is different from other reviews. If you’ve read the Waiting for Snow in Havana review, this will be incredibly similar. If I had the option, I would have written a review for Empress Theresa today, though I wasn’t able to work through the rest of the book as of yet. I would say that this review contains spoilers, but it’s literally just a historical book, so I’m not going to. The next Bad Book Review that will be coming out is going to be on The Rose Council: The Kaiser Mage. I’m nearly done with the book, so I hope to get it up by Sunday. Though for now, please enjoy this review on an actually good book.

Bitter Fruit showcases a story that is rarely, if ever actually heard in the United States, twisting the emotions of readers as it showcases the reality of the extent that the Eisenhower Administration was willing to go to wipe out ‘Communists’ or those who were accused of being ‘Communists’. Co-authors Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer set out to write the story of the coup incited in Guatemala by the United States, as well as to help push for a reappraisal of American policies within the western hemisphere. The two authors took an extensive amount of time and consulted many different people, libraries, and archives while gathering their information, both in the United States and in Guatemala. Schlesinger is the Director of the World Policy Institute and in 1977 with the Freedom of Information request made by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) urged for the CIA to release all their documents on American involvement during the coup in Guatemala. Kinzer spent 13 years writing about Latin America, and while working as a bureau chief for Times in Nicaragua, he was awarded the Maria Moors Cabot award by Columbia University.

The book begins by introducing you during the middle-end portion of the rebellion against Jacobo Arbenz. When the supporters of Arbenz have already been painted as Communists and it seemed that Guatemala and the world as a whole were opposed to the leader. It captures your attention and draws you into the book, painting your opinion in one way before almost completely changing it in the later chapters. After first it paints Arbenz as a communist, something that the American media tried heavily to do as well during the time. And during the reading at first, it is very easy to believe that he is. However, as you read more, you discover that Arbenz was not a communist. Rather, Arbenz was a victim of a monopolized corporation in Guatemala who were deeply displeased and unhappy with the agricultural reforms that Arbenz was making.

Arbenz took the presidency in 1951, after his predecessor and the first democratically elected president in Guatemala, Juan José Arévalo. Arbenz continued with the reformation and the liberal policies that Arévalo had started with. The most drastic of his changes and the one that Bitter Fruit placed the most emphasis on, was his changes in agriculture. Arbenz took the land and distributed it to the peasant populations so they could begin creating their own farms and build up some kind of wealth for himself. The land that was taken from corporations was reimbursed with bond options, valued at the estimated value that the corporations filed on their taxes. The United Fruit Company (UFCO) was extremely displeased, enough so that the company, American owned at the time, went to the United States Congress in an attempt to garner sympathy from the government and portray Arbenz as a communist, putting freedom and the ‘free world’ at risk. The UFCO was able to do this successfully, and the Eisenhower Administration approved for a covert operation to take place to stage a coup in Guatemala to rid the country of Communists and its ‘communist’ leader.

Throughout the book you are introduced to many different people who took place in the forming of the coup, the most notable being John Peurifoy, the ambassador to Guatemala at the time, Arbenz himself, Edward Bernays who worked as a promoter for UFCO To boost its image and bolster support for the company, Castillo Armas who posed as the leader of the rebel forces and later as the president of Guatemala after Arbenz and Colonel Carlos Enrique Díaz who had taken over very briefly after Arbenz, Allen Dulles who oversaw the entire operation for the coup, and Colonel Albert Haney who was in charge of training those in the rebel forces and almost every aspect of the psychological warfare that was waged on Guatemala.

The number of people who played into the overthrow of Arbenz was absurd, and arguably only increased once the United States decided that it would rather play rough than let ‘communism in Guatemala’ continue to prevail. Arbenz himself never actually claimed to have a political party, and those who were Communists in his department were few in number. “Communists numbered about 26 in the 350-member staff of the National Agrarian Department, the government agency in which they had the strongest influence.” None ever held high ranking positions where they could exert as much influence as the United States and UFCO was making them out to be doing. “No more than seven or eight Communists ever held significant sub-cabinet posts, and neither Arévalo nor Arbenz ever appointed a single Communist to his cabinet.” That did nothing to deter the United States from posting propaganda around Central America and the neighboring countries around Guatemala, in the United States, and in Guatemala against Arbenz, labeling him and his followers as Communists, demanding that they be ousted and that Armas replaced Arbenz, declaring Armas as the better leader with the people's best interests at heart. Eventually, this intensive campaign and the tactics of psychological warfare waged on the citizens of Guatemala worked and Arbenz resigned from the presidency, his appointed commander following shortly after as Armas took the reigns.

After reading the description I just laid out for you, as well as the book itself, it is possible to believe that it is all historical fiction. Even while reading it, it sounds like something you might hear in a dramatic thriller or in a television series, but it was real. This book is a historical recounting of the events of America’s involvement in Guatemala to try and purge the country of its communists. Perhaps the first intentions were just to the UFCO and to get its footing back into the Guatemalan government, but it ended with full intentions and full belief that if the United States did not put someone they could easily manipulate into the government that it would be taken over by Communists that would ‘infect’ the surrounding countries.

Despite the book seemingly being laid out as a dramatic thriller, it keeps you interested and invested in the retelling of the story. The face-paced style makes Bitter Fruit feel real and intense. The style makes it easier to twist your emotions and opinions, showing you different perspectives from both the Guatemalans and the Americans, though overall it holds a much more sympathetic tone with Guatemala than it does with America. It paints a picture that is hard to ignore, a picture you wish to share with other people rather than hideaway on your bookshelf with the rest of your books you will only read once and then never think about again. Bitter Fruit shows the untold story in Guatemala, the one that was kept secret from the American public for so long because it never resulted in a happy ending. It resulted in a government that struggled to pull itself back together and is still struggling to do so to this day. The United States government hardly received any reprimand for their actions in Guatemala besides protests from Latin American students, though they were largely forgotten, unfortunately. Because of the style that Schlesinger and Kinzer use, and the things that they point out throughout the book, they do a more than the effective job of laying out the story and timeline of the coup as well as truly proving that it is time to go back and have a reappraisal of American policies within the western hemisphere.

As more information comes out this book will likely be updated and changed to fill in gaps in the timeline better, but Schlesinger and Kinzer did an amazing job with what was available to them. More people deserve to know the truth about the coup in Guatemala that was incited by the United States, and the more that people read Bitter Fruit the more likely it is we can bring attention to the issue and it will become more likely that we will finally get all of the information. My Take: Overall, I did like the book. It was a struggle to get through in the beginning, but it was a good recounting of history. It’s written in an easy to understand manner most of the time and keeps a good pace. I will admit that I read this for one of my courses, but it is definitely one of the better assigned books that I have read before. I give it a 7/10 stars for the actual writing and structure of the book. HOWEVER, I think that everyone should read this story if they get the chance. It is worth the read and will no-doubt be perfect for anyone who enjoys learning about the history of the United States or of Latin America. If you would like to get Bitter Fruit, it’s available for purchase here.

#bitter fruit #the story of the american coup in guatemala #book review #good book #bad book reviews #entire book #i will get an actually bad review out soon i promise #thank you for the follow #I appreciate all of you so fucking much

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photographydesignstudio2019 · 5 years

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How Advertising + Social Media are used to make us hate ourselves

Recently, I’ve become very interested in the way in which advertising continuously manipulates us, whether we know its happening or not. It’s designed to make us want to purchase something, this we know. But, especially in beauty and fashion advertisements, we are shown something desirable, a lifestyle, a look, a person we want to be. We are constantly being shown people and things that are new, beautiful and something we falsely believe we can achieve if we just buy said product. This is where advertising is extremely dangerous.

As previously stated, the world of consumerism (largely started due to the work of Edward Bernays) in our modern age has shifted to a mindset of selling a idealistic vision of a persons want rather than their needs. Whether this desire for something we want is in a physical aspect of ourselves, an object or a life style, its hard to resist. However, often we don’t see these ads in this light, way too often advertisers market their products as an essential thing for a person to be better in all aspects rather than it being solely a want. In reality, buying the newest Iphone isn’t going to make you a better person. Sure, you’ll be able to take better photos and have access to all the faster technological advances made in this tiny device, but in the grand scheme of things does it really change anything. As long as a phone does fundamental tasks needed for every day life, like work or school, then shouldn’t that be enough. Somehow, due to an overwhelming amount of advertising, almost always visual, we feel a need to continue to work towards better and newer items to prove our own self worth.

One industry that really has captured this idea of making us feel unworthy with what already have or who we are, is the beauty industry.

https://www.marketing-interactive.com/features/mass-medias-toxic-influence-on-beauty-standard/

In ads promoting products related to hair, makeup, skin care, fashion and health, we see models who are often defined as stereotypically beautiful, perfect in some cases. Although a large portion of this factor be a result of photographic manipulation to make them appear as flawless beings, the model behind the image has a singular job of looking beautiful. But not everyone is a model. So seeing skinny white models in the case of advertisements often related to more stereotypically feminine products and fit, tall, handsome models relating to more stereotypically masculine products, gives an everyday person a sense of self doubt. Even we don’t really register it, seeing beautiful people in the multitude of ads we see every day, leaves us with the thought that if we want to be like this inhumanly perfect person, we need to buy this certain product. Not only does this lead to a person buying a product they don’t necessarily need, it also leads to a growth of insecurities and doubt of ones own self worth.

- “It gives huge pressure on women, achieving something which is completely unattainable.

- “Audiences are subconsciously being fed with the idea that a skinny figure is king, with a string of identical ad campaigns featuring skinny celebrities in magazines or on television. But quality audiences who have the ability to judge and to filter what they are fed, remains a minority.”

although alot of this discussion is going to be focusing on female representation within advertising and how it manipulates them, I am fully aware it happens for given gender or non-binary person.

The reason I think, although It has always been a huge problem, that in our current period of time this type of representation is incredibly toxic is to do with the use of social media. Almost everyone in my life uses some form of social media. Because of this we are often influenced by tons of visual images and messages and as always advertising has found away to consume the online world. It biggest target being the platform Instagram. Not only are brands able to pay for sponsored posts that pop up hundreds and thousands of peoples feeds without their consent, but they are also able to pay people who own accounts with a large following to advertise their products.

Often these people are beautiful athletes, models or celebrities that have achieved their level of beauty through countless hours of hard work, lots of money or cosmetic surgery. Either way, the way they look is extremely unobtainable for an everyday person, not to mention the use of digital manipulation to make matters worse.

In this study, Kristen Forbes of Elon University discusses how advertisers use ads and “influencers to create large income and traction on products like never before

https://www.elon.edu/u/academics/communications/journal/wp-content/uploads/sites/153/2017/06/08_Kristen_Forbes.pdf

“With the rise of social media, the use of social influencers has become a popular tactic in brand marketing.”

“These influencers, dubbed online as “Beauty Gurus” online, use their skills in makeup to partner with cosmetic brands, earning big bucks while building brand awareness around products. Influencers have gained popularity due to the rise of social media and their ability to connect with their consumer peers.”

These social media influencers and celebrities, although seem to be trying to authentically sell a product off of real opinion, are being brought out to sell products that can often be harmful.

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/a26893375/jameela-jamil-response-khloe-kardashian-flat-tummy-instagram/

For example Khloe Kardashian, a famous celebrity, part of a reality TV show and empire of makeup and beauty related products, posted a sponsored instagram image advertising the company “flattummyco (https://flattummyco.com/)” which are marked as products that stop your cravings. These “Meal replacing shakes.” are part of a phase within the online advertising world of “Pretending something is healthy when in reality it doesn’t produce results or produces minimum results in an unhealthy manner.”

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callumskeltoneco · 5 years

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Summary of Section 6 Week 4

I agree with Packard’s Idea here as I have a vague-understanding about way in which manipulation of the masses, especially in advertising, was created to make people think to want rather than need. I wrote this summary of the topic in another class.

“Edward Bernays started a the movement we know today as consumerism. In the 1920′s people brought items and were sold products that were labeled as necessities. But Bernays understood the people worked. He harnessed the masses emotions by creating a hidden message that need is not enough, want means power, wealth and success. Starting with the manipulation of the values and tabooed feeling around females smoking, which greatly increased the sales of cigarettes as they were seen only for male consumption at the time, Bernays began to carefully yet dangerously manipulate the masses. He began to show that producers and companies needed to “Mass produce goods to people targeted at their unconscious desires.” Using famous actors in advertisements and glorified idealistic worlds, he made people envy what they saw in the media. He instated the idea that “You will be better if you have this item.” where that be a vehicle, clothing, shoes or any other products companies were selling at the time. “We must shift America to become a culture of desire, to want newer even though the old hasn’t yet been consumed.” But this mind set and idealistic world of consumerism still exists almost 100 years later. We are still living in a time where it is highly normalised to want the new. From iphones to beauty products, all relatively similar yet every time we continue purchase the newest and the “best” we can. If you don’t have the newest Iphone or technology thats popular at the time, you look less wealthy, less educated, less desirable. This idea that what you want is something you need in your life to make you better, is a toxic way of thinking that sees powerful men still controlling the masses through the same tactics. I perhaps now want to show the ways of consumerism and add a sense of Irony too it. Show how ridiculous our ideas of consumption, mass production, mass manipulation and how it is affecting our lives, our planet, ourselves.”

But at the core of it all, he is abusing the arts and more specifically design, to sway the unconscious emotions of people. It has to a point where design in advertising is only there to manipulate its audience into buying and believing a certain product.

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publicrelations-joss-blog · 5 years

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Prominent Leaders in Public Relations

Who is Edwards Bernays?

Early Life

Edward Bernays is known to be the father of public relations, he was the first person to develop the idea of professional public relations. He was born on November 22, 1891 in Vienna, Austria and died on March 9, 1995 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.

Bernays was so to Ely and Anna Bernays, and nephew to Sigmund Freud. When Bernay was one, his family moved to New York where he later obtained a degree in agriculture from Cornell University. Even though his degree was in agriculture, he decided to go into journalism.

Getting Started

Bernays initial plan was to continue with propaganda, but since it had obtained a negative connotation, which could increase during war, he decided to brand it as public relations.

General Electric, the American Tobacco Company, CBS, among others were some of Bernays’ clients. Starting campaigns for some of his clients, was what made him known.

He had publicity campaigns for Lucky Strikes, a cigarette company, in order for cigarette sales to increase among women. His tactic to help increase sales, was to tell woman that the green color of the packaging was one of the colors in style. Later, the success of this campaign was shown throughout fashion shows and window displays.

Another way that he promoted cigarettes was by telling women that they were soothing to the throat and slimming to the waist. Bernays found ways to engage and gain the public's’ trust which made it easy for him to promote to people and help the companies.

Branding or PR

While what Bernays did in the campaign mentioned above was geared more toward branding, it gave people a sense of what public relations could potentially be.

Who is Ivy Lee?

Early Life

Ivy Lee was an early practitioner of public relations. He was born on July 16, 1877 in Cedartown, GA and died on November 9, 1934. Lee was big on explaining and defending the actions of public relations.

Lee graduated from Princeton University where he had gained good writing skills from working in the college’s newspaper. He worked in the newspaper industry, but quickly became tired from the long hours and low pay. This then made him turn to the public relations industry, which was emerging.

Getting Started

Lee opened up a public relations firm, along with his friend George Parker. Their firm was one of the first to be opened in America. With the opening of their own firm, they came up with a Declaration of Principles in order to demonstrate their honesty with the public.

With the work Lee was doing, he was able to change the way people saw people, organizations and/or companies. He helped them by demonstrating to the public why they should trust or change their views toward someone or something.

Was the trust lost?

Because Lee worked with the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany’s chemical industry. While he claims that he only worked to promote their sales and not their beliefs, the case was never resolved due to him dying of a brain tumor.

Ivy Lee may have lost the trust of people, but he will always be seen as a dedicated public relations practitioner.

#publicrelations #edward bernays #ivy lee #practitioner

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