But let me ask: if it were shown that sympathy for ISIS and Islamic ultra-conservativism were significantly higher among Muslims than among other people, would you want to suppress this fact for fear it would cause bigotry? — jamalrob
No one can force you to watch, agree with, or listen to anything. I suggested studies that showed that people's values are not significantly altered by media exposure. For instance, people are not made violent by watching violent movies, or playing violent video games. Studies I saw suggested that exposure to political propaganda increased people's knowledge of issues, and view points on the subject, but didn't really sway their opinions of them. — Wosret
The trouble with the conspiracy theories about the media is that the ruling cliques that supposedly are in charge of the conspiracies would have to be extremely and unbelievably knowledgeable to have enough insight to know how to manipulate 300 million people in the right way (for their advantage). They would have to know how millions and millions of people would react to a given story, and know the upsides and downsides of all their media manipulations. They would have to be unnaturally imaginative, insightful, ingenious, clever, inventive -- all the time, for decades on end. — Bitter Crank
I just don't think that I know of any culture that actually upheld cruelty, malicious violence, or unfairness up as ideals. I think that we are all capable of enjoying the misery and harm of people that deserve it, and it requires misinformation, propaganda, and the overshadowing of the visceral force of actions by ideological commitments, and rationalizations. — Wosret
The problem with a mythical elite pulling all of the stings, and having such a wide influence on the unwashed masses is that these supposed elite didn't grow up on mars, they're just as much products of their cultures and environments, and just as easily manipulated by tall tales, and conditioning. We all condition each other everyday in subtle, and unsubtle ways, and no one is immune. — Wosret
They'll never have the influence of good author, artist, or musician -- whom are surely corruptible, and even with the best of interests are writing from their own value sets, and dispositions, though in a far less conscious way than such corporate cabals. — Wosret
Edward Bernays, the father of modern public relations, penned the following in his book Propaganda: — Shevek
↪Bitter Crank I'm picking up what you're putting down. — Shevek
we're much more likely to see our commodities, our property, as extensions of not only our ego but of our self-constructed identities. — Shevek
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