Chomsky on Media Manipulation

Top 10 Media Manipulation Strategies
By Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky, the distinguished American philosopher, political activist and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has compiled a list of the ten most powerful and efficacious strategies used by “masters of the world” to establish a manipulation of the population through the media.

The strategies are so well-elaborated that even the countries with the best educational systems, succumb to the power and terror of those mafias. Many things are reported in the news but few are explained.

1. The strategy of distraction

The primary element of social control is the strategy of distraction which is to divert public attention from important issues and changes determined by the political and economic elites, by the technique of flood or flooding continuous distractions and insignificant information.

Distraction strategy is also essential to prevent the public interest in the essential knowledge in the area of the science, economics, psychology, neurobiology and cybernetics.

“Maintaining public attention diverted away from the real social problems, captivated by matters of no real importance. Keep the public busy, busy, busy, no time to think, back to farm and other animals” (quote from text Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars).

2. Create problems, then offer solutions

This method is also called “problem -reaction- solution.”

It creates a problem, a “situation” referred to cause some reaction in the audience, so this is the principal of the steps that you want to accept.

For example: let it unfold and intensify urban violence, or arrange for bloody attacks in order that the public is the applicant’s security laws and policies to the detriment of freedom.

Or create an economic crisis to accept as a necessary evil retreat of social rights and the dismantling of public services.

3. The gradual strategy

Acceptance to an unacceptable degree, just apply it gradually, dropper, for consecutive years.

That is how they radically new socioeconomic conditions (neoliberalism) were imposed during the 1980s and 1990s:

• the minimal state
• privatization
• precariousness
• flexibility
• massive unemployment
• wages
• do not guarantee a decent income,

...so many changes that have brought about a revolution if they had been applied once.

4. The strategy of deferring

Another way to accept an unpopular decision is to present it as “painful and necessary”, gaining public acceptance, at the time for future application.

It is easier to accept that a future sacrifice of immediate slaughter.

• First, because the effort is not used immediately
• Then, because the public, masses, is always the tendency to expect naively that “everything will be better tomorrow” and that the sacrifice required may be avoided

This gives the public more time to get used to the idea of change and accept it with resignation when the time comes.

5. Go to the public as a little child

Most of the advertising to the general public uses speech, argument, people and particularly children’s intonation, often close to the weakness, as if the viewer were a little child or a mentally deficient.

The harder one tries to deceive the viewer look, the more it tends to adopt a tone infantilizing. Why?

“If one goes to a person as if she had the age of 12 years or less, then, because of suggestion, she tends with a certain probability that a response or reaction also devoid of a critical sense as a person 12 years or younger.” (see Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars)

6. Use the emotional side more than the reflection

Making use of the emotional aspect is a classic technique for causing a short circuit on rational analysis, and finally to the critical sense of the individual.

Furthermore, the use of emotional register to open the door to the unconscious for implantation or grafting ideas , desires, fears and anxieties , compulsions, or induce behaviors …

7. Keep the public in ignorance and mediocrity

Making the public incapable of understanding the technologies and methods used to control and enslavement.

“The quality of education given to the lower social classes must be the poor and mediocre as possible so that the gap of ignorance it plans among the lower classes and upper classes is and remains impossible to attain for the lower classes.” (See Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars).

8. To encourage the public to be complacent with mediocrity

Promote the public to believe that the fact is fashionable to be stupid, vulgar and uneducated…

9. Self-blame Strengthen

To let individual blame for their misfortune, because of the failure of their intelligence, their abilities, or their efforts.

So, instead of rebelling against the economic system, the individual auto-devaluate and guilt himself, which creates a depression, one of whose effects is to inhibit its action.

And, without action, there is no revolution!

10. Getting to know the individuals better than they know themselves

Over the past 50 years, advances of accelerated science has generated a growing gap between public knowledge and those owned and operated by dominant elites.

Thanks to biology, neurobiology and applied psychology, the “system” has enjoyed a sophisticated understanding of human beings, both physically and psychologically.

The system has gotten better acquainted with the common man more than he knows himself.

This means that, in most cases, the system exerts greater control and great power over individuals, greater than that of individuals about themselves.

B2 Students on Freedom Fighters

Class Presentations on Freedom Fighters

Tell your classmates about a courageous person in the history of your country that fought for civil rights. What did this person do? Don't mention his/her name until your classmates guess it at the end of your presentation, and then write his/her name on the board. OR Tell your partners about an important breakthrough in human rights in the history of your country. What was achieved and how? Speak for 2 minutes. You may look at your notes but try not to read them. (See text on Rosa Parks for vocabulary and expressions on page 41, and use passive tenses when necessary.)

Here are some of your classmates' presentations. If you can you guess who they talked about, post your comment below.

_________________________(1888-1972) She was born in 1888 and died in 1972. She was a Spanish politician who was the first person to fight for the right of women to vote in Spain, when only men were allowed to vote in parliamentary elections. She was a courageous woman, because she defended universal suffrage, in spite of being criticized by many people, including women like Victoria Kent, who was another member of the Spanish Parliament during the Second Republic. Finally, the Spanish Government granted women the right to vote in 1931 and since that moment all Spanish people have had equal rights regardless of their gender. Can you guess her name?

A courageous person in the history of my country is ____________________. Born in 1910, he was a young diplomat from Zaragoza who was assigned to Hungary during the Second World War. He was shocked by the horror of the Holocaust and he saved the life of more than 5,200 jews. Four hundred more than those saved by Oskar Schindler. However, the latter is more well-know than our Spanish hero. He forged jews’ passports and he had to bribe people and rent some flats with his own money to hide jews. He even built an annex at the Spanish embassy in Budapest, so they were untouchable for the Nazis. He didn’t have the approval of Franco’s regime to do this. He died in 1980.Also known as the Spanish Schindler, he is an example of true bravery in Spain. Can you guess who he was?

There have been a lot of freedom fighters in Spain, a few more famous and appreciated than others. But the fighters I’m going to write about are not famous, because there isn’t a visible face, I want to talk about the Spanish people today.

We are immersed in the worst economic, financial and social crisis in many years, and many social groups find themselves in a very difficult situation. That’s why there are more and more freedom fighters in this country, in order to stop abuses from the establishment, banks, speculators... all those that are supposed to resolve this situation, but not at all costs.

These freedom fighters do not agree with stifling taxes, privatizations, collective dismissals, evictions, cuts here and there... they are people who try to play their part with food and clothes donations, people who sit in front of a house to avoid an eviction, people who let homeless families live in their empty houses, or go to a demonstration to keep pushing for our rights and welfare... They –we- are the true freedom fighters today, and will never leave the struggle.

Classroom Language

Speak to your English teacher… in English!

What’s the meaning of _____?

Is this sentence right/correct?

Is it correct to say...?/Can I say...?

How do you say “_____” in English?

How do you spell the word _____?

Can you write it on the board, please?

What’s the difference between kill and assassinate?

I didn’t understand. Could you explain that again, please?

Shall I continue?

Sorry, I didn’t do my homework/the exercise.

Sorry, I didn’t come to class last Monday (because I was ill).

Have you got a spare photocopy (of the worksheet)?

Do you have any photocopies left?/... any spare photocopies?

Can you play the CD again, please?

Can we listen to it again, please?

Did you correct my last composition? Can I have it back?

What’s the homework for next week/Thursday?

Can I find this document online?

Is that document on WebCT?

Sorry I’m late.

When do classes finish (in December/in May)?

See you!

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Constitutional Court rules in favour of same-sex marriage

By Ingrid Bazinet (AFP)

MADRID — Spain's constitutional court Tuesday upheld a 2005 gay marriage law, throwing out a long-standing appeal by the now-ruling Popular Party.

The court ruling dealt a resounding legal defeat to Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's right-leaning party, which lodged its objection just three months after the law was passed in July 2005. The party, then in opposition, had contested the use of the word "marriage" to describe a union between a same-sex couple.

Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz Gallardón conceded that the court's published ruling had established a doctrine that was "binding" and his party would therefore make no changes to the legislation. The legal victory reinforces then prime minister Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's tradition-shattering reform, one of a string of legal changes he introduced to put Spain on the forefront of progressive social change.

In its ruling, the top court simply said it "rejected the appeal" by more than 50 members of the Popular Party who had argued the law was not constitutional. A full copy of the decision and arguments, backed by eight of the 12 judges but with three against and one abstaining, is to be released in the days ahead, it said.

Hours ahead of the decision, Rajoy said his party had objected in particular to the use of the word "marriage". "We appealed not because the union of two people of the same sex would have legal effects, that did not matter to us," he told Cope radio. "The only thing we appealed was the name, that is to say the word 'marriage' was the reason for the appeal."

The Spanish court decision comes just as neighbouring France's Socialist government is about to propose gay marriage legislation, which has been hotly opposed by the Church and some conservatives. Spain's gay marriage law, which also lets homosexual couples adopt children, has allowed as many as 22,000 gay couples to wed, according to a national federation of gays, lesbians, transsexuals and bisexuals. When the legislation was passed seven years ago, Spain became only the third member of the European Union after Belgium and the Netherlands to allow same-sex weddings.

Computers Are Sensual

These are photos from Core Memory: A Visual Survey of Vintage Computers, by John Alderman, with photographs by Mark Richards. There’s a sensual beauty to computers that I never appreciated until I saw these pictures. Click on this link to see the whole series.

On board Airbus A380

El Roto, Premio Nacional de Ilustración

En este enlace el dibujante comenta una seleccón de sus viñetas.
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Spanish Protests, German Prescriptions

From The New York Times, October 1, 2012

Demonstrators have been filling the streets of southern Europe’s capitals in numbers too large for politicians to safely ignore, protesting the latest economic austerity measures. Hundreds of thousands have turned out in Lisbon, Madrid and Athens, and more such protests are likely in coming days.

The public’s patience is running out on austerity policies demanded by the German government and European Union leaders, which have conspicuously failed in their stated goal of reducing debt burdens and paving the way for economic revival. Instead, it’s clear that these measures will accelerate depression-levels of unemployment and damage social safety net programs when they are most needed. The spotlight is now on Spain, where Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is struggling to make new budget cuts, without provoking further explosions of anger at home and fueling secessionist talk in restive regions like Catalonia, the country’s economic powerhouse. But the harsh mix of new public service cuts, pay freezes and tax increases that Mr. Rajoy announced last week will almost certainly make both the political and economic situations worse. Experts now forecast a second straight year of negative growth in Spain for 2013, while unemployment, at more than 25 percent, is more than double the European Union average. 

Yet unless Spain goes through with those self-defeating measures or the Spanish economy miraculously produces new tax revenues to meet unrealistic budget targets, Germany threatens to hold up a desperately needed new European banking union that would help recapitalize foundering Spanish banks. Unlike Greece and Portugal, Spain has, so far, avoided a formal European Union bailout. That gives it a little more freedom to set its own economic course. But Mr. Rajoy is not really a free actor. Without German approval for the European banking union, Spain, too, could soon be forced into a binding debt bailout deal.

Spain’s current debt problems are not the result of profligate government spending during the boom years. They came from the abrupt collapse of a reckless housing bubble in the private sector, fueled by artificially cheap credit. The bursting of that bubble wiped out millions of Spanish jobs, dragging down tax revenues and consumer spending. It also forced the government to pledge billions of euros that it did not have and could no longer raise to rescue its tottering banking system. New cuts to remaining jobs and spending power will not bring recovery. It would only bring further misery and turmoil. Mr. Rajoy also wants to rein in spending by Spain’s 17 regional governments, which pay a large share of education and health care costs. Regional governments squandered billions on wasteful public-works projects during the boom years. But that money is lost, and health and education should not be subject to big cuts even in hard times. 

Nor is a deep recession the right time to tackle the long-term problem of pension costs and the demographics of an aging population. With unemployment benefits ending for many of the long-term unemployed, pension payments are the main remaining source of income for hundreds of thousands of extended families.

There are no easy places left for Mr. Rajoy to cut services or spending without risking social disaster. The story is much the same in Greece and Portugal. 

Time is running out. Only a sharp change in economic policies can save the euro. European leaders — most of all Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany — need to recognize that returning the euro zone to solvency will require renewed efforts to encourage economic growth through less rigid budget targets, not continued austerity imposed on desperate governments by Berlin and Brussels.

Religious Marketing

Anxious buyers queueing up at the Apple store in New York City on Monday, September 17th, 2012, four days before the new iPhone5 went on sale on Friday, September 21st.

Buscarse la vida

 

Seguramente a cualquiera que lo esté pasando mal, y son muchos, decirle que hay que enfrentarse a la crisis como una oportunidad le resultará insultante. ¿Oportunidad de qué? De transformarse, de cambiar hábitos malsanos, de desempolvar viejos valores, de revisar el orden de las preferencias: eso explican los expertos en fabricar optimismo, los tertulianos que no saben qué decir y los autores de libros de autoayuda. Pero al margen de cualquier injustificado entusiasmo, lo cierto es que cuando las cosas andan mal la gente utiliza la imaginación y se busca la vida. Es lo que está ocurriendo en Madrid, y seguramente en otros lugares, con los libros de texto. Se improvisa un puesto en una calle y se ofrecen ejemplares que ya han sido utilizados a precios mucho más asequibles. Gana el que vende, gana el que compra. Como ha subido el IVA y en algunas comunidades se han eliminado las becas para material escolar, los recursos de las familias no siempre llegan para adquirir el material nuevo. El de segunda mano puede servir.

Junto a iniciativas de este tipo, más o menos espontáneas, se han ido poniendo en marcha otras de diverso alcance. Algunas asambleas del 15-M han organizado, sin ir más lejos, intercambios de material escolar para los que empiezan el nuevo curso. De ese movimiento proceden también propuestas tan innovadoras como el llamado banco del tiempo: un sistema para intercambiar servicios entre los vecinos sin gastarse un euro. Tú me das clases de italiano, yo te arreglo el ordenador.

En ayuntamientos más pequeños, y ante la incapacidad actual de los mismos por ofrecer esos servicios que pusieron en marcha en los tiempos de efímero esplendor, hay vecinos que se han unido en cooperativas para gestionar un polideportivo o jubilados que han conseguido construir una residencia de ancianos a su medida. La Red también sirve y, por ejemplo, hay sitios donde se puede conseguir por un módico precio una casa que dejan sus dueños durante los días que se van de visita al pueblo.

¿Qué pensarías si desafino?, preguntaba con razón Ringo Starr en una canción de los Beatles. Y se contestaba que saldría del paso con una pequeña ayuda de sus amigos. Pues eso. Y más en plena crisis. El País, 18.09.12