Media Manipulating: 10 Strategies For Media Manipulation

The concept of “media manipulation” may not be so well known, but we have Sylvain Timsit to thank for this valuable contribution. In 2002, the French writer created a list of ten media manipulation strategies used by political and economic forces to control the public. Despite the fact that 15 years have passed, his list of how the media manipulates is still a powerful and valid argument to take into account.

The list is a collection of methods of mass manipulation. The reason for these strategies, according to the author, is to create docile, submissive and obedient individuals. In addition, he says that the media use them to support capitalism, inequality and neo-capitalism.

Timsit’s post went viral in minutes. In fact, it was incorrectly attributed to the linguist Noam Chomsky. With that said, there are definitely allusions to Chomsky’s beliefs in Timsit’s work, especially with regard to the critical analysis of the role of the media in our society.

According to Timsit, the following are the 10 strategies that the media uses to manipulate the masses:

Media manipulates through distraction

The strategy of distraction consists of diverting the masses’ attention to important issues. One way to do this is to fill the news feed with trivia. The goal is to distract people and keep their minds occupied. The result is that people stop questioning why the media does not talk about certain issues; people have forgotten the real issues.

Problem – Reaction – Solution

This method can be equated with a political opinion poll. This means testing the population by spreading rumors and  ideas to evaluate how the population receives them. This means that you create a problem and then solve it. And then the manipulators are seen as heroes by the public.

Gradualism

Gradualism manipulates people by making them accept socially unjust decisions. The key is to do it progressively, slowly, over a period of several years.

For example, let’s say that the goal is to lay off 80% of the employees of a large company. The media then begins by writing negative news about the company: shares go down, stock market crashes, rumors, etc. Slowly, it creates an awareness that begins to prepare people for the “big news”. If the dismissals had been announced from the beginning, there would have been riots.

Media manipulates through procrastination

Another strategy that Timsit believes the media manipulates people through is to present unpopular decisions as ” necessary”, “for a better future”, or “for our own good”. They make the population genuinely believe that their sacrifices will lead to things getting significantly better in the future.

So the population is getting used to a lower quality of life. They are starting to see it as normal. Finally, they find themselves in the current state and stop demanding what they once demanded.

The media manipulates by treating people like children

Another way the media manipulates is to talk to people as if they were children. They use wrapped arguments, characters and intonations, as if people were too weak or immature to handle the truth. The goal is also a submissive and submissive reaction. The ideal is to prevent people from thinking critically as adults.

Appeal to emotions

Emotional appeals are far more powerful than sterile, strictly objective ones. Because the media is aware of this, they use the strategy to appeal to the feelings of the public. They try to prevent people from thinking critically; they try to control their thoughts. Think about how powerful fear can be.

To keep the public ignorant and mediocre

According to Timsit , the media prefers an ignorant, uneducated audience. Isolating them from knowledge makes them easier to manipulate. It also keeps disobedience and rebellion away. Information is power.

Encourage people to contribute to mediocrity

This point and the previous one are very similar and constitute one of the most subtle strategies of media manipulation. Do the programs on TV correspond to what the public wants to see? Or are we forced on them by the media? In other words, are we really looking at what we want, or what they want us to look at?

For Timsit, this is obvious. Consumerism and banality hypnotize us. This means that we do not care about our surroundings. We have been trained to be mediocre.

Self-blame

While the media encourages our ignorance , they also make us believe that we are the only ones responsible for our misery. The media tells us that our scarce knowledge will make us miserable and without success. Basically, they are looking to create a self-blame of the self through self-justification with the intention of preventing the public from mobilizing.

Complete knowledge of the public

In order to exercise control over someone, you need to know everything about them. Unfortunately, our modern oligarchies have taken care of this with utmost perfection. For Timsit, the psychological, social and technological advances mean that large companies are now allowed to know everything about each individual. The “system” knows everything about us and that means they can manipulate us right on all our weak points.