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In liberal theory, news journalism is a check and balance on the ruling class, but in practice institutions and presses that once held power to account have become part of unaccountable power, and only tough reform and a revolution in the political economy of news can reverse the damage.
We entertain the illusion of bipartisanship in the media when both left and right media, both broadsheet and tabloid, are subsumed under the management of cartel conglomerates that dictate op-ed policy and therein modulate the national psyche.
The media is a convenient tool of repetition for state-endorsed lies. Research has shown that the sheer, simple force of repetition is enough to induce belief in what’s stated regardless of if there exist strong reasons to discard it.
The effect of television on people is to render them passive, induce a state where they are less likely to be paying attention, the foundation of successful brainwashing. Research has also shown that the activity of watching television induces changes in brainwaves in a manner that manipulates the processing of information.
One prominent example of media brainwashing consists in the saga of Julian Assange. Despite having never been charged for rape, repeated exposure to claims that he is a sexual predator have led the public to believe he is being pursued by the criminal justice system for being a rapist, rather than the truth that he is being punished for standard journalism that embarrassed the powerful.
Another trick of the media is to put cranks and quacks on an equal platform with experts, legitimising, giving credence to pseudo-science. This is most dangerous in the case of reporting on climate change, where deniers’ opinions are given the same respect as scientists’ facts and evidence.
The media is meant to articulate the truth in a deceit ridden politics, but that cliche is precisely that , a cliche, and one that has spawned critical complacency on the part of the public and self-appraisal on the part of the press. The contagious lie of Russiagate proved that the deceit lay within the media, who increasingly act as stenographers of power.
A lot of classified research undertaken by US intelligence agencies, like MKUltra, consists of how to induce hypnotic states of consciousness, making the media a central part of the abuse of human psychology to serve empire’s needs.
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