Media Manipulation: 10 Strategies That The Media Use

Although the term “media manipulation” is not very well known, we owe it to the valuable contribution of Sylvain Timsit. In 2002, this French writer compiled a list of 10 strategies of media manipulation. Political and economic power groups use them to control the public. Even though it’s been almost 15 years, his list is still a very powerful and legitimate argument that we should take into account.

The list is a ranking of the methods used in mass manipulation. According to the author, the purpose of these strategies is to create docile, submissive, and obedient individuals. He also says that the media uses these techniques to support capitalism, inequality and neo-capitalism.

In just minutes, Timsit’s post went viral. In fact, it has been wrongly attributed to Noam Chomsky. In Timsit’s work we certainly find nods to Chomsky’s ideas. We notice this especially when he talks about the critical analysis of the role of the mass media in our society.

10 Media Manipulation Strategies

Distraction

Distraction is a strategy of taking the public’s attention away from the important issues. One way to do this is to flood the news with stories about trivial issues. The aim is to distract people and occupy their minds. As a result, people stop asking themselves why the media doesn’t talk about certain things. People forget the real problems.

Problem – reaction – solution

This method can be compared to ‘polling’ in politics. It consists of testing the population by spreading rumors or ideas and evaluating how the population absorbs them. They create a problem to solve it later. The public then sees the manipulators as heroes.

Gradually

How does gradualness manipulate people? It makes them make decisions that are socially unjust. The secret lies in the fact that it happens gradually, slowly, and over years.

For example, suppose the objective is to lay off 80% of the executives of a high profile company. The media will then start reporting negative news about the company: drop in sales, stock market crashes, rumours, and so on. They will slowly create awareness among the people and prepare them for ‘big news’. If they had announced layoffs in the beginning, there would have been a lot of public grumbling.

Differ

Timsit adds yet another strategy to his list of media manipulation. The media here presents unpopular decisions as ‘ necessary’, ‘for a better future’ or for ‘our own well-being’. They sincerely make the public believe that their sacrifices will make things significantly better later on.

In this way, citizens become accustomed to a lower quality of life. They start to see it as normal. Eventually people will resign themselves to the current situation. They will stop demanding what they used to demand.

Treating people like children

The more the media wants to manipulate the public, the more they will talk to the public as if they were children. They use disguised arguments, characters and intonations, as if the people are too weak or too immature to handle the truth. The goal is also a submissive, docile response. The idea is to prevent people from thinking critically like adults.

Playing on emotions

Responding to the emotions is much more powerful than sterile, purely objective appeals. The media knows this. So they play on the emotions of the audience. In this way they again try to avoid people thinking critically. So they try to control people’s thoughts. Remember how powerful fear can be.

Keeping the public ignorant and mediocre

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

Encouraging people to contribute to mediocrity

This point and the previous one are very similar. This strategy is one of the subtlest techniques of media manipulation. Do the programs on television correspond to what the general public wants? Or are they imposed on us by the media? In other words, are we really looking at what we want to see, or what they want us to see?

For Timsit, the answer is clear. Consumerism and banality hypnotize us. So we don’t care about our environment. After all, we are trained to be mediocre.

self-blame

While the media encourages our ignorance, they also make us believe that we are solely responsible for our misfortunes. The media tells us that our scarce skills will make us miserable and unsuccessful. Essentially, they attempt self-blame through self-excuse. In this way, they prevent the public from organizing.

Full knowledge of the public

If you want to control someone, you have to know them. Unfortunately, our modern oligarchies have taken care of this in a perfect way. According to Timsit, psychological, social and technological advances now allow large companies to know everything about every single individual. The ‘ system’  knows us. So that means it can manipulate us precisely on our weak spots.