Mass Media: Factories of Fear

                                           Fear as a control tool

x Níkolas Stolpkin: The great manipulative role of the Mass Media remains the same. And in no way should it be different with the current "pandemic".

"Those who rule us, shape our minds, define our tastes or suggest our ideas to us are largely people we have never heard of."

Edward Bernays

What could make us think that the role of Big Media now (with the "pandemic") could be different?

Do not be fooled. The great manipulative role of the Mass Media remains the same. And in no way should it be different with the current "pandemic".

We should never forget that the Mass Media are inborn extensions of the great economic interests, so that everything that is broadcast from there must always be viewed with a certain distance or distrust; and, even more, when a good part of what we see is propaganda, the true "executive arm" of the economic elites.

As the publicist and journalist Edward Bernays defined at the beginning of the 20th century: "Propaganda is the mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a large scale, in the broad sense of a project organized to spread a particular belief or doctrine ".

"Modern propaganda is the consistent and enduring attempt to create or shape events with the aim of influencing the public's relations with a company, idea or group."

It is a matter of seeing, currently, each Mass Communication Media, tune into the same propagandist frequency. Television, newspapers, radio, internet and social networks are all coming together in the same channel or in the propaganda of the moment - enhancing it -; Others are influenced by the contagion effect or by their own innocence, which could be understandable when there is some confusion and ignorance about a subject, or there is insufficient information.

The current censorship on social networks is also not uninteresting, when one tries to be critical of the official story or authorized voices against it emerge; the massive-credible is usually censored and the massive-ridiculous is usually accepted. As well as the treatment that is given to the information in the Media, when there are protests or demonstrations against the restrictions in "pandemic" calling them "deniers", "anti vaccines", "anarchists", and so on.

And as it works to this day: "The elite Media establish a framework within which the rest operate" (Noam Chomsky). Do not be surprised about the "traditional" dependence on the "developing" or "third world" Media, which tend to replicate what the Large Media or Large Information Agencies broadcast.

It is no stranger to anyone that today - and since the "pandemic" was decreed - we are being systematically bombarded day by day with propaganda (to varying degrees) to somehow maintain a certain atmosphere of fear - something very similar to what happened after the attacks on the Twin Towers (2001) -. And, you may wonder, what does fear do… Because fear contributes significantly to silencing and paralyzing people. And it is the reason why, if we look closely, there is not so much opposition to restrictive policies in our respective countries.

It is also interesting how ordinary people or others with a certain ideological-critical approach have easily succumbed to the influence of the Big Media. Wherever there may be some criticism, moreover, the official account of the "pandemic" has done nothing but silence or nullify critical voices.

A paradigmatic example of how the Big Media is acting when certain voices may contradict their official accounts, was what happened with the respectable French virologist Luc Montagnier (Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2008 for the discovery of HIV, the cause of AIDS), a authoritative voice when it comes to viruses, they would practically try to ridicule you. Or what happened with the Spanish doctor Luís de Benito, in an interview for TVE (Spain) in which an attempt was made to impose on the voice of an expert who has worked from the beginning of the "pandemic" within the "first line".

Fear as a control tool 

  

One of the resources most used by the Power to be able to keep the governed at bay is to stoke an artificial atmosphere of fear or take advantage of a natural, political or economic disaster, as a means of pursuing obedience (accepting certain norms) or canceling any hint of dissent, rebellion or opposition. Throughout history, that has been the trend: wars, catastrophes, diseases…, and the fear of death; Christianity…, and the fear of "hell"; capitalism ..., and fear of "economic crises" (unemployment, inflation, cuts, etc.).

And it remains to be seen how a power structure, like the IMF, would be playing an interesting role with all this "pandemic" and its penchant for seeing drowned economies to finally come to its "rescue". It is striking how quietly, from time to time, the IMF sounds loudly in places where there is some rejection. Where there is no rejection, is it unnecessary to publicize the IMF's "philanthropic" interest? Will the IMF have landed in our countries without us still finding out?

Sustaining certain threats or fears, periodically, by the ruling class, has always been part of the landscape to which the governed are usually exposed to "renew" or "refresh" their fears. Today the particular issue of the "pandemic" comes to renew the fear of death, disease, contagion ... But what makes it very particular now is its exaggerated permanence, which is awakening other fears such as fear of future, fear of losing their job, fear of being economically or socially marginalized, fear of seeing their purchasing power reduced, and so on. And what better for the Power than to do a "normal" practice of "social distancing" and to wear an annoying mask, symbols of fear and submission?

It is not for nothing that today the media is encouraged, in the absence of full freedom, of the convenience of "telework", "online sales", "digital education", "online shows", which threaten certain common practices which were already installed within a context of full freedom.

Then it is worth asking:

Will the sacrifice of our full freedom be the way in which we will gradually shed our traditional ways of seeing work, sales, education, entertainment, etc.? Could full freedom be compatible with the widespread adoption of new technological "conveniences"? Will the coexistence between the old and the new be possible, without discarding or imposing oneself on anyone, and enjoying full freedom? Or should the new, without any option, end up cruelly imposing itself on the old to the detriment of the "laggard"? Could it be that the "new" is the ideal vehicle ("the great opportunity") to "save on costs" than the "old" represented? Are the "new" big interests now in a "fight to the death" against the "old" big interests? Should the "old" big interests end up adapting to the "new" big interests?

The traditional-vulgar landscapes of fear that the news media tend to occupy permanently (crime, murders, rapes, accidents, robberies, fires, suicides, violence, etc.) are not alien to anyone; as well as the periodic landscapes of fear with which, from time to time, they usually appear, depending on the context or time (the threat of a meteorite, global warming, the weakening of the ozone layer, contagious diseases, natural disasters, environmental pollution , etc). The former tend to be daily and permanently, within a normal context; and the seconds are usually periodically, depending on the moment.

But what makes the protagonist of today (the "pandemic") stand out is his exaggerated-sustained permanence or permanent rebound between impact and threat, or his leading-permanent presence in the Mass Media.

We all know that the Mass Media tend to "play" with the emotions of the recipient: joy, anger, fear, surprise, sadness and disgust, are emotions that tend to exploit to attract attention to a certain product. But when these emotions remain consciously present for a long time, then they transform into feelings that could easily affect people. And this is what is being seen today with the particular exploitation of fear. When the daily image is individuals with masks, what is being done is transmitting fear; the same when daily numbers of infected and dead by COVID-19 are released; or when there are statements such as: "the world changed", "the world will no longer be as it was before", "new normality", "new sprouts", and so on.

As soon as the Mass Media stops broadcasting in the way they are doing, it is only then that people could gradually become part of what people considered "normal" before the "pandemic". As long as it continues to be transmitted as it is being transmitted, ordinary people could only continue to be victims of silence and immobility.

It would be interesting to know what is the current performance of the Mass Media in China with regard to the "pandemic". Why is the Western Mass Media practically silent regarding the return to normality in China, where people have supposedly come back together en masse, have face-to-face classes, can normally attend restaurants, and where COVID -19 is more than controlled? Isn't that Chinese example worth imitating in the West? Is the near absence of information on Chinese success because they would not want to expose the failure of the West to its eastern rivals? What are the Power structures in the West after?

@NStolpkin