TOP 14 Ways to Manipulate the Media You Didn't Know About

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Most of the media (Russian and not only) have long ceased to pretend that they are engaged in journalism, being actively involved in the information war, and sometimes in outright propaganda. Below are the disinformation methods that the media can use to manipulate thousands of people without telling a word of lies. All of these techniques are obvious to the professional journalist and anyone in the media. But, alas, this is not always obvious to the general reader / viewer.

Imagine that you are a high school student who got a B in geography. You come home and they ask you the question "How is it at school?" It is not in your interests the scenario when the parents find out about the deuce. To say "I have five in geography" is to lie. However, there are many ways not to lie, while not telling the truth that is unfavorable for you or reducing the damage.

1. SHIFT OF ACCENTS

“I got five in physical education, in literature, two in geography, Petya got sick, Masha won the swimming competition, and most importantly, we have a new computer scientist!” You say. The key (or disadvantageous for you) fact is lost among others. At the same time, with a light hand, you yourself make the placement of accents, instead of the reader you yourself say what is important and what is secondary.

In especially radical forms, the shift in emphasis develops into INFORMATION STUNNING, when a key (or disadvantageous) fact drowns in a mass of other facts or messages on other topics.

2. Hiding (+ CHANGE OF TOPIC)

“What's the school there? What's going on on the street! Gopniks drink beer on the playground. And in general, let's discuss what you will give me for my birthday,”- you say, completely ignoring the theme of the school, but at the same time filling the information space.

3. SUBJECTIVE CHOICE OF NEWS

“I got five in gym! And Masha also found a cockroach in a bun,”you say, thereby hiding a key (or disadvantageous) fact and filling the information space with an advantageous or neutral fact.

4. GENERALIZATION

“Well, how is it at school?” - they ask you. “It's okay, nothing special,” you reply, offering a generalized, but at the same time quite truthful interpretation of events.

5. WOLF INTERPRETATION

“The teacher is so bad, he gave me a bad mark just like that,” you say, immediately supplying the fact with a subjective interpretation.

It is one of the media's favorite tricks and is used with varying degrees of intensity and insolence. With a free interpretation, a wide variety of options are possible.

ROLE OF THE LAWYER: “I taught! They told me, but I wanted to tell everything myself, because I taught! And he thought that I was prompted, and set two, so that everyone would be discouraged."

ROLE OF THE PROSECUTOR: “The teacher was clearly out of sorts today. I asked incorrect questions. Even with such aggression, says "Show me the Maldives, huh !?" How can we, a simple Russian family from the provinces, know where the Maldives are?"

VICTIVITY: “He asked everyone easy questions, and he will ask me about Algeria! I never asked anyone about Algeria. It seems that he does not love me."

DEMONIZATION: “So this geographer is generally a beast! Every time he asks about a new country, he gives two marks to everyone. He likes it."

CONSPIRACY THEORY: “All teachers are against me! Today the geographer put two. But I study as usual, getting ready for the lessons! This is because the classrooms are overcrowded, they are underpaid for additional students, and they decided to persecute me and kick me out of school."

DISCRIMINATION: "I was given two because I am Russian / Ukrainian / Georgian / Jew / Asian / Orthodox / Muslim / vegetarian / woman / gay / philatelist."

CLIMO: “The geography teacher gave me two. Of course, he is a vegetarian - any inadequate act can be expected from a person who does not eat meat."

DIRTY LINEN: “The geography teacher gave me two. Probably acting out on me. They say his wife left him."

ARROW TRANSLATION: "The geography teacher was generally late for his own lesson, and then his phone rang during the lesson!"

REDUCING THE VALUE OF THE FACT: “Today I was given two in geography, but this is in pencil. Anyway, I will prepare a project soon, and it will be five in a quarter."

GENERAL DISCREDITATION OF THE TOPIC: “Who needs geography in our time? I have GPS in my smartphone and Wikipedia."

FACT REVISION: “Do you know how difficult it was to get a five in PE? This is a breakthrough! Maybe this is the first step towards the Olympics? Just think, two in geography."

FALSE CORRELATION: Popular and powerful trick. You find the necessary, sometimes unexpected, sometimes completely false connections between phenomena. For example, say: "Now the moon is in the archer, so the teachers are furious." Or: "I got it two, because you and your mother are fighting."

THE PRECIOUS WATCHER: "The class was horrified by the injustice …" - you say. The journalist has the right to describe events as he sees them, which in fact means complete freedom (and subsequent inconsistency) of interpretation. Most often this is expressed in contrasting figures during rallies: someone saw 300 people, someone 3000.

DRAMATIZATION: Instead of "The geography teacher gave me two" you say: "A small state employee teaching a subject of dubious importance today treacherously put a spoke in the wheel of my brilliant academic performance, destroying the last hopes for a successful graduation from school and a decent life." Although a journalist is required to be neutral, the use of epithets, metaphors, idioms and other linguistic means of verbal imagery, as well as evaluative vocabulary has become the norm. With their help, you can color the actual material of the message in any color, creating a very effective effect, but at the same time without lying.

6. SEMI-TRUE

Subtle way. At the same time, the journalist does not cross the line of subjective interpretation, but avoids direct presentation of the key (or undesirable) fact.

“I excelled at school today. He actively worked in the lesson, answered. Not very successful, really … , - you inform.

7. SITUATION OUTSIDE THE CONTEXT OF EVENTS

Let's say this is not your first deuce. As with all the previous ones, you are silent about the new deuce, and wait until you get, for example, a four. As soon as this happens, you present it as a significant informational occasion, gather the whole family at the table, joyfully announce that you have received four in geography, tell how difficult it was, how important this four is for you, say that you were the only one who managed to get four, tear out a page with a four from a diary and framed under glass to the most prominent place in the house, dream of a four for a quarter and generally ask your parents to buy you an iPad for your incredible achievements. About what exactly you were given four, as well as about the previous deuces, you are silent.

8. PHRASE OUT OF CONTEXT

An incomplete quote (even on video or audio) or a quote outside the context of what was said can significantly distort perception, turn everything upside down, make the hero an enemy and vice versa.

IN THE FUNCTION OF GENERALIZATION: "I have never had such a student!" - said the teacher. The full phrase sounded like: "I have never had such a student who does not teach anything at all and does not even know where Antarctica is."

IN THE FUNCTION OF ACCUSATION: “Siberia and Russia are not the same thing,” you quote the geography teacher, hinting or openly accusing him of separatism and inappropriate behavior. When, in fact, the complete phrase looked like this: "Petrov, Russia is an object on a political map, and Siberia is an object on a physical map, it is not the same thing."

IN THE FUNCTIONS OF PROTECTION: "You can not put a two in geography" - you quote the words of the head teacher. In fact, the full phrase sounded like this: “You cannot get two marks in geography, this is completely unacceptable. How can you not know the geography of your homeland? "At the same time, the word “receive” was replaced with the word “set”, which at first glance does not matter, but in fact changes the meaning, shifts the emphasis.

9. SELECTION OF SOURCES

You choose those sources, testimonies, opinions that confirm the version of events that is favorable to you.

For example, you quote the words of your neighbor on the desk: “Yes, this geographer draws deuces for everyone when he is in a bad mood! I put two just like that for me today. Or show photographs of you sitting in the middle of the night at a geography textbook. Or a video, how the teacher puts several twos in a row, and then looks angrily into the frame. Or give statistics that show that the whole class had more twos after a new geography teacher came. At the same time, you ignore other sources, for example, you do not give a commentary from the teacher himself, those classmates who consider your grade as deserved, or a video recording of your answer at the blackboard.

It is often used when polling “ordinary people”: out of dozens of respondents, nothing prevents the journalist from choosing those opinions that play on the disclosure of a predetermined idea of the plot. The same applies to genres such as "press review" and "blog review". With proper selection, it is easy to create the effect of "public opinion" by collecting only two or three "correct" comments. Thus, a purely local, insignificant phenomenon can be easily represented as a large, massive, ubiquitous - and vice versa.

10. PSEUDO SOURCES

“It has long been proven that in the third quarter, everyone learns worse, because schoolchildren get tired of winter…”, you say. Proved by whom? Where does the data come from? How applicable are they to this situation? You are not talking about this.

Or you say: "The guard Vitaly Vasilyevich said that I am a good guy, and I was unfairly given a two." How competent is Vitaly Vasilievich and how does he relate to this situation?

The pseudo-source can be in the form of a reference to a stereotype, a common delusion. This may be a link to a reliable source, which simply, for some reason, cannot be applied to this situation (which you are silent about). It may also be a reference to the opinion of a person whose competence is questionable.

In addition, the phrases “We were told”, “According to unnamed sources”, “According to unconfirmed reports”, “It became known”, etc. are used by the journalist to absolve himself of responsibility for the reliability of the source - in fact, it means “written on the fence” …

11. FORMALISM

“Due to the excessive workload, low stress resistance and psychological tension against the background of preparation for the unified state exams, the student demonstrated knowledge of the subject“geography”in a volume that does not meet the standards of control of the learned material established by a specific worker in the field of education, which was reflected in the statistics of academic performance”, - you report. The use of formalisms and clerical language often disguises facts, diminishes or raises their significance in the eyes of the reader, or simply confuses him. Such a style can even simply alienate the reader, as a result of which the message will be published, but no one will read it.

12. MANIPULATION WITH STATISTICS

“Compared to the beginning of the quarter, I have increased my average grade by 20%,” you inform, without saying directly that you had no marks at all since the beginning of the quarter, and today you have become the owner of a two.

This is also a favorite technique, since the perception of statistics requires effort, analysis and mathematical thinking. Sometimes manipulating statistics can be quite complex. But, oddly enough, most often these are surprisingly elementary manipulations, usually based on the absence of context. For example, if the exchange rate as a whole is growing, you can wait for the slightest fall and release news with the heading “The rate is falling”, without reporting the dynamics at the macro level. And so with any statistics.

13. IMAGE MANIPULATION

Forging or erasing a diary entry is a serious crime for a student, as is a photo or video falsification for a journalist. But there are less criminal ways to manipulate photo and video materials.

MISCONFORMITY OF THE PICTURE AND THE TEXT: When you talk about your success at school and show frames of a photo or video with someone else's diary (sometimes there are those who recognize in a photo or video that this is not your diary, sometimes not).

VIOLATED CHRONOLOGY: For example, the teacher gave you two, you got nasty at him, he looked at you angrily. You edit a story about it, and first you show how he angrily looks at you, and then how he gives you two.

"COVERAGE": You show how your physical education teacher warmly praises you, but put the caption "geography teacher" in the frame.

14. FOREIGN SOURCE

Since the journalist never indicates the source of the translation of a message or quotation from a foreign language, in fact, no one is responsible for the translation. This means that you can translate as freely as possible. This is especially applicable to direct speech and statements by foreigners. For example, the phrase “Bolshoi theater in Russia is a piece of work!” can be intentionally or unknowingly translated not as “The Russian Bolshoi Theater is something!”, but as “The Russian Bolshoi Theater is an unfinished work”.