From: deputydog23x@gmail.com   
      
   Manipulations & Mind Games: The Secret Battle to Control How We Think    
      
      
   November 15, 2014 By davidjones    
   neuromarketing    
      
   By KINGSLEY DENNIS--    
   Throughout history the mechanisms of persuasion and influence have always been   
   manipulated by those in power as a means to maintain authority and legitimacy.   
   In more recent times the overall manipulation of the mass public mind has   
   become less about    
   overt spectacles of fear and obedience, and more about subtle forms of media   
   propaganda. The manufacturing of consent1 is endemic and has become a   
   pervasive presence within modern societies.    
   Edward Bernays,2 who has been called 'the father of public relations', was a   
   nephew of Sigmund Freud and introduced psychological and psychoanalytical   
   methods into modern propaganda. Bernays considered media propaganda essential   
   for manipulating public    
   opinion because society, in his regard, was composed of too many irrational   
   elements (the people) which could be dangerous to the efficient mechanisms of   
   power ('democracy'). Within the context of our modern mass societies,   
   propaganda has morphed into a    
   mechanism for not only engineering public opinion but also as a means for   
   consolidating social control.    
   Modern programs of social influence could not exist without recent   
   developments in mass media. Today, it exists as a combination of expertise and   
   knowledge from technology; sociology; social behaviourism; psychology;   
   communications; and other scientific    
   techniques. Almost every nation state has made use of a controlled mainstream   
   media, to various degrees, for the regulation and influence of its citizenry.    
   By way of mainstream media, a nation's controlling authority is able to exert   
   psychological influence upon people's perception of reality. This capacity   
   works hand-in-hand with the more physical components, such as enforcing the   
   legal system and national    
   security laws (surveillance and monitoring). State control, acting as a   
   'psychological machine', instigates specific psychological manipulations in   
   order to achieve desired goals within its national borders (and often beyond).    
   Examples of these psychological manipulations include the deliberate use of   
   specific cultural symbols and embedded signifiers that catalyse conditioned   
   reflexes in the populace. These triggers have included 'Red' and 'Communist'   
   during the US's 1950s    
   McCarthyism; or 'Muslim Terrorist' during the recent media-hyped 'War on   
   Terror'. Targeted reactions can thus be achieved making the populace open to   
   further manipulation in this state. This is a process of psychic re-formation   
   that works repeatedly to    
   soften up the people through continued and extensive exposure to particular   
   stimuli. These are often the subconscious symbols we live by - artificial   
   signifiers in order to create a compliant society.    
   Today's media, which includes the dominant presence of advertising,   
   extensively uses the notion of 'attractors' and 'attractor patterns' to target   
   audience consciousness. This type of symbol-manipulation is often referred to   
   in the business as neuro-   
   marketing. Mainstream media corporations are using the huge growth in global   
   communications to further shape their science of targeting human   
   consciousness.    
   In the case of neuro-marketing, many advertisers first audience-test their   
   commercials using brain-scanning techniques in order to know which part of a   
   person's brain is being activated by specific strong attractors. For example,   
   it has been discovered    
   that specific attractors can bypass the logical part of the brain and impact   
   directly the emotional part. In such cases, as in the film industry, the   
   advertisers place an award symbol (such as an Oscar or Golden Globe) which has   
   proven to be an effective    
   'strong attractor' that influences the emotional part of the brain. The   
   philosophy here is to adjust the level of consciousness of an advertisement in   
   relation to the measurable level of consciousness of the consumer.3    
   Advertisers are aware that a person's consciousness passes on messages   
   indirectly to the body in the form of galvanic skin response, pupil response,   
   electrical nerve response, etc, and so every element of the screen promotion   
   must elucidate the correct    
   conscious reception. In order to achieve this correct set of attractor   
   patterns, all elements are deliberately worked on: the music, the visuals, the   
   script, the voice. Interesting, symbolic strong attractors that have the most   
   impact to persuade the    
   audience include visuals such as smiley faces and cute animals (dogs wagging   
   their tails and kittens purring). In terms of voice, they include words such   
   as 'honesty'; 'integrity'; 'freedom'; 'hope and change'; 'friendship', etc.   
   For this reason it can    
   be seen how politicians use a great deal of these attractor-patterns in their   
   speeches and promotional material.4    
   Other methods of blatant media coercion include the use of so-called   
   'expertism'; that is, using the expert in the white lab-coat tactic for   
   creating simulacra of truth. For such propaganda to be effective it cannot be   
   too far off the truth; in other    
   words, it must have the appearance of reality. Trade, employment, and   
   financial figures are an example of this when the media discusses statistics   
   as if they represented the truth. And which members of the general public have   
   the knowledge or the    
   resources to check and confirm such figures? Those people that do know are   
   usually those that have a vested interest in maintaining the illusion, such as   
   traders and financiers. As a norm, statistics of a negative connotation are   
   usually drawn from the    
   smallest possible pile. And once a false (or 'doctored') claim is disseminated   
   and accepted by the public, it becomes established and hard to deconstruct or   
   invalidate (unless persuasive anti-propaganda is just as effective).    
   Accepted Forms of 'Individualism'    
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)