Mass Media Control Quotes & Sayings

The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent, and labor power the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority. It is a country so powerful, so big, so pleasing to so many of its citizens that it can afford to give freedom of dissent to the small number who are not pleased. There is no system of control with more openings, apertures, leeways, flexibilities, rewards for the chosen, winning tickets in lotteries. There is none that disperses its controls more complexly through the voting system, the work situation, the church, the family, the school, the mass media
none more successful in mollifying opposition with reforms, isolating people from one another, creating patriotic loyalty. — Howard Zinn

Neither science, nor the politics in power, nor the mass media, nor business, nor the law nor even the military are in a position to define or control risks rationally. — Ulrich Beck

The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control - 'indoctrination', we might say - exercised through the mass media. — Noam Chomsky

Do we have free will, or do the mass media and our culture control us, our desires and actions, from the moment we're born? — Chuck Palahniuk

Those who rule have always had an interest in shaping the perceptions of those they wish to rule. But never in the history of humanity has their toolbox been so full. Advances in technology and psychology have enabled the messages of the rulers to permeate our consciousness to a degree no prior society could have imagined. — James Rozoff

Since anti-racist individuals did not control mass media, the media became the primary tool that would be used and is still used to convince black viewers, and everyone else, of black inferiority. — Bell Hooks

in order to maintain the cultural status quo of political and social hierarchical control, this same society perpetuates chronic fear through various modes of manipulation, such as mass media propaganda force-feeding its participants a reality of rampant consumerism, economic scarcity, and self-repression. In participating with this societal norm, we perpetuate a language that encourages chronic fear and the evasion of emotional responsibility, a language deficient in genuine self-confidence, mutual respect, compassion, or courage. This dynamic confluence of manipulating forces keeps us unconscious to the dramatic presence of chronic fear and our full emotional potency. — James W. Jesso

Another threat, less overt but no less basic, confronts liberal democracy. More directly linked to the impact of technology, it involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled and directed society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite whose claim to political power would rest on allegedly superior scientific knowhow. Unhindered by the restraints of traditional liberal values, this elite would not hesitate to achieve its political ends by using the latest modern techniques for influencing public behavior and keeping society under close surveillance and control. Under such circumstances, the scientific and technological momentum of the country would not be reversed but would actually feed on the situation it exploits.
... Persisting social crisis, the emergence of a charismatic personality, and the exploitation of mass media to obtain public confidence would be the steppingstones in the piecemeal transformation of the United States into a highly controlled society. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

The same six corporations own the media outlets that we rely on for nearly all of our information. These corporations serve the interest of the central banks. The strength of these corporations lies in the large amounts of money that they generate. If the people were informed of the control these corporations have, then they would stop investing their money towards these companies, and the corporations would lose their power and wealth. It is in the best interest of the government, the corporations and the banks to keep the public uninformed. The biggest tool of maintaining public ignorance is by the control of media outlets that distribute information to the mass population. — Joseph P. Kauffman

If you accept the existence of advertising, you accept a system designed to persuade and to dominate minds by interfering in people's thinking patterns. You also accept that the system will be used by the sorts of people who like to influence people and are good at it. No person who did not wish to dominate others would choose to use advertising, or choosing it, succeed in it. So the basic nature of advertising and all technologies created to serve it will be consistent with this purpose, will encourage this behaviour in society, and will tend to push social evolution in this direction. — Jerry Mander

Ignorant people are controlled people, which is why five companies now have spent billions of dollars to control our mass media. Nothing will change until masses of people understand this. — John Balkwill

The fact that the 7 hours time control allows us to play a great deep game is not of great importance for mass-media. — Alexei Shirov