Quotes & Sayings About Media Manipulation

The history of American wars is littered with propaganda, falsehoods, a compliant media, the manipulation of patriotic sentiment - everything we've seen recently, we've seen before. Time and again. — Murray Polner

Everything we hate about the media today was present at its creation: its corrupt or craven practitioners, its easy manipulation by the powerful, its capacity for propagating lies, its penchant for amplifying rage. Also present was everything we admire and require: factual information, penetrating analysis, probing investigation, truth spoken to power. — Brooke Gladstone

Our capacity as human beings for imagination and storytelling makes us exquisitely vulnerable to exploitation by those who understand the properties of ideological power. — David Smail

Just because something isn't a lie does not mean that it isn't deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction. — Criss Jami

If it's true that nothing is more potent than an idea, then those who control the media can direct minds en masse. — Lance Morcan

The worry over media manipulation of photographs pales beside the threat that we will be exposed to an unedited, unvetted picture world where all images seem equally important and equally trivial. — Andy Grundberg

It's becoming obvious to most that mainstream media is nothing but a megaphone for the global elite to present biased news that's designed to align the masses with their agenda. — James Morcan

People will always try to scare you into things. Scare you away from things. Scare you into not wanting things you can't help wanting. You can't be afraid. — Megan Abbott

Born in Ireland, Michael Tsarion is an expert on the occult histories of Ireland and America. He has made the deepest researches into Atlantis, origins of evil and Irish origins of civilization. He is author of acclaimed books Atlantis, Alien Visitation and Genetic Manipulation, Astro-Theology and Sidereal Mythology, Irish Origins of Civilization, and Trees of Life: Exposing the Art of Holy Deception. Michael gives outstanding presentations on the Western Magical Tradition, Hermetic Arts of Divination, Atlantis and the Prehistoric Ages, Astro-Theology, Origins of Evil, Secret Societies, War on Consciousness, Subversive Use of Sacred Symbolism in the Media, Symbol Literacy and Psychic Vampirism. — Michael Tsarion

Orwell wasn't right about where society was in 1984. We haven't turned into that sort of surveillance society. But that may be, at least in small part, because of his book. The notion that ubiquitous surveillance and state manipulation of the media is evil is deeply engrained in us. — Ramez Naam

With all the risk and danger television sprays at us each day like tear gas, it occurs to me they should simply open each evening's show by saying, "Welcome to the Channel Two News; we're very surprised you made it through another day. — Thom Rutledge

Listen, dis foreign TV channels dey spoil de image of our country. Dese white stations dey make billions of dollars to sell your war and blood to de world ... We no bad like dis. OK, why dem no dey show corpses of deir white people during crisis for TV? Abi, people no dey kill for America or Europe?"
"You dey speak grammar!" someone shouted. "Wetin concern us wid America and Europe? Abeg, give us cable TV."
"Remove dis toilet pictures!" said another.
"So our barracks be toilet now?" the police answered. "What an insult!"
"You na mad mad police," Monica said.
"Ok, cable TV no be for free anymore!" the police said.
"But it's our pictures we are watching on cable TV," Madam Aniema said. "Why should we pay you to see ourselves and our people?"
The police answered, "Because government dey complain say cable TV dey misrepresent dis religious crisis. — Uwem Akpan

Media manipulation in the U.S. today is more efficient than it was in Nazi Germany, because here we have the pretense that we are getting all the information we want. That misconception prevents people from even looking for the truth. — Mark Crispin Miller

When one becomes accustomed to "companionship" without demands, life with people may seem overwhelming. Dependence on a person is risky but it also opens us to deeply knowing another. — Sherry Turkle

The FMSF achieved prominence partly as a response to increased possibilities for women to institute criminal or civil proceedings that relate to historical abuse, and women do not often take their abusers to court. The foundation's framing of abuse serves an ulterior strategic purpose of constructing a narrative position that isolates the incest survivor in an adversarial setting of interpreter distrust and challenged. — Sue Campbell

This is the truth about mainstream media and advertising: People wouldn't have to pay to show you such messages if they were right. — J.R. Rim

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

There's not a branch of publishing or broadcasting that doesn't depend in some way on advertising. It'd be like an aquarium without water. Why, ninety-five percent of the information that reaches you has already been preselected and paid for. — Haruki Murakami

The television is 'real'. It is immediate, it has dimension. It tells you what to think and blasts it in. It must be right. It seems so right. It rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusions your mind hasn't time to protest, 'What nonsense!'. — Ray Bradbury

Are the mass media on the side of the power in the manipulation of the masses, or are they on the side of the masses in the liquidation of meaning, in the violence perpetrated on meaning, and in fascination? Is it the media that induce fascination in the masses, or is it the masses who direct the media into the spectacle? — Jean Baudrillard

The genius of David Petraeus has always been his masterful manipulation of the media. — Michael Hastings

Always have there been great numbers of individuals who were very much eager to fight for good causes. Always there were these, but then there were even greater numbers of trendies who would then become wholly and completely misguided in the efforts. — Criss Jami

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

It has been said, "History is written by the victors." I take this to mean we can make ourselves victorious by writing, and then rewriting our own stories. In a country and culture so dominated by media, by the manipulation of words and stories, telling the tales of people whose stories historically have not been told is a radical act and I believe an act that can change the world and help rewrite history. — Jennifer Beals

It doesn't matter if justice is on your side. You have to depict your position as just. — Benjamin Netanyahu

Walesa was a national hero, a true icon. The vast majority of Poles didn't believe a word the authorities said. They took everything the official media said about Walesa to be a manipulation by the Communist authorities. — Slawomir Cenckiewicz

What a joy it is to see really professional media manipulation. — William Safire

The thing that is always so surprising about plays written in another century is how remarkably elastic they are. When you listen to the way in which Shakespeare attacks relationships, for example, even though the words may start off sounding foreign, in actuality they are so accessible, the motivations so clear, the resonances so contemporary. When you put it in a modern context - we could well be in a place with someone like Gaddafi or Mubarak - it becomes apparent how Richard III resonates with that type of personality, with media and manipulation, alliances and petty jealousies. — Kevin Spacey

Most of what you have read or watched in the media is true and 100% accurate. But HOW you are told the stories, and When, there lies the manipulation! — Waseem Kanjo

The Iraq War was the biggest issue for people of my generation in the West. It was also the clearest case, in my living memory, of media manipulation and the creation of a war through ignorance. — Julian Assange

Today enormous effort goes into convincing the American public that we're just consumers of media manipulation and sound-bites and spin doctors. That we care only about ourselves, money, and stuff. That acting out of passion and conviction doesn't make a difference. But all history shows that it does. — Bernardine Dohrn

Italian-Americans in New York had not been in much of a flag-waving mood prior to DiMaggio's arrival. By the All-Star break, the rookie had established himself as a wonderful player (.358, 10HR, 60 RBIs), fully justifying the acclaim. But Gehrig was even better (.399, 20 HR, 61 RBIs). He was leading the league in nearly every category, including invisibility. — Jonathan Eig

Americans are not only a less homogenous population than we were when we were 3 million ex-colonists, but we're less educated. On top of that, we have constant misinformation and manipulation by media. — Gore Vidal

Until you realize how easily it is for your mind to be manipulated, you remain the puppet of someone else's game. — Evita Ochel