The Power of Information
Information is a powerful tool of control that is often used to shape public opinion and influence decision-making.
In the Information Age, the great challenge is to be critical of the data we receive and to seek diverse and reliable sources to obtain a more complete and accurate view of reality, and to discern which information is true and which is a great selfish deception that responds to the interests of a few (the representatives of global economic power).
"How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and hard it is to undo that work again!"
Autobiography of Mark Twain (1835-1910), Volume 2: The Complete and Authoritative Edition (Volume 11) (Mark Twain Papers) Hardcover – Illustrated, October 5, 2013. Mark Twain (Author), Robert Hirst Benjamin Griffin (Editor), Harriet E. Smith (Editor), Victor Fischer (Editor), Michael Barry Frank (Editor), Sharon K. Goetz (Editor), Leslie Diane Myrick (Editor). Page 302.
The current economic system was meticulously designed and prepared to be detonated at the precise moment, with a single and Machiavellian objective of impoverishing the people to levels never before reached and of enriching and concentrating resources/power in an elite that does not reach 1% of the world's population.
To understand the world we live in, we must know how information manipulation is used as a tool of control in order to influence the receiver towards the sender's point of view, hiding data or distorting it when focusing on a topic or in the partial treatment of it. For example, if we focus on the relationship between the West and the Middle East, which is complex, it is influenced by a variety of factors, including politics, economics and culture. However, one of the most powerful tools that has been used to shape this relationship is the management of pseudo information.
This misleading information is used to create a false reality, presenting in the case mentioned the West as a defender of democracy and freedom, and the Middle East as a backward and authoritarian region. This could justify military intervention in the region and seek to legitimize the occupation of territories and the exploitation of natural resources, as has happened on many occasions.
"If we control the press, we control the minds. If we control the minds, we control the world."
Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, FRS (1784–1885), British financier and banker, activist, philanthropist and Constable of London. Born into a Jewish family of Italian origin, he donated large sums of money to promote industry, business, economic development, education and health among the Jewish community of the Levant, including the founding of Mishkenot Sha'ananim in 1860, the first settlement of the New Yishuv.
Therefore, as we have mentioned above, it is important to be critical of the data we receive and look for reliable sources to obtain a more complete and accurate view of reality. The relationship between the West and the Middle East is a clear example of how information can be used to create a narrative that benefits certain groups or interests (the representatives of global economic power).
"The elites know the truth about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, but the media is silent"
Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years by David Talbot. 2007. 492 pages.
David Talbot (1951) is an American journalist, author, editor, activist, and independent historian. Talbot is known for his books on the hidden history of American power and liberal movements to change America, as well as for his public advocacy.
The Role of the Media
The essential function of a media agency is fundamentally defined by the manipulation of information aimed at controlling public opinion, but its objectives are neither social nor disinterested as described by the mythology of journalistic objectivity.
The famous "ethical" banners of journalism: impartiality, objectivity, freedom of expression, are nothing more than myths that cover up the multi-million dollar media business that daily mobilizes the information market on a global scale.
The process of manufacturing and distributing information is not motivated by the need to "inform" but by the capitalist need to sell news (the product). To achieve this, the media (like any capitalist company) generate mass consumption needs in society (the market) and draw up information strategies aimed at promoting business growth and positioning themselves to compete successfully in the market (the search for profits).
Military tactics and strategies are replaced by tactics and strategies of social control, through the manipulation of information and psychological action aimed at directing mass social behavior. The objectives are no longer physical (as in the traditional military order) but psychological and social. The goal is no longer the destruction of material elements (military bases, soldiers, civilian infrastructure, etc.), but the control of the human brain.
First of all, information is a commodity destined to produce economic profitability like any other commercial product offered on the capitalist market. In functional terms, news agencies are not guided by social objectives but by the pursuit of economic benefits.
Secondly, due to the strategic nature of the communicative function played by the media (from the point of view of preserving the "governability" of the system), they are key tools for the control (and/or manipulation) of economic, political and social processes.
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the established opinions and habits of the masses is an important element in a democratic society. Those who manipulate this invisible mechanism of society constitute a hidden government (the representatives of global economic power), which is the true ruling power of the country."
Edward Louis Bernays (1891-1995), wrote this phrase in his book Propaganda, published in 1928. In it, Bernays put forward the idea that it was possible to manipulate people's behavior without them realizing it if one understood the collective mind. To do this, Bernays used the ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud, on the individual unconscious.
Bernays was a publicist, journalist and inventor of the theory of propaganda and public relations. A Jew of Austrian nationality, he used ideas related to the unconscious in North America for the persuasion of the "self" in the field of mass advertising.
The media do not practice informational objectivity or editorial independence for two main practical reasons:
- They are agencies that do not operate with social objectives but with commercial objectives subject to the search for the law of capitalist profitability.
- Its structural dependence on the economic power system that controls all the springs of production, finance and international trade, above countries and on a planetary scale.
The actions of the large media conglomerates (both locally and internationally) are not oriented, as they would have us believe, to serve the interests of society but to serve the interests of the dominant economic and political groups that constitute their greatest source of financing and commercial profitability.
Those in power (the representatives of global economic power) only invest money in the media in exchange for services. In the information business, as in any commercial enterprise, the media only work for those who pay (or can pay) for their "information" services.
The war for domination and control of societies and minds only occurred through the functional interaction of technology (media) and information technology (artificial intelligence) oriented towards the goal of control and domination through a communication strategy.
Just as large economic corporations set the rules of the market and determine prices, large media corporations set the rules and determine daily what is "news" and what is "not news" in the information market at local and international level.
Due to the improvement of propaganda techniques, it is difficult to distinguish what is information and what is propaganda in the current conflict.
The "valorization" of widely disseminated news is not determined by the search for knowledge or the understanding of economic, political and social processes, but by the search for profits or by the defense of specific interests of the system from which they extract most of their commercial profitability. In addition to retail sales and subscriptions, the majority of the commercial profitability of the gigantic, multi-billion dollar newspaper monopoly business is mainly fueled by two sources of funding:
- The large economic groups that concentrate the economy and foreign trade.
- The Government and political groups of the capitalist State (both central and peripheral).
Most of the profits of the media conglomerates come from the large banking, industrial and service conglomerates, which make up the largest part of the advertising "pie" commercially agreed upon by the information monopolies. In fact, these power groups are responsible for censoring those who do not serve their interests, even with the help of technology.
In 2015, a new regulatory system emerged, the Fact Check (International Fact-Checking Network). That same year, the International Fact-Checking Network was created, distributed throughout the world and responsible for determining which publications are reliable and which are not. This entire network of fact-checkers is run by Florida-based Poynter Institute, which receives generous subsidies from entities such as Google, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Open Society Foundation of the controversial tycoon George Soros.
As the prominent Spanish writer and journalist Cristina Martín Jiménez describes it, "They enter your social networks, they enter your Facebook wall, your Twitter, and they label as hoax that information that is dangerous for those in power. Dangerous why? Because it contains the seed of awakening."
Distraction Strategy
The main element of social control is the strategy of distraction, which consists of diverting public attention from important problems and changes decided by political and economic elites, through the technique of a continuous flow of distractions and insignificant information.
The strategy of distraction is equally indispensable to prevent the public from becoming interested in essential knowledge in the areas of science, economics, psychology, neurobiology and cybernetics, "keeping the public's attention distracted, away from real social problems, captivated by issues of no real importance."
"We must distract the public's attention from real social problems and keep them captivated by issues that are not important. You have to keep the public busy, busy, busy, with no time to think, back on the farm and with the other animals."
Quote taken from the book 10 Strategies of Manipulation (Silent Weapons for Silent Wars, by Noam Chomsky). Noam Chomsky (1928), American linguist, philosopher, political scientist, intellectual and activist of Jewish origin. Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and one of the leading figures in 20th century linguistics. The New York Times has called him "the most important of contemporary intellectuals."
The basic principle of modern censorship is to flood essential information with a deluge of meaningless news spread by a multitude of social media outlets with similar content. This allows the new censorship to have all the appearances of pluralism and democracy. This strategy of entertainment and distraction is mainly applied to televised news, the main source of public information.
Today, news programmes contain little or no relevant information or news, but instead broadcast anecdotal reports on various inconsequential facts and events, more appropriate for a televised magazine than for a news agency. For most viewers who are willing to watch the news, what they see is all that happens.
Market Law
According to this argumentative strategy, there would be no information and analysis on truly important issues, in a timely manner and with specialists in the subject, because the public does not ask for it. So, instead of funding investigative programs or creating expert discussion panels on important issues, they focus on pathos programs and factual magazine shows, turning the news into a mix of both.
It is enough to analyze any newscast, observing that most of the news is simply a summary of a fact without analysis or investigation or, what is worse, picturesque reports, sports news, subliminal advertising about some new movie or singer, etc. It is the strategy of distraction.
The wealth of the 84 richest people in the world exceeds the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of China, with its 1.2 billion inhabitants. Source: UN-UNDP 1998.
Keeping the Audience in Absolute Ignorance
To render the public incapable of understanding the technologies and methods used for their control and enslavement, "the quality of education given to the lower social classes must be as poor or mediocre as possible, so that the gap of ignorance that isolates the lower classes from the upper social classes is and remains incomprehensible to the lower social classes."
To incite the public to feel comfortable with its vulgarity and lack of culture, to rejoice in its own mediocrity and, far from trying to escape from it, to take pride in being mediocre and to instill in the individual a feeling of guilt by making him believe that he is the only one responsible for his misfortune, due to the inadequacy of his intelligence, his abilities or his efforts. Thus, instead of rebelling against the economic system or the large power groups (1% control 50% of the world's resources and only 60 billionaires and tycoons have the same wealth as 3.5 billion people), the individual devalues himself and blames himself, which generates a depressive state, one of whose effects is the inhibition of action.
In the 21st century, it is time to wake up and start questioning all the information we receive. In the knowledge age, information spreads rapidly and can have a significant impact on the way we perceive events. Failure to do so can put us at a disadvantage compared to others who do possess data and make us socially susceptible to manipulation.
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