Blurts & Spasms

Most certainly. I have studied this phenomenon for many years. There are exceptions - pockets of well-meaning public media, Open Source communities, etc. - but commercial/corporate media is mostly all about brute force deceptive manipulation to expand profits. There is nothing good about it. Even the folks who believe there IS something good about such manipulations (i.e. market fundamentalists) have arrived at this conclusion after being brainwashed by neoliberal propaganda - they have been marketed into submission. And of course many governments recognize the potential dangers of such nefarious marketing and advertising, which is why, for example, most developed countries in the world do not allow direct consumer advertising of pharmaceuticals, or constrain the advertising of cigarettes and alcohol to children, etc. But these are weak half-measures that cannot stem the tide of deceptive manipulation. We can say, almost definitively, that while awe-inspiring creativity has arisen in the marketing and advertising professions, and that there are of course many products and services deserving of persuasive media, the level of deception generally does correspond to the lack of clear benefit. If people must be artfully enticed with lies to try something, then they probably don’t have an existing need for it.

My 2 cents.


From Quora post: https://www.quora.com/Does-the-mass-media-psychologically-prey-upon-the-audience/answer/T-Collins-Logan