A while ago I was baffled when I read on one of yahoo's head line stories that 70% of American's recognized Iranians as their enemy and agree with a military action against them! This might be yet another one of US's attempts to brain wash people in order to get them wired up and ready for what it has in the bag for Iran! The truth to this poll will of course remain some what of a mystery, it is the effect that worries me the most. Like an over ruled comment in the court of law that may effect the jury, little comments like this can plant the very first seeds of hatred between the lay people of the two countries! ( when a reliable source such as yahoo prints a news it MUST be true!)
In my many attempts to discover what I want to do with my life, for a short period of time I got very interested in advertising. So I learned about all the techniques of persuading people into liking something or becoming dedicated to a thought. I read about the foot in the door, door in the face, reciprocation rule and the low ball technique; but the techniques that the professionals use are less likely to be recognized hence they can deceive people in a more subtle way. The effects however, are respectingly more pronounced.
It all began when the American Psychologist John Watson was fired from the John Hopkins University for screwing one of his students. Having been fired he next moved to advertisement where he used his knowledge of psychology into deceiving people to by products they don't really need. This was really where advertisement in its today's form was born.
The one scholar who attempts to discuss the effects of advertisement on people is Philip Cushman from the University of Berkeley in his paper "" Why the Self is Empty". If you haven't read it I strongly recommend that you do for it is going to change your view of our society! In a nut shell, he claims that the modern self is empty because of "a significant absence of community, tradition and shared meaning" caused by industrialization, urbanization and secularism. Pop culture emphasizes on consumption and in order to fill the empty self people consume goods, calories, experiences, politicians, romantic partners and empathic therapists. This self fits perfectly with the economic political demands to fuel economy by creating a false "need" for non-essential items that become quickly obsolete. To attain this exhausting life style of course we need an uninterrupted flow of money, hence the creation of easy credit! According to Lou Dobbs Moneyline, CNN, as of Dec 1 2004, the US spent 4 BILLION dollars a day through credit cards. In Cushman's view politics too has become a means for advertisement and is not about character and critical thoughts anymore rather its about emphasis on soothing and charisma! ( You can see this in the Media every day, after Bush comes on TV following a blast in Iraq, putting a nice smile on his face while informing the nation that 40 of the US soldiers have been killed!)
The current self is constructed as empty and as a result, the state controls its' population not by restricting the impulses of its' citizens, as in Victorian times, but by creating and manipulating their wish to be soothed, organized, and made cohesive by momentarily filling them up. Advertisements shape our ways of thinking about the world, giving us the "lifestyle solution" and the "political views".
In short, what we learn from the Media is a diluted view of the world formed by the significant powers in a country to shape the minds of its citizens, hence, we have to be very careful about what is being fed to our delicate minds and do a little research before jumping into any conclusion!
