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Any of us - no matter how sophisticated and sensible person he considers himself - at any moment can be the object and victim of propaganda. The media manipulate us daily with tools that are outside the realm of morals and values. The book “Absolute Weapon” will help to understand this phenomenon, for the first time making public a closed course of lectures at MGIMO (U) of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Political analyst, well-known publicist and public figure, Doctor of Historical Sciences Valery Solovey reveals the main methods, goals and objectives of media manipulation, explains why we are so easily influenced by propaganda. Using actual examples, he demonstrates the main methods, technologies and techniques of propaganda.
This book frees from many illusions and opens up the possibility of a more sober, albeit bitter, view of reality. It is important and useful to anyone who wants to understand the effect of propaganda, learn how to counter it or use it.
Title: Ultimate Weapon. Fundamentals of psychological warfare and media manipulation
Author: Valery Solovey
Year: 2015
Pages: 250
Russian language
Format: rtf, fb2 / rar
Size: 10.3 Mb
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Write about it in the comments and we will definitely help you.Any of us - no matter how sophisticated and sensible person he considers himself - at any moment can be the object and victim of propaganda. The media manipulate us daily with tools that are outside the realm of morals and values.
The book “Absolute Weapon” will help to understand this phenomenon, for the first time making public a closed course of lectures at MGIMO (U) of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Political analyst, well-known publicist and public figure, Doctor of Historical Sciences Valery Solovey reveals the main methods, goals and objectives of media manipulation, explains why we are so easily influenced by propaganda. Using actual examples, he demonstrates the main methods, technologies and techniques of propaganda.
This book frees from many illusions and opens up the possibility of a more sober, albeit bitter, view of reality. It is important and useful to anyone who wants to understand the effect of propaganda, learn how to counter it or use it.
Ultimate weapon. Fundamentals of psychological warfare and media manipulation Valery Solovey
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Title: Ultimate Weapon. Fundamentals of psychological warfare and media manipulation
About the book "The Ultimate Weapon. Fundamentals of psychological warfare and media manipulation" Valery Solovey
Any of us - no matter how sophisticated and sensible person he considers himself - at any moment can be the object and victim of propaganda. The media manipulate us daily with tools that are outside the realm of morals and values.
The book “Absolute Weapon” will help to understand this phenomenon, for the first time making public a closed course of lectures at MGIMO (U) of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Political analyst, well-known publicist and public figure, Doctor of Historical Sciences Valery Solovey reveals the main methods, goals and objectives of media manipulation, explains why we are so easily influenced by propaganda. Using actual examples, he demonstrates the main methods, technologies and techniques of propaganda.
This book frees from many illusions and opens up the possibility of a more sober, albeit bitter, view of reality. It is important and useful to anyone who wants to understand the effect of propaganda, learn how to counter it or use it.
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© Solovey V. D., 2015
© LLC Publishing House E, 2015
* * *
To my students - with love and hope
Foreword
This book owes its birth to three circumstances: my esteemed institute - MGIMO, my friends and acquaintances on social networks and, unfortunately, the bloody war in Ukraine.
In 2008, shortly after the brief so-called five-day war between Georgia and Russia for control of South Ossetia, the rector of the institute asked me to prepare a special course for our students that would introduce them to the basic skills of media manipulation. This targeted interest, as you might guess, was due to the fact that, according to popular belief, having won militarily, Russia lost the information war.
Since even before this assignment I was very interested - theoretically and practically - with such plots, I took it not without pleasure and carried it out with ease. Initially, media manipulation occupied only a part of the courses I taught at the institute. However, it quickly became clear that it was this part that is most important for students to understand current politics and acquire practical skills, and is also perceived by them with growing interest.
Interest was fueled by the events taking place in the world: the “Arab Spring” and political protests in Russia at the end of 2011–2014, during which the important role of social media in political mobilization and propaganda was clearly manifested.
The revolutionary upheaval in Ukraine and the bitter war that followed gave impetus to a propaganda renaissance. The clash of propaganda pictures of the world, the unprecedented brutality of the mass media, their transformation into a psychological weapon sharply increased the demand for understanding the mechanisms of what is happening and provided peaceful university studies with a great many relevant examples.
To be honest, my students and I would prefer to do without such updating. The increment of professional knowledge in the truest sense of the word was paid for with the blood and suffering of innocent people.
In addition to the university department and academic studies, I maintain accounts in in social networks. And the experience of communicating in them, primarily on Facebook, has shown that even educated and intelligent people are defenseless and helpless in the face of professional propaganda. Propaganda is especially effective in wartime: it does not kill people, but it sows chaos, demoralizes the will and strikes the mind. In this respect, propaganda is akin to a weapon of mass destruction.
In general, everything converged on the fact that not only and not so much educational, but, above all, an urgent social need took shape. It was necessary to help people understand the effect of propaganda, teach them to understand it and, if necessary, use its mechanisms.
We are afraid or wary of what we do not understand.
I think this state of helplessness, confusion and resentment is remembered by everyone from childhood. Knowledge about the technology and techniques of media manipulation relieves one from paralyzing fear and numbing defenselessness in front of the propaganda rink that irons the psyche.
A clear signal of the demand for such knowledge was the success of the video recording of a lecture I gave in April 2014 for students of one of the St. Petersburg universities. Almost an hour-long lecture "How to watch the news during the war" gained more than half a million views on video hosting Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUq7Sds_9bI/). (I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank a small St. Petersburg channel Nevex tv. and personally to Tatyana Marshanova for this recording and its distribution.)
And the massive desire of students to write dissertations about propaganda, about images of information confrontation in Ukraine and in connection with Ukraine, strengthened my intention to prepare a book on media manipulation.
The book, which the reader is holding in his hands, basically repeats the logic and structure of the training course for students of one of the faculties of MGIMO University. True, some technological and technical aspects of media manipulation are omitted in it. Some knowledge - I will call it after Pelevin "combat NLP" - should not be allowed into a wide and uncontrolled circulation.
By genre, the book combines a textbook, a popular science publication (what is called in the West non-fiction) and a practical guide. It is addressed not only to students and can be used not only for educational and educational purposes. The book is useful and even necessary for anyone who wants to understand propaganda, counter propaganda, and/or engage in propaganda.
The fact is that technologies and techniques are instrumental, they are outside the sphere of morality and values. They can be used for both good and inhumane purposes. It's like an airplane: you can deliver passengers and cargo to your destination, or you can deliver bombs. Everything related to media manipulation is initially ethically questionable, if not to put it stronger and more definitely.
An extensive literature has been created on media manipulation and propaganda. Almost everything published (as well as many very interesting and important things that have not been published and have no chance of being made public) in Russian and English I have read or reviewed. I will refrain from a historiographic review, all the more so since the vast majority of books and articles largely repeat each other. I will mention only two works that can be called opposites.
In my opinion, the most sensible, thorough and least ideologically biased work on media manipulation is written by the Americans Eliot Aronson and Anthony Pratkanis (“The Age of Propaganda: Mechanisms of Persuasion, Everyday Use and Abuse”; there are several editions in Russian).
The book “Manipulation of Consciousness” by Sergey Kara-Murza, which is quite famous in Russia, is a vivid example of how phantasmagoric methodology - a chimerical mixture of Marxism and conspiracy theories - completely nullified the vast content. As I have seen more than once, Soviet-style Marxism has a devastating effect on the intellect.
In general, with some exceptions, Russian literature on propaganda and media manipulation willingly resorts to conspiracy theories of the most unbridled nature as a source of inspiration and main idea. This a priori devalues such literature. You can't take seriously the "professors" who for a decade and a half have been promising the "collapse of the dollar" and the "disintegration of the United States." Only a twilight or delirium mind is capable of giving birth to such “pearls”.
In my book, I avoided excessive theorizing of a sociological nature. I do not see much benefit for readers in a comparative knowledge of the concepts of propaganda. When the house is on fire, you need to save yourself and put out the fire, and not ask questions about it. chemical composition and causes of fire. In modern times, knowledge of propaganda and about propaganda should not be contemplative and theoretical, but practice-oriented and instrumental.
To understand the nature of media manipulation, it is not sociology that is fundamentally important, but cognitive psychology. It is the efforts of cognitive psychologists that explain why the human psyche is susceptible to propaganda and how we fall into the traps of manipulators over and over again.
Technologies and techniques of media manipulation have been described and classified for almost a century. I have selected those that are most effective, are used more often than others, and revealed their effect on relevant examples. The technologies and techniques themselves are very simple, which is natural: effective techniques are usually simple in their essence, complex things are difficult to reproduce, and therefore ineffective.
Don't confuse efficiency with externalities. In propaganda, everything should work for the ultimate goal, "tricks" outside the strategic context can be beautiful, but meaningless and even counterproductive.
Actual examples are reality modern Russia and wars in Ukraine. It would be absurd in a book written in Russian and addressed to Russian-speaking readers to use the examples of the United States and Western Europe and to shake off the archival dust from the propaganda operations of bygone days. Although I have also given foreign and individual historical examples.
It is important to understand and always remember that the technologies and techniques of manipulation are universal in nature, their application does not depend on the nature of the political regime and the degree of freedom of the mass media. Moreover, it is in a pluralistic political and media environment that the most sophisticated technologies are used.
I am sincerely grateful to friends and acquaintances from government institutions and leadership Russian media, who answered my countless questions and made valuable comments about the book's manuscript. Due to their inherent modesty, these people preferred to remain anonymous.
My big family stoically endured the constant preoccupation of her husband, father, son, brother and uncle with intellectual studies. I am grateful for her patience and understanding.
The students not only inspired me daily, and sometimes even hourly (except for the blessed July and August!) with their craving for knowledge and refreshing ignorance at the same time, but also wrote a number of interesting theses, the materials of which were used in the book.
I will be happy to name the names of young people who have shown a research streak and intellectual interest. These are Aliya Zaripova, Daniela Istratiy, Mikhail Pantyushov, Maria Prokofieva and some others.
The theses of Yuri Antsiferov, Alina Ivanova, and Artem Tyurin served as an important contribution to the seventh chapter of the book, which deals with manipulations on the Internet and social networks. These glorious graduates of MGIMO University can rightfully consider themselves its co-authors.
Personally, I would like to thank:
Anna Lomagina, who made Nikolai Gumilev not to be forgotten;
Maria Gurskaya - for being there.
However, no matter how significant the complicity of certain people in the book, it was written by me, and only by me, and I bear intellectual responsibility for this work from the first to the last line.
The respected EKSMO publishing house kindly agreed to make my “works and days” available to the general public, for which I am sincerely grateful.
I flatter myself that the book will arouse intellectual interest and induce at least some readers to think about supposedly self-evident things. The world is not what it seems!
Chapter 1
Information warfare and media manipulation: what, who, for what purpose, how
Everyone knows what war is. War is when people are killed and things are destroyed for dubious and incomprehensible (and only occasionally fair) goals. Although the ordinary understanding is far from academic refinement, it is quite realistic.
However, our perception is hardly as realistic with respect to information wars. Although this term is well known, the vast majority of us have no idea what information wars are, and / or are sure that such knowledge has nothing to do with us. But in fact, society encounters information wars much more often than ordinary wars. In a sense, the information war is our daily reality. This is partly why we do not notice them, just as we do not notice the air we breathe, as we do not pay attention to the background noises of the city.
In information wars, unlike ordinary people, they do not kill, but they distort the psyche and deform the intellect. And in the course of such wars, it is not cities and buildings that are destroyed, but communication systems. The concept of "information war" includes two aspects. One is information technology: the destruction and sabotage of information systems, electronics and logistics of the enemy and the protection of their own communications. This phenomenon is better known as "cyber warfare".
The second aspect of information warfare is information-psychological: the impact on the public and individual consciousness and subconsciousness of the opposing side while protecting its own population.
Since the information-technical side of the matter, due to natural reasons, is closed and even secret, in the book I will focus exclusively on the information-psychological aspect, putting cyber warfare out of the brackets.
The information war, no matter how you interpret it, does not necessarily coincide with the classical war. Any classical war includes an information war as an integral part, but the information war is not necessarily connected with the classical war. Moreover, since the second half of the XX century. and to this day, information wars, as a rule, are waged precisely in Peaceful time. Sharply competitive elections, internal political crises and heated political campaigns, interstate conflicts are typical situations of information wars.
Modern society wanders from one information storm to another, only briefly lingering in calm waters. Even the most stable states and the calmest nations are subject to bouts of information-psychological fever from time to time (of course, fever by the standards of their temperament).
The goal of classic warfare is simple: win. To do this, in addition to the actual military, technical and political aspects, it is critically important to maintain a high moral and psychological spirit of one's own society and undermine the enemy's faith. This is what psychological warfare does as an integral part of classical warfare.
Information-psychological wars have been waged since time immemorial. For example, the spread of rumors that undermine the moral and psychological state of the opposing side. But in its modern, recognizable form, the information war appeared in connection with the First World War and the wave of revolutionary upheavals caused by it. It is characteristic that the first classical works on public opinion and the influence of propaganda on it appeared precisely in the 20s of the last century (1922 - " Public opinion by Walter Lippmann, 1928 - "Propaganda" by Edward Bernays).
In 1937, the Institute for Propaganda Analysis was established in New York, which identified seven typical propaganda techniques, called the "ABC of propaganda": labeling ( name calling), "shiny generalizations" or "brilliant vagueness" ( glittering generality), transfer ( transfer), reference to authorities ( testimonial), "your guys" or a game of common people ( plain folks), "card shuffling" ( card stacking), "general wagon" or "band wagon" ( band wagon). These techniques are still actively used by the mass media.
In general, the arsenal of methods, tactics, means and methods of propaganda has not undergone significant changes since then. Only new means of communication have appeared that have significantly increased the effectiveness and destructive power of information-psychological weapons.
In peacetime, the goals of information warfare are almost the same as in a wartime: 1) to inspire your supporters (supporters of a party, leader, idea, etc.) that they are on the side of a just cause, and maintain this belief in them; 2) to demoralize the opposing side, provoking a state of confusion and doom; 3) arouse sympathy for their position and disapproval of the opposing side among the audience not included in the conflict (remaining neutral / undecided part of society, the international community or part of it).
Peacetime information wars are not as bloodthirsty as those that accompany classical wars. But they are more sophisticated technologically, because considerable sophistication and fair work are required in order to drive a peaceful society into a (semi)hysterical state.
Finally, classical and informational wars are united by the desire to win at any cost. In war, as in love, all means are good, and the winners are not judged - this is a maxim. It doesn't matter, armed struggle or information-psychological violence.
Are information wars effective? If they are carried out technologically competently and they are accompanied by certain conditions, then they are very effective. Actually, the spread of information wars is due to the fact that through "soft" methods it is possible to achieve results comparable to military operations. However, it is not accompanied by human losses and destruction.
The essence of information warfare is extremely simple and is succinctly expressed by Thomas's famous sociological theorem: "If people define situations as real, then they are real in their consequences." In other words, if people doubt the rightness of the cause they are defending and are prone to defeatism, then they are highly likely to lose. And vice versa. In general, not Newton's binomial.
Difficulties begin at the technological level, when they try to apply this theorem not to a single person, but to a society or a large group of people. You can follow the simplest path and endlessly repeat to this group about its absolute rightness and the fiends and messengers of darkness that oppose it. During the present big war such a position is unlikely to have an alternative, as evidenced by the experience of propaganda of the First and Second World Wars.
However, out of war, especially within the framework of one society, building an information policy on an openly antagonistic model would mean leading the matter to a fierce civil confrontation. Not to mention the fact that even the most inexperienced and undemanding people will sooner or later get tired of being presented with morality from the outside, and even in Homeric doses. Do any of us like constant lectures on what is good and what is bad? Here, even a stone would vomit. And a person, out of a sense of contradiction only inherent in him, would begin to think across what they are trying to instill in him.
When they try to influence us clear and obvious Thus, we instinctively resist such influence, because we just as instinctively see in it an attack on our own identity. My we perceive a point of view as part of ourselves and extremely negatively perceive any attempts - imaginary or real - on our self. And although we can voluntarily accept a different opinion and someone else's view, such consent is perceived by us as a valuable gift, which we present reluctantly and very legibly.
Such is the nature of man. Fools rape her, smart ones use her. The way to use human nature is just suggested by the mentioned Thomas theorem: in order to provoke the desired behavior and / or mood of people, it is necessary to create a reality that will seem to people true. And true, regardless of its correspondence to reality. (Here I leave aside the very interest Ask about what reality is in general and whether people are able to perceive it how-it-is. We will assume that such true reality exists.)
It is clear that only means can fabricate such a large-scale reality for the masses of people. mass media. To veil the morally and ethically dubious side of this process, it is neutrally called in academic books media design, that is, the creation of social reality through and through the media.
But! In order for people to "share" a fabricated reality, people must accept it. voluntarily and rest assured that this is their own view of the world. And naturally, people should not guess that their view of the world and their attitude to it are in fact largely formed from the outside, and their moods and reactions are prompted. Otherwise, they will object to the attack on their own identity.
What is media manipulation
To put it bluntly, the core of media design is media manipulation, that is, the manipulation of people through and through the media. Manipulation is not the only tool of media construction, but perhaps the most influential, effective and sophisticated. And that's why.
“Manipulation is the deliberate and covert inducement of another person to experience certain states, make decisions and perform actions necessary for the initiator to achieve his own goals.” In other words, the task of the manipulator is “to force a person to do something necessary, but in such a way that it seems to a person that he himself decided to do it, and he made this decision not under the threat of punishment, but of his own free will”, - this is how the manipulation in highly competent domestic author 1
Sidorenko Elena. Influence training and resistance to influence. St. Petersburg: Speech, 2001, p. 49.
Although famous American scientists Aronson and Pratkanis use a different term - "propaganda", they mean the same thing: "The dissemination of any point of view in such a way and with such an ultimate goal that the recipient of this appeal comes to the" voluntary "acceptance of this position, as if she were his own" 2
Aronson E., Pratkanis E. R. The Age of Propaganda: Mechanisms of Persuasion, Everyday Use and Abuse. Revised ed. St. Petersburg: Prime-EVROZNAK, 2003. S. 28.
At the same time, the Americans emphasize that propaganda (read: manipulation) is not the exclusive property of "totalitarian" or "non-democratic regimes", but is universal character.
One could cite a dozen more, if not more, definitions of manipulation, but they all converge on the following fundamental points:
1. In manipulation, there are active and passive sides (often it is also passive), the subject and the object, the one who manipulates and the one who is manipulated. In interpersonal communication, these roles can change. In media manipulation, society has little chance of resisting those who control the media. Unless you stop watching TV - the most influential and effective tool of manipulation.
Valery Solovey
Ultimate weapon. Fundamentals of psychological warfare and media manipulation
© Solovey V. D., 2015
© LLC Publishing House E, 2015
* * *To my students - with love and hope
Foreword
This book owes its birth to three circumstances: my esteemed institute - MGIMO, my friends and acquaintances on social networks and, unfortunately, the bloody war in Ukraine.
In 2008, shortly after the brief so-called five-day war between Georgia and Russia for control of South Ossetia, the rector of the institute asked me to prepare a special course for our students that would introduce them to the basic skills of media manipulation. This targeted interest, as you might guess, was due to the fact that, according to popular belief, having won militarily, Russia lost the information war.
Since even before this assignment I was very interested - theoretically and practically - with such plots, I took it not without pleasure and carried it out with ease. Initially, media manipulation occupied only a part of the courses I taught at the institute. However, it quickly became clear that it was this part that is most important for students to understand current politics and acquire practical skills, and is also perceived by them with growing interest.
Interest was fueled by the events taking place in the world: the “Arab Spring” and political protests in Russia at the end of 2011–2014, during which the important role of social media in political mobilization and propaganda was clearly manifested.
The revolutionary upheaval in Ukraine and the bitter war that followed gave impetus to a propaganda renaissance. The clash of propaganda pictures of the world, the unprecedented brutality of the mass media, their transformation into a psychological weapon sharply increased the demand for understanding the mechanisms of what is happening and provided peaceful university studies with a great many relevant examples.
To be honest, my students and I would prefer to do without such updating. The increment of professional knowledge in the truest sense of the word was paid for with the blood and suffering of innocent people.
In addition to the university department and academic studies, I maintain social media accounts. And the experience of communicating in them, primarily on Facebook, has shown that even educated and intelligent people are defenseless and helpless in the face of professional propaganda. Propaganda is especially effective in wartime: it does not kill people, but it sows chaos, demoralizes the will and strikes the mind. In this respect, propaganda is akin to a weapon of mass destruction.
In general, everything converged on the fact that not only and not so much educational, but, above all, an urgent social need took shape. It was necessary to help people understand the effect of propaganda, teach them to understand it and, if necessary, use its mechanisms.
We are afraid or wary of what we do not understand. I think this state of helplessness, confusion and resentment is remembered by everyone from childhood. Knowledge about the technology and techniques of media manipulation relieves one from paralyzing fear and numbing defenselessness in front of the propaganda rink that irons the psyche.
A clear signal of the demand for such knowledge was the success of the video recording of a lecture I gave in April 2014 for students of one of the St. Petersburg universities. Almost an hour-long lecture "How to watch the news during the war" gained more than half a million views on video hosting Youtube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUq7Sds_9bI/). (I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank a small St. Petersburg channel Nevex tv. and personally to Tatyana Marshanova for this recording and its distribution.)
And the massive desire of students to write dissertations about propaganda, about images of information confrontation in Ukraine and in connection with Ukraine, strengthened my intention to prepare a book on media manipulation.
The book, which the reader is holding in his hands, basically repeats the logic and structure of the training course for students of one of the faculties of MGIMO University. True, some technological and technical aspects of media manipulation are omitted in it. Some knowledge - I will call it after Pelevin "combat NLP" - should not be allowed into a wide and uncontrolled circulation.
By genre, the book combines a textbook, a popular science publication (what is called in the West non-fiction) and a practical guide. It is addressed not only to students and can be used not only for educational and educational purposes. The book is useful and even necessary for anyone who wants to understand propaganda, counter propaganda, and/or engage in propaganda.
The fact is that technologies and techniques are instrumental, they are outside the sphere of morality and values. They can be used for both good and inhumane purposes. It's like an airplane: you can deliver passengers and cargo to your destination, or you can deliver bombs. Everything related to media manipulation is initially ethically questionable, if not to put it stronger and more definitely.
An extensive literature has been created on media manipulation and propaganda. Almost everything published (as well as many very interesting and important things that have not been published and have no chance of being made public) in Russian and English has been read or carefully looked through by me. I will refrain from a historiographic review, all the more so since the vast majority of books and articles largely repeat each other. I will mention only two works that can be called opposites.
In my opinion, the most sensible, thorough and least ideologically biased work on media manipulation is written by the Americans Eliot Aronson and Anthony Pratkanis (“The Age of Propaganda: Mechanisms of Persuasion, Everyday Use and Abuse”; there are several editions in Russian).
The book “Manipulation of Consciousness” by Sergey Kara-Murza, which is quite famous in Russia, is a vivid example of how phantasmagoric methodology - a chimerical mixture of Marxism and conspiracy theories - completely nullified the vast content. As I have seen more than once, Soviet-style Marxism has a devastating effect on the intellect.
In general, with some exceptions, Russian literature on propaganda and media manipulation willingly resorts to conspiracy theories of the most unbridled nature as a source of inspiration and main idea. This a priori devalues such literature. You can't take seriously the "professors" who for a decade and a half have been promising the "collapse of the dollar" and the "disintegration of the United States." Only a twilight or delirium mind is capable of giving birth to such “pearls”.
In my book, I avoided excessive theorizing of a sociological nature. I do not see much benefit for readers in a comparative knowledge of the concepts of propaganda. When a house is on fire, you need to save yourself and put out the fire, and not ask questions about its chemical composition and the causes of ignition. In modern times, knowledge of propaganda and about propaganda should not be contemplative and theoretical, but practice-oriented and instrumental.
To understand the nature of media manipulation, it is not sociology that is fundamentally important, but cognitive psychology. It is the efforts of cognitive psychologists that explain why the human psyche is susceptible to propaganda and how we fall into the traps of manipulators over and over again.
Technologies and techniques of media manipulation have been described and classified for almost a century. I have selected those that are most effective, are used more often than others, and revealed their effect on relevant examples. The technologies and techniques themselves are very simple, which is natural: effective techniques are usually simple in their essence, complex things are difficult to reproduce, and therefore ineffective.
Don't confuse efficiency with externalities. In propaganda, everything should work for the ultimate goal, "tricks" outside the strategic context can be beautiful, but meaningless and even counterproductive.
Actual examples are the reality of modern Russia and the war in Ukraine. It would be absurd in a book written in Russian and addressed to Russian-speaking readers to use the examples of the United States and Western Europe and shake off archival dust from the propaganda operations of bygone days. Although I have also given foreign and individual historical examples.
It is important to understand and always remember that the technologies and techniques of manipulation are universal in nature, their application does not depend on the nature of the political regime and the degree of freedom of the mass media. Moreover, it is in a pluralistic political and media environment that the most sophisticated technologies are used.
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