Corporate media/Logic

Corporate media/Logic  (Media manipulation,  Statecraft,  Psyop)
Corporate media uses psychological tactics to attract more viewers. The tactics have become a standard set of rules how to present articles, to make sure politicians and their special interest groups can influence the public's opinion more easily and quickly. People often neglect the idea that the news on their favourite channel is biased with a reason as it fits their personal opinion.

Corporate media engages the public with rules and stylistic choices when presenting the news with the aim of more traffic to their outlet. These rules aren't purely market-driven as Operation Mockingbird and the media engagement rules of the Institute for Statecraft have shown. Media manipulationn by partisans is as old as the Middle Ages, but the creation of standardized rules to do it by (hidden) special interests group has only been around since the worldwide rise of TV in the mid 1900s.

Origin

David L. Altheide & Robert P. Snow were on the first to call out a new form of truth that was deemed truth just because it was presented with psychological tricks deceiving the human brain. They called media logic the "dominant processes, established routines, and standardized formats which frame and shape the production of mass-media content, especially its representation or construction of reality, and its manufacture of news". They attributed the usage of it to new phenomena as tabloidization and the mediatization of politics calling it fundamental in shaping modern societies.

Purpose

Corporate Media

“Now, to balance the scale, I'd like to talk about some things that bring us together, things that point out our similarities instead of our differences. 'Cause that's all you ever hear about in this country. It's our differences. That's all the media and the politicians are ever talking about—the things that separate us, things that make us different from one another. That's the way the ruling class operates in any society. They try to divide the rest of the people. They keep the lower and the middle classes fighting with each other so that they, the rich, can run off with all the fucking money! Fairly simple thing. Happens to work. You know? Anything different—that's what they're gonna talk about—race, religion, ethnic and national background, jobs, income, education, social status, sexuality, anything they can do to keep us fighting with each other, so that they can keep going to the bank! You know how I define the economic and social classes in this country? The upper class keeps all of the money, pays none of the taxes. The middle class pays all of the taxes, does all of the work. The poor are there just to scare the shit out of the middle class. Keep 'em showing up at those jobs.”
George Carlin

Infotainment 101: Sky News presenter Colin Brazier goes through a Flight MH17 victim's suitcase. Notice how Brazier says "we shouldn't be doing this I suppose", while detailing what he can find in a girl's luggage. A bag? A shirt? A flask? Children book! Oohhh interesting. A perfect example of how CCM presents news as entertainment to keep the viewer engaged, hoping they'll not go to another news source, completely neglecting ethical standards, a great example of the logic of the media: show more gruesome details, so that you control the viewers more by fear, stress and other strong action-stimulating emotions

The urge to get more traffic means journalists often use psychological tricks employed by governments and special interest groups to "talk" to the subconscious part of people's brains (such as with the sleeper effect) to make them chose a specific outlet, keep coming back to it, developing a form of learned helplessness. The stylistic and psychological codes journalists use in this "media logic" cause mediatization, where an extensive control of society through the media by using marketing tactics makes it easier for politicians, and their hidden deep state actors to influence to opinion of the public. Popular modern day example is the presenting of news as infotainment.

Sponsors

The suspicion that deep state and their operatives have been behind these initiatives to gain more followers of their news outlets to control the narrative is a third rail topic, as most people have been led to believe only the "other side" of which they politically identify are doing this.

Corporate Media usage

Corporate media over the whole world uses a form of media logic to a degree, but the US and their 24/7 news cycle created the urge for a more intensive form of it. Forms overlap with marketing tactics by corporations.

Sensationalism

Using absolute words that instigate fear "someone needs to be saved", create an "us vs them" by pointing to Democrats, and talk about the country, more views are guaranteed.

A code or tactic the media uses is presenting media with sensationalist style previously only utilized by tabloids such as the The Daily Mail.

News outlets often use sensationalism to gain more viewers; presenting a story omitting details, with the anchors talking loud and very self-centred, trying to increase emotion in the consumer. A good example are modern day US Network 24/7 news channels. US news channels make most money by advertising between their content, and need to make the viewer be so emotionally engaged that they'll watch the commercials (in the US often every 10 minutes or so) and come back after.

Narcotizing dysfunction

A tactic by the media is creating narcotizing dysfunction. This is when the media keeps reporting on a story that news-consumers get narcotic about it and don't act on the information they received as they have become desensitized to the issue. Founders of the theory Paul F. Lazarsfeld, and Robert K. Merton say that it is not in the best interests of people to form a social mass that is politically apathetic and inert, hence naming the theory.

Good examples of this are wars such as the Afghan War or the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine. With the 24/7 News cycle started by CNN with the Gulf War, and the ability of people to work less hours a week and access news from their phone 24/7, studies has shown that the constant desensitization to mass events also causes permanent fear and stress in individuals.

Astroturfing

Full article: Astroturfing

A tactic by the media is creating discourse on a topic by presenting a side that appears to be a group of plain unhappy citizens.

Sinclair Broadcasting was set-up in the 1950s by an American electrical engineer and a group of local shareholders. Sinclair runs hundreds of local news stations presented as if the news on those networks are brought to the city by locals for locals. Sinclair has faced criticism for trying to influence the public with a standard set of lines the anchors need to say to strengthen a partisan opinion. This stems for the idea that news corporations know people trust more familiar people more, so a local news station with people that often live in their area and talk about problems in their city are deemed more trustworthy, something also called an example of the Mere-exposure effect.

Trading up the chain

Trading up the chain is term by author and marketer Ryan Holiday, an advanced version of astroturfing as it describes the same group being presented as "common citizens" deliberately making a claim in a small or less-credible medium according to journalistic standards, only to appear it being astroturfed or used as Vox populi and used as a source in CCM their main network news stories to massive audiences. Posts on social media with that person being the only source are examples of this. The individual being used as source often are explicitly sought by CCM to be brought in the limelight.

A modern example is Twitter and suspected spook Eric Ciaramella. If Wikispooks's position is to believed - that both "sides" of US politics are a pure distraction and controlled by deep states, Ciaramella and Ukraine-gate were placed in the media to keep the public fighting between Republicans and Democrats with a new complex story, and Ciaramella's may have been deliberately planted as an officially unknown source (with many personal details of Ciaramella missing, even denying Ciaramella existed in the first place) for starting Ukraine-gate, to make the story and it's time in the limelight extensively long as it would prove hard to uncover Ciaramella. It creates a lot of room for spooks and disinformation agents to make dozens of claims in the media, only to be suspiciously promoted on corporate media again. Alex Jones his career and segments on alt-media first and after that on CNN, MSNBC and FOX News is another good example, after Alex Jones his connections to the CIA and other deep state operatives have become known.

Controlling the narrative

Controlling the narrative is an important method of mind control and propaganda. It is an important component of statecraft and media logic. Certain perspectives, are so toxic to the official narrative promoted by CCM, that they must be expunged as quickly as possible to narrow the Overton window to the desired alternatives. Topics about which no official narrative exists are called third rail topics, and professionals in the commercially-controlled media know not to touch them.

Mainstream news costs more than consumers could ever hope to pay, but it is free to watch. That's where advertisers come into play. TV Networks appear to deliberately focus on stories that not only appear to be have brought to them and promoted by special interests and deep state operatives, but also sell the viewers products instead of trying to fix the problem itself; "There are more shootings; let's not increase funding to school psychologists and family therapists, but people need to buy more guns and teach children how to use them. Also let's fund a school resource officer that runs away anyway when faced with a shooter, anyway, fund the school security system and more weapons for the police, they always go right in when faced with a school shooter."

A good example, is how the TV networks will not focus on topics that may include taxing shops selling unhealthy food or banning unhealthy products, but mostly on mass shootings. The constant reporting on mass shootings has been linked in studies to increase gun owenership.

Clickbait

Ask a question, incorrectly call it a strip search, e.g: as something forced by the Police when it is still a mere request to help an investigation aimed to help the rape victim = more clicks > more viewership > more advertisers want to use your site > more people want to use your site in the future as the article fuelled their emotion and sense of fear > more urge to rely on the site using clickbait-y headlines > more lobbyists want to use your growing site as they want to reach as many people as possible for as little money as possible.

Instead of "Proposed NYC council bill may prohibit private landowners to check tenant's criminal history, excluding sex offenders and if the homeowner lives in the same building", or "Proposed NYC bill may limit landowners background checking tenants criminal record, but not enough manpower to enforce it", Fox News chose this title.

Mass media have become skilled in often omitting cities so that everyone fears it their own, and shorten the title to omit details such as that the NYC Police is too understaffed to check this and these tenants are often ex-convicts that don't have to money to even sue the homeowner if needed. The bill would therefore have little impact, and can be overturned with federal laws.

Newspapers often used leads, also called subtitles or sub-headers to add these details before the reader decided to read the full article.

Corporate media often uses clickbait titles that promote the urge of the human brain to read the information. They are often short; saying the content in the form of a list so that the user knows they won't read (or watch) too long (as humans have short attention spans these days); they include key phrases that the outlet knows their viewership likes; they are often negative; and they often questions. Other tactics include omitting details outright in the title, and include topics that instigate fear and they thus know their viewers will like.

Catch and kill

Catch and kill is a tactic where news outlets receive an exclusive report about a third party, but choose to not publish the story for fear of damaging the third party. The suggestion that the third party if often secretly influencing the outlet is not discussed.

A good example is the Vanity Fair investigation of Mossad-linked worldwide VIPedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Vanity fair Journalist Vicky Ward tried to release a story with increasingly more gruesome details about Epstein including from one of Epstein's first accusers Maria Farmer, but her editor Greyson Carter chose to hold and throw away the story, although Carter and another editor dispute that story. Ward completely changed her opinion on Epstein, and became an admirer of Ghislaine Maxwell in her 2011 about her.

In an article of the The New Yorker, Carter and Ward point to each other blocking the story, Carter being pressured by "someone", Ward herself omitting details given by victims, and pointing she did that on the order of Carter and more. The story is a good example of how outlets deliberately appear to gain exclusive access to important stories and their victims, only to "ignore" them for deep state operatives.

Polarizing perspectives

A summary of the Four Quadrant Model and a preview of the third in a three-part series on Eric Weinstein's ideas about growth, stagnation, and political fakery - Frame Problems - August 2022.

A polarizing perspective is a position that by employing psychological tricks stimulates conflict and moves people away from conciliation and common ground.

Everyone is against crime, but special interests from the NRA don't want more gun control, so their speakers and lobbyists will divert discussions from that. Hispanic Women in the Northeast are amongst the groups with lowers numbers of gun ownership. Hispanic women will often talk about more gun control as a first measure in combatting nationwide crime as promoted by networks such as CNN. The CCM will promote NGOs (often funded by deep state operatives), propagandists, useful idiots, and politicians, when they actually both want the same thing: less crime. A modern example is given with the four quadrants model promoted by Eric Weinstein.

 

Examples

Page name	Description
Media manipulation	A series of techniques in which the CCM create an image or argument that favors their particular interests. It can be actual fakery and is a form of propaganda.
Outrage porn	Using words that are scientifically proven to make someone angry just to get them engage with the news outlet. "Big government want to hire more tax guys to tax us to death! This is the plan, they are gonna get you, be scared, be angry, vote against them and for our oil people, ooohhhh."

Rating

14 February 2023 Jun  A more advanced explainer of the tactics used by corporate media to manipulate the psyche of viewers.
When reading these techniques, it is a plausible assumption to argue nearly every outlet is employing these. What if all sides of corporate media are controlled by deep state factions? What if... Operation Mockingbird has already been highly successful?

Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.