Small media self-defense handbook

Small self-defense handbook against media manipulation. It is necessary? More: it is essential. Today, the problem is no longer that of getting an idea of ​​things, but rather the preliminary one of knowing what "things" are. You don't have to worry so much about forming a judgment on the facts, but rather about knowing what these "facts" are. And this is because the self-styled generalist "information" system has definitively transformed itself into a permanent "training" system. Whose goal is not to describe "things" and report "facts", but rather to "form" people's conscience. So, ultimately, to generate a "right" mood in readers, viewers, listeners.

Therefore, whoever you are, however you see it, you should keep a small breviary of manipulative techniques at hand whenever you approach a newsstand or hear the theme song on a newscast. Here is a short list without claiming to be exhaustive. First technique: the false "likely". It consists in peddling content allegedly related to a specific event, but in reality extrapolated from another completely different event or, even, artfully created. Think of the video of the bombings on the Ukrainian sky conveyed by Rai, at the beginning of the conflict, and which later revealed itself as the frame of a video game.

Second technique: the false "true". It consists of giving broad prominence to a genuine photo or video to report the crimes of one party, while the documents refer to the crimes of another. Exemplary, in this respect, the image appeared in a major newspaper (and depicting the outcome of a massacre of Russian speakers of Ukrainian origin) to accompany a series of articles against the perfidious Russia. Third technique: the "real" purged. It consists in omitting the narration of relevant or secondary “chapters” of a story, as it is potentially capable of questioning the established storytelling. Like the coup streak of the events of Euroimaidan 2014 or the expansion of NATO to the East following the fall of the Berlin Wall or the Nazi identity of the Azov battalion. In this case, the real simply disappears. It is "forgotten", if not deliberately censored. A bit like the famous seven hundred Greek children who died from austerity that a well-known Italian journalist had decided to keep quiet so as not to bring water to the sovereign mill.

Fourth technique: the false "good" or "for good". Here we obviously put Powell's anthrax vials, but also one of the evergreens of professional falsifiers: the thesis that Western wars are right because they "export democracy". Which is coupled with the "pacifist" sending of arms to the front that democracy "defends". Fifth technique: the "false" voodoo auspice. It consists in circulating not verified news, but pious wishes. It is the subtlest and most "magical" technique, so to speak. With which, the mainstream does not limit itself to adulterating actual reality, or to generate a tarot, but even aims to "propitiate" it. With the same "spirit" momentum of a Native American rain dance. Notice all the times you've heard of Russia on the verge of default or imminent internal conspiracies in the Kremlin.

Sixth technique: self-identification. It concerns not the recipient of a communication, but the sender, not the target of the distorted message, but the author. Many of the users of the aforementioned techniques do not do it because they "try", but because they "believe". They are so compromised with the system that they have introjected the methodologies of fiction in the same way as factual realities. Just as the victim of Orwell's "1984" regime ended up saying "2 + 2 is 5" not out of opportunism or fear, but out of "conviction". In conclusion, when you turn on your TV and smartphone every day and connect with the "official" and "competent" information channels, do it like the spectators of an illusionist's show. Otherwise you will end up believing it.

Francesco Carraro

www.francescocarraro.com

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The article Small media self-defense handbook comes from ScenariEconomici.it .

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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/piccolo-prontuario-di-autodifesa-mediatica/ on Sat, 19 Mar 2022 09:00:09 +0000.