Psychological Manipulation and the Efficacy of the American Propaganda Machine (Mass Media) on Altering Human Behavior

I heard a story once about Nazi German propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels talking about propaganda during the Second World War. Goebbels had spearheaded the Nazi's information warfare and manipulation of the German people quite successfully and had an effective propaganda system of his own. However, in reference to the United States, Goebbels was attributed to saying something along the lines of "America has the most sophisticated propaganda system in the world." Even putting it above his own country's rather effective system. 

   Back then, he probably wasn't too far from the truth. Today's timeframe? Again, he probably wouldn't be too far from the truth in modern times either. Between mass media, 24 hour cycle news stations, the internet, and Hollywood, America's propaganda system is very advanced. Extremely advanced. The dissemination of information has reached a level of ease and sophistication in the United States, as well as other parts of the world, inconceivable 50, or even 25 years ago.

         American audiences have been kind of hypnotized, and the psychology of manipulation and the ability to alter behavior through information has only gotten more advanced over the years, advanced enough to herd, ebb, and flow relatively simpleminded people into almost any position you want them to be.

     Through incentive control, such as the control of the incentive to reduce the level of fear and anxiety in people's lives, financial incentives to protect your wealth and resource interests, family preservation incentive to protect your family, the incentive to pursue pleasure and leisure, and all other major incentives in the human condition, the media and America's propaganda system have a massive level of indirect or direct control over people's behavior.

I would argue every choice that is made has an incentive, or cause, behind it being made. If you control the incentives to people's choices, you control the choices of people. The media has heavy control over many incentives to the choices of the minds of the public, and they have gotten quite good at manipulating, enticing, and tempting their audience to by products, participate in certain social movements and activities, and swing a certain political direction. 

The media has an interesting relationship with consumers and its audience. Some would argue that the consumers drive the agenda of the media. I'm under the viewpoint that it is the other way around. The media drives the agenda of the consumers/audience. The media controls the narrative, and controls what we talk about.

Again, this is part of incentive control. The media incentivizes the conversations, and the conversations are catalysts to actions that fit the media's social and political agenda. If you control the incentive, you have heavy influence and control over people's choices. 

As far as psychological warfare goes? The United States has been researching that for years. Intelligence agencies deal with psychological warfare all the time. The goal of psychological warfare is to make the choices, thinking, and behavior of an enemy suit your desires and objectives by influencing them with information. 

Demoralization, confusion, deception, fear, these are all tactics used by militaries throughout the history of war. The U.S. military is no different. Psychological operations and propaganda also utilize incentive control or incentive influence, trying to incentivize certain groups to make choices that favor the interests of the institutions doing the influencing.

Psychology was always known as a field with high national security interests. As a field with a potent vector for social and political control, psychology and propaganda development has always caught the interests of governments and agencies seeking to instigate more effective ways of influencing the minds of people and controling our altering behavior. The dark side of this is the subtle oppression you start seeing in a country.

      The more advanced you get in psychological manipulation and mind influence/control, the higher the risk of a rather dark form of oppression emerging in your country, where the power over people's behavior and minds and the control of the incentives to choices and behavior are in the hands of a few agencies and a privileged few individuals.

     The most effective, and one of the darkest, form of oppression is when the oppressed don't realize they are oppressed. Slavery of the mind is more cruel than slavery of the body, because if you were a slave in the traditional sense, you'd at least know you were a slave. Mental oppression deprives you of your self awareness and not only deprives you of liberty, but also deprives you of your awareness of your loss of liberty.

 This is the kind of oppression I believe is the most prevalent, and most cancerous, in the United States of America. It's hard to want to be free, or fight for liberty, when you don't realize you are in bondage. When your mind is overthrown.

        Have a good day friends!