The wireless constantly used the statistics of the intelligence bureau at Verdun, whose chief, Major Cointet, had invented a method of calculating German losses which obviously produced marvelous results. Every fortnight the figures increased a hundred thousand or so. These 300,000, 400,000, 500,000 casualties put out, divided into daily, weekly, monthly losses, repeated in all sorts of ways, produced a striking effect. Our formulae varied little: 'according to prisoners the German losses in the course of the attack have been considerable' ... 'it is proved that the losses' ... 'the enemy exhausted by his losses has not renewed the attack' ... Certain formulae, later abandoned because they had been overworked, were used each day: 'under our artillery and machine gun fire' ... 'mowed down by our artillery and machine gun fire' ... Constant repetition impressed the neutrals and Germany itself, and helped to create a bloody background in spite of the denials from Nauen (the German wireless) which tried vainly to destroy the bad effect of this perpetual repetition."
If I wanted to disarm the people as a journalist, I would simply use something that's written in the Journalist's playbook(above), that is, the words of the Father of Modern Journalism. Walter Lippmann. Here's what I would do:
Day 1: Child shot by gun....Day 2: Mother loses child to gun violence....
Day 3: Student killed by another student with a gun....
Day 4: Gun violence rages in Chicago....
Day 5: Community mourns after another senseless gun crime....
Day 6: Police officer shot in the line of duty....
Day 7: Child shoots mother on accident....
Day 8: Father facing charges after child finds gun....
Day 9: Three dead in gun battle....
Day 10: Double shooting shocks community....
This is military grade propaganda that's being used upon the American people. A relentless, never ending drum beat. Stories like this are routinely heightened into national stories. But in order for this to work, stories about how mothers save themselves and their childrens' lives, prevent their own rapes, store owners who prevent theft and loss of life because they are armed; can never be talked about nationally. By having a single, repetitive storyline, that everybody is on board with putting out there, it allows for the synthetic creation of stereotypes in real-time. As Lippmann explains about the formula of "stereotypes":
It is a problem of provoking feeling in the reader, of inducing him to feel a sense of personal identification with the stories he is reading. News which does not offer this opportunity to introduce oneself into the struggle which it depicts cannot appeal to a wide audience. The audience must participate in the news, much as it participates in the drama, by personal identification. Just as everyone holds his breath when the heroine is in danger, as he helps Babe Ruth swing his bat, so in subtler form the reader enters into the news. In order that he shall enter he must find a familiar foothold in the story, and this is supplied to him by the use of stereotypes. They tell him that if an association of plumbers is called a "combine" it is appropriate to develop his hostility; if it is called a "group of leading business men" the cue is for a favorable reaction.It is in a combination of these elements that the power to create opinion resides. Editorials reinforce.
It fits, perfectly. In addition,heroes like Joel Myrick must be forgotten, as it doesn't fit the narrative that was laid down a century ago.
There's also the fallacious cause and effect, supplied by stereotype. "If the government disarms the people, then less children will be killed". This general mantra is one that's out there, Pierce Morgan is a proponent of it. All of this is geared toward what Aldous Huxley stated as "to get people to love their servitude". There is no more effectual way to enslave the people than to disarm them, and for a very long time now there has been a concerted effort to convince people that the best thing they can do is to willingly disarm. It's for the children.
The book Public Opinion was written in 1922, and the words contained here can help us fight the journalists.
http://tinyurl.com/p2ezfou
It's tough to strategize media usage when your enemy has control of the actual instrumentalaties for communication. Even the internet, the technology that was supposed to allow an end run around the capture of the media conglomerates by the left has been a bust. Leftiest read left wing news blogs, rightists read from the right. It's a wash.
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