Media withholds a vast majority of our lives, sometimes even making it change our lifestyle and mindset. According to an article titled, ‘My Brain Connection’ by Robert Sylwester, he states that “The U.S. mass media were focused on sports, the lives of various celebrities, and a Congressman’s relationship with missing staff members, just before September 11. Then everything changed. A skyscraper complex, militant group, and distant country suddenly dominated mass media as people sought to understand what had occurred, what to make of passenger planes turned into missiles, and who to trust credible information on terrorism.” If the media is already such an impactful and powerful source in our lives, where we always turn to see what’s going on in the world, could it be even remotely possible for them to try to brainwash us into believing something that is not true?
1984 written by George Orwell was written to warn future societies about how dangerous would be to have such a powerful government. One method Big Brother, the government in !984, used was media to infiltrate one’s mind enough to redefine their whole beliefs. Another method Big Brother used on the people of Oceania was torture, which was very effective. Obviously, if the government wanted to make us believe something or “brainwash” us if you will, it would take intense physical torture. Every person responds differently to torture because it is so subjective, but it would be nearly impossible to implement such drastic torture on every citizen in the nation. Therefore, this method would not work since it would involve torturing an entire society at once. However, it is possible for the government to damage an individual psychologically to the point where they lose their perception of reality. “Torture implies the infliction of more severe suffering or pain – arguably a very subjective concept” (www.icrc.org).
One way is for the government to add any of their own “facts” about past events that they from any historical and scientific knowledge that they don’t want to be true. This is a way they can restrain the society. Of course, this might affect the society that is already well educated about historical and scientific knowledge which is where torturing would come along. On the other hand, the newer generation would not know about the past and all the present “facts” would be their reality. The more this goes on without the right knowledge, the stupider society would be and this way it would be easier for them to take in any propaganda the media feeds them. There is a study that states, “75% of Americans believe almost everything that they read” (randomperspective.com). If this is the case, without any real basis to start researching on the government, the method of reality control would be successful to an uneducated society.
“The drive to dumb down the populations of planet earth is a classic art that existed before the United States did. One component to understanding and deciphering the systems of control is to become a student of the magicians of influence and propaganda” (rense.com).
Propaganda government is not new to us. There is a law that even lets the government use propaganda messages on television. So whatever the government wants to show it will be shown making this a small scale of brainwashing society so that they don’t see true reality and that their belief structure on that topic does not have a true basis. Yes, our government is not using the methods of Big Brother, but if they are they are doing it very subtly through media.
Although it may be scary to even think that our government can hold so much power to the point of completely brainwashing society through media, it is very possible if in the future our government becomes as powerful as Big Brother. They could spread false statistics and propaganda to infiltrate the people’s mind enough to redefine their whole mindset and then by doing so they might be able to control their concept of reality on a scale.
