Seeing just how quickly and completely the anti-China hysteria took hold has definitely been a stark demonstration of just how effective our centralized western media is at shaping popular opinion.

[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Public opinion manipulation becomes very evident when it's visualized. You can see the opinions quickly invert as the media narrative changed from positive to negative here

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/07/27/views-of-china/

The real tragedy is that most people don't realize just how much their views are being manipulated and how easy it is to do that. People think themselves as being rational and informed, and that they couldn't possibly fall for cheap propaganda tactics. Yet, as the chart above clearly shows their views can be shifted from their current position to a completely opposite one in a very short time span.

[–] zephyreks@programming.dev 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Same thing is happening to India before our eyes.

Thing is, the Western view that media is free inherently makes people more susceptible to propaganda. To be more precise, Western media has achieved a few things: (1) The illusion of media freedom makes people less likely to question the media they consume. (2) The profit-driven motive of media companies makes it more likely for facts to be "reinterpreted" to better fit the target reader's worldview. (3) The extent that government agencies are involved in media has been completely hidden from the public.

[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Completely agree, the advantage of western approach is that it creates an illusion of freedom and since people want to believe that their society is free, they tend to choose to believe it.

load more comments (1 replies)