The 10 most used mass manipulation strategies

In 2002, the French writer Sylvain Timsit published a decalogue of the strategies that are most frequently used by the media and by political elites. to manipulate the masses.

It is a list that has been attributed by a press error to Noam Chomsky, a philosopher, linguist and politician who has also described how through entertainment the mass media they achieve the reproduction of certain relations of domination.

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Sylvain Timsit's public manipulation strategies

Timsit's list has become very popular because it concretely describes ten situations in which surely all of us could identify ourselves. Next we will describe Sylvain Timsit's strategies for manipulating public opinion and society.

1. encourage distraction

Distraction is a cognitive process that consists of paying attention to some stimuli and not others involuntarily and for different reasons, among which is the interest that these stimuli generate in us and the intensity or attractiveness of these.

It is a process that can easily be used as a strategy to divert attention from political or economic conflicts. It is generally done by encouraging information overload, or when such information contains a strong emotional charge.

For example when the news dedicate entire days to reporting tragic events and minimize the moments dedicated to reporting problematic political events. This type of distraction fosters a disinterest in acquiring in-depth knowledge and in discussing the long-term repercussions of political decisions.

2. Create the problems and also the solutions

The author explains this method by means of the formula: problem-reaction-solution, and explains that a situation can be explained with every intention of causing a specific reaction to a specific audience, so that this public demands measures and decision-making that solve the situation.

For example, when the political powers remain indifferent to the increase in violence in a city, and then deploy police laws that affect freedom and not just lessen violence. The same when an economic crisis is defined as a necessary evil that can only be counteracted through cuts in public services.

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3. Appeal to graduality

It refers to applying changes that are important gradually, so that public and political reactions are equally gradual and easier to contain.

Sylvain Timsit gives neoliberal socioeconomic policies as an example that began in the 1980s, and that have had a gradual impact without their negative consequences paving the way for a truly massive revolution.

4. Defer and leave for tomorrow

Many of the measures taken by governments are not popular among the population, so one of the most used and effective strategies is that of make people think that this measure is painful but necessary, and that it is necessary to agree on it in the present although its effects will be perceived years later.

In this way we get used to the change process and even to its negative consequences, and by not being an issue that affects us immediately we can associate more easily than possible risks.

As an example, Sylvain Timsit mentions the passage towards the euro that was proposed in 1994-1995, but was applied until the 2001, or the international agreements that the US imposed since 2001 in Latin America, but that would be in force towards the 2005.

4. Infantilize the interlocutor

Another of the strategies that are used very frequently is to position the public as a group of naive people or incapable of taking responsibility for themselves, or to make critical and responsible decisions.

By positioning viewers in this way, the media and political powers make it easier for the public actually identifies with that position and ends up accepting the measures imposed and even supporting them with conviction.

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5. Appeal more to emotions than reflection

It refers to sending messages that have a direct impact on the emotional and sensitive register of the public, so that through fear, the compassion, hope, illusion, among other emotions or sensations, it is easier to implement ideals of success, or norms of behavior and how interpersonal relationships should be.

6. Recognize the other as ignorant and mediocre

This strategy is reflected, for example, in the significant differences between the quality of the education and the resources allocated to it according to the socioeconomic and political class to which it is addressed.

This means that the use of technologies is reserved for a few, which in turn makes large-scale social organization difficult. In addition, makes some populations recognize themselves as simply victims, with no chance of being active.

7. Promote complacency in mediocrity

It is about reinforcing the feeling of success and Satisfaction with the situation we find ourselves in, even if it is a precarious or unfair situation, which means that we do not develop critical thinking about that situation or even justify it.

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8. Reinforce self-blame

At the other extreme is the fact that we make people think that the situation we are in is because of us, that is, make the individual believe that he is responsible for his own misfortune (think that he is unintelligent or trying hard bit; instead of recognizing that there is a social system that tends to injustice).

So organization and the exercise of resistance or revolt are avoided; and people tend to self-evaluate and blame ourselves, which in turn generates passivity and favors the appearance of other complications such as depressive or anxious states.

10. Know people better than they know themselves

Timsit proposes that the advances that science has made in understanding human beings, both in the area of Psychology, like biology or neuroscience, have achieved greater knowledge about our functioning; However, they have not generated a process of self-knowledge at the individual level, with which the elites continue as the possessors of wisdom and control of others.