Psychologists say that mankind progresses by playing games. I suggest that we play the “seek-and-neutralize-lies-and-manipulation” game.
First, we need to understand why it is important. Media theorist Douglas Rushkoff noted that “the easiest way to change the world is to change the television image”. I will add that today, manipulators have to also change the Internet image. How do the interested parties do it? Here is a recent example unfolding before our very eyes.
High-profile road traffic accident and the MP
Reports on the involvement of Oleksandr Trukhin, a Servant of the People MP, in a car accident resulting in injuries miraculously disappeared from 30 websites of various media outlets. Among them, “respected” media having thousands of subscribers. And those not agreeing to delete this information (such outlets also exist, to the credit of our information space) reported that they were offered money to get rid of the information. The amount was not big: somewhere around 300 US dollars.
Is that not an example of cleaning up the information space? Because any event that got into information context or was “erased” from it by “information erasers” is deemed non-existent. With all the possible consequences.
If information relating to some factual event is properly erased, the next wave is going to be legal action against the media outlets that refused to distort the information space. They might be later accused of spreading “fake” information. And it can happen even many years after the cleanup of the information space. When society forgets about the media response and some witnesses simply pass away.
In the case at hand, they failed in putting down the wave of information, although people did not receive precise information either. For instance, the Ministry of Internal Affairs effectively admitted that the people’s deputy was at the scene, quite likely in the Audi that crashed into the Ford ahead of it. However, whether Trukhin was at the wheel remains without an official answer. Although, one would think there is nothing easier than taking a look at the recordings of a surveillance camera located a little distance away from the car crash scene…
Oligarch or businessman and investor?
It should be noted that the masters of “coding” information that gets into our heads via various means do not always act too primitively or “head-on”. There are much more subtle ways to influence our minds.
For instance, the TV program by Rinat Akhmetov’s TV channel dedicated to fighting oligarchs demonstrates not only the sense of humor of the technologists broadcasting it but also the desire to change society’s focus of the perspective on the owner of heat generation assets, Ukrtelecom, TV channels and other important assets. In the minds of the viewers, it should not be an oligarch but an investor as his press service insists, commenting on the law on oligarchs. Because creating an impression about an entity or individual is of major importance.
You must admit that there are some differences between oligarchs (analogous to the American term “robber baron”) and investors. Interestingly, as I was writing these lines, the news came that Rinat Akhemotov’s TV channel Ukraine 24 was going to close the program that was supposed to “fight oligarchs”.
Dmytro Belianskyi, a supervisory board member, explained it as follows: “We have to admit that if Bill 5599 is unconstitutional, then de-oligarchization in Ukraine seems to be over, and so the Great De-oligarchization program has no subject matter”.
I hope you get it, too. No bill, no oligarchs. As some heavily drunk characters put it in a popular hit movie: “Iron logic!” In my opinion, it is just another graphic example of manipulating information.
By the way, just like fear, humor is a powerful component in forming a picture that “changes the world”.
Thanks to the former, and also to political satire that literally ”burned down” all political competitors like a flame thrower, President Zelensky became president. At least, it helped him a great deal in fighting the “old politicians” that had set up their own “ironclad” rules of the game within the information framework they created for their own TV channels, or the ones controlled by them. It is an example of one kind of manipulation winning over another.
The feeling of fear is used for large-scale manipulation. For instance, horror and fear were used by Russian politicians after the well-known explosions in residential buildings in Russia. The main technology of information war, too, is based on false information about the “Nazis” and “junta”. Apparently, the softest “junta” that is most loyal to enemies allowing itself to be soaked in information hogwash head to toe during same-type broadcasts by an entire pool of ideological “TV channels”.
I guess you have long understood that there are not only honest and noble media workers from that side of the screen who vouched to honestly inform the public about what is going on. Rightfully believing that the high-quality informing function is one of the most important in society. Even bacterial colonies exchange information, dying when such connections are disrupted. To say nothing of human communities, whose biology and organization are much more complex!
We trust in the media because of such information connections and true professionals, and rightly so.
I guess you also understand that tasty, perfect products attract genuine parasites, too. Those that have adapted to the conditions and learned how to distort the information picture to influence your brain using the filigree technique. They use information channels as a tool. For instance, they created a conception of “television that changes the way we view reality and thus reality itself” (Douglas Rushkoff).
Professional distorters of “information reality” are well versed in using your emotions of fear, hatred, love and… mere human laziness. Because even a cursory analysis of some contradictory news or events requires some effort to “decipher” them. Decoding, so to speak.
It is therefore makes sense to presume that if there are professional manipulators, so there should also be manipulation hunters. Because for each weapon created by humans an anti-weapon system will be created. It is an ongoing race that can be thought of as an exciting game, in which you keep perfecting your skills, abilities and intuition. After all, professionals often identify manipulation based on hardly discernable features and analyze it using certain criteria.
Dipping into this information stream, where we find ourselves every day anyway, you can become its active participant.
Responding to any signs of lies, manipulation, political PR, including in social networks, you are launching a torpedo attack on the mechanism of manipulative influence over the minds of the citizens. Because a lot of distortions in the information space are on the surface, facing you every day.
Believe me, even Facebook posts about a host of a big talk show trying to spread manipulation about NATO demanding that a candidate country hold a referendum (true story) you can not only protect the environment against undesirable influences but also become an active participant in this exciting game of hunting down fake news, disinformation and lies, in all manifestations. And by doing so, you can balance out our information atmosphere.
Dmytro Tuzov, NV Radio host, a media expert at Souspilnist Foundation and a member of the Independent Media Council
Dmytro Tuzov
