Any of us - no matter how sophisticated and sensible a person he considers himself - can at any moment find himself the object and victim of propaganda. The media manipulates us every day with tools that are outside the realm of morals and values.
The book “Absolute Weapon” will help to understand this phenomenon, which for the first time made a closed course of lectures at MGIMO (U) of the Russian Foreign Ministry available to the public. Political analyst, famous publicist and public figure, Doctor of Historical Sciences Valery Solovey reveals the main methods, goals and objectives of media manipulation, explains why we are so easily influenced by propaganda. Demonstrates basic methods, technologies and techniques of propaganda using current examples.
This book frees us from many illusions and opens up the possibility of a more sober, albeit bitter, view of reality. It is important and useful to everyone who wants to understand the effects of propaganda, learn to resist or use it.
Valery Solovey
The ultimate weapon. Basics of Psychological Warfare and Media Manipulation
© Solovey V.D., 2015
© Publishing House "E" LLC, 2015
* * *To my students - with love and hope
Preface
This book owes its birth to three circumstances: my respected institute - MGIMO, my friends and acquaintances on social networks and, unfortunately, the bloody war in Ukraine.
In 2008, shortly after the brief so-called five-day war between Georgia and Russia for control of South Ossetia, the rector of the institute asked me to prepare a special course for our students that would introduce them to basic media manipulation skills. This targeted interest, as you might guess, was caused by the fact that, according to popular belief, Russia, having won militarily, lost the information war.
Since even before this assignment I was very interested - theoretically and practically - in such subjects, I accepted it not without pleasure and carried it out with ease. Initially, media manipulation occupied only a part of the courses I taught at the institute. However, it quickly became clear that this part is the most important for students to understand current politics and acquire practical skills, and is also perceived by them with growing interest.
Interest was fueled by events taking place in the world: the “Arab Spring” and political protests in Russia at the end of 2011–2014, during which the important role of social media in political mobilization and propaganda was clearly demonstrated.
The revolutionary upheaval in Ukraine and the brutal war that followed gave impetus to a propaganda renaissance. The clash of propaganda pictures of the world, the unprecedented cruelty of the mass media, their transformation into psychological weapons sharply increased the demand for understanding the mechanisms of what is happening and supplied peaceful university studies with a great variety of relevant examples.
To be honest, my students and I would prefer to do without such updating. The increase in professional knowledge in the literal sense of the word was paid for with the blood and suffering of innocent people.
In addition to my university department and academic activities, I manage social media accounts. And the experience of communicating there, primarily on Facebook, has shown that even educated and intelligent people are defenseless and helpless in the face of professional propaganda. Propaganda is especially effective in wartime: it does not kill people, but it sows chaos, demoralizes the will and affects the consciousness. In this regard, propaganda is akin to weapons of mass destruction.
In general, everything agreed on the fact that not only and not so much an educational need had taken shape, but above all an urgent social need. It was necessary to help people understand the effects of propaganda, teach them to understand it and, if necessary, use its mechanisms.
We are afraid or wary of what we do not understand. I think everyone remembers this state of helplessness, confusion and resentment from childhood. Knowledge of technology and media manipulation techniques eliminates the paralyzing fear and numbing defenselessness of the propaganda steamroller that irons the psyche.
A clear signal of the demand for such knowledge was the success of the video recording of a lecture I gave in April 2014 for students at one of the St. Petersburg universities. The almost hour-long lecture “How to watch news during war” received more than half a million views on video hosting Youtube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUq7Sds_9bI/). (I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the small St. Petersburg channel Nevex TV. and personally Tatyana Marshanova for this recording and its distribution.)
And the massive desire of students to write theses on propaganda, on images of information confrontation in Ukraine and in connection with Ukraine, strengthened my intention to prepare a book on media manipulation.
The book that the reader holds in his hands basically repeats the logic and structure of the educational course for students of one of the faculties of MGIMO University. True, certain technological and technical aspects of media manipulation are omitted from it. Some knowledge – I’ll call it, following Pelevin, “combat NLP” – should not be put into wide and uncontrolled circulation.
In terms of genre, the book combines a textbook, a popular science publication (what in the West is called non-fiction) and practical guide. It is addressed not only to students and can be used not only for educational and educational purposes. The book is useful and even necessary for anyone who wants to understand propaganda, counter propaganda and/or engage in propaganda.
The fact is that technologies and techniques are instrumental; they are outside the sphere of morality and values. They can be used for both good and inhumane purposes. It's like an airplane: it can carry passengers and cargo, or bombs, to its destination. Everything related to media manipulation is inherently ethically questionable, to say the least.
An extensive literature has been created on media manipulation and propaganda. I have read or carefully looked at almost everything published (as well as many very interesting and important things that have not been published and have no chance of being made public) in Russian and English. I will refrain from a historiographical review, especially since the vast majority of books and articles largely repeat each other. I will mention only two works that can be called opposites.
In my opinion, the most intelligent, thorough and least ideologically biased work on media manipulation comes from the Americans Eliot Aronson and Anthony Pratkanis (“The Age of Propaganda: Mechanisms of Persuasion, Everyday Use and Abuse”; there are several editions in Russian).
Sergei Kara-Murza’s book, “Manipulation of Consciousness,” which is very well known in Russia, is a vivid example of how phantasmagoric methodology—a chimerical mixture of Marxism and conspiracy theories—has completely nullified its extensive content. As I have seen more than once, Soviet-style Marxism has a devastating effect on the intellect.
In general, with some exceptions, domestic literature on propaganda and media manipulation willingly resorts to conspiracy theories of the most unbridled nature as a source of inspiration and main idea. This a priori devalues such literature. You can’t take seriously the “professors” who have been promising the “collapse of the dollar” and the “collapse of the USA” for a decade and a half. Only a twilight or delirious mind is capable of giving birth to such “pearls”.
In my book I avoided over-theorizing about sociological properties. I do not see much benefit for readers in a comparative knowledge of propaganda concepts. When a house is on fire, you need to save yourself and put out the fire, and not ask questions about its chemical composition and the causes of the fire. In modern times, knowledge of propaganda and about propaganda should not be contemplative and theoretical, but practical-oriented and instrumental in nature.
To understand the nature of media manipulation, it is not sociology that is fundamentally important, but cognitive psychology. It is through the efforts of cognitive psychologists that an explanation has been given of why the human psyche is susceptible to propaganda and how we fall into the traps of manipulators over and over again.
Technologies and techniques of media manipulation have been described and classified for almost a century. I have selected those that are most effective and are used more often than others, and have revealed their effects using current examples. The technologies and techniques themselves are very simple, which is natural: effective techniques are usually simple in their essence; complex things are difficult to reproduce and therefore ineffective.
Don't confuse efficiency with external effects. In propaganda, everything should work towards the final goal; “tricks” outside the strategic context can be beautiful, but meaningless and even counterproductive.
Current examples are the reality of modern Russia and the war in Ukraine. It would be absurd, in a book written in Russian and addressed to Russian-speaking readers, to use the examples of the United States and Western Europe and shake off the archival dust from the propaganda operations of bygone days. Although I have also given foreign and individual historical examples.
It is important to understand and always remember that technologies and techniques of manipulation are universal in nature, their application does not depend on the nature of the political regime and the degree of freedom of the mass media. Moreover, it is in pluralistic political and media environments that the most sophisticated technologies are used.
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Any of us - no matter how sophisticated and sensible a person he considers himself - can at any moment find himself the object and victim of propaganda. The media manipulates us every day with tools that are outside the realm of morals and values. The book “Absolute Weapon” will help to understand this phenomenon, which for the first time made a closed course of lectures at MGIMO (U) of the Russian Foreign Ministry available to the public. Political analyst, famous publicist and public figure, Doctor of Historical Sciences Valery Solovey reveals the main methods, goals and objectives of media manipulation, explains why we are so easily influenced by propaganda. Demonstrates basic methods, technologies and techniques of propaganda using current examples.
This book frees us from many illusions and opens up the possibility of a more sober, albeit bitter, view of reality. It is important and useful to everyone who wants to understand the effects of propaganda, learn to resist or use it.
Title: The Ultimate Weapon. Basics of Psychological Warfare and Media Manipulation
Author: Valery Solovey
Year: 2015
Pages: 250
Russian language
Format: rtf, fb2 / rar
Size: 10.3 Mb
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Title: The Ultimate Weapon. Basics of Psychological Warfare and Media Manipulation
About the book “The Absolute Weapon. Fundamentals of psychological warfare and media manipulation" Valery Solovey
Any of us - no matter how sophisticated and sensible a person he considers himself - can at any moment find himself the object and victim of propaganda. The media manipulates us every day with tools that are outside the realm of morals and values.
The book “Absolute Weapon” will help to understand this phenomenon, which for the first time made a closed course of lectures at MGIMO (U) of the Russian Foreign Ministry available to the public. Political analyst, famous publicist and public figure, Doctor of Historical Sciences Valery Solovey reveals the main methods, goals and objectives of media manipulation, explains why we are so easily influenced by propaganda. Demonstrates basic methods, technologies and techniques of propaganda using current examples.
This book frees us from many illusions and opens up the possibility of a more sober, albeit bitter, view of reality. It is important and useful to everyone who wants to understand the effects of propaganda, learn to resist or use it.
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