Sylvain Timsit’s 10 Media Manipulation Strategies

The media have historically proven to be a very effective means of shaping public opinion. Social movements have been created or destroyed thanks to them, financial crises have been hidden and ideological currents have been stimulated. So that various studies and theories have emerged, such as the media manipulation strategies of Sylvain Timsit.

This idea has generally been attributed to Noam Chomsky, albeit erroneously. The intention of the French writer was to highlight the psychosocial tools that allow the audience to be distracted from what is really important. So that the real problems encountered by the population are dissipated through the manipulation of public opinion with the help of the communication media, thus fomenting a more submissive and less critical society.

1. The distraction strategy

The first of Sylvain Timsit’s media manipulation strategies is distraction. It is an essential element of the control of the company. Distraction is distracting the public’s attention from important issues.

The constant flood of distractions and information on mundane matters causes the public to ignore the essential questions related to politics, culture, economy or social issues. It is about keeping the focus away from real social problems by putting it on problems of little importance. Keep the audience occupied with the banalities, without giving them the time or space to think.

2. The tendency to create problems and propose solutions

This method consists in creating a problem in order to provoke a certain reaction from the public, and that it voluntarily accepts, or even asks for itself, the solutions that the power wanted to implement from the start. For example, creating an economic crisis so that the public accepts as a “necessary evil” the decline of labor rights and the precariousness of public services. Another example could be the development or intensification of urban violence, so that the public demands repressive policies.

3. The graduality strategy

It is about getting an unacceptable measure accepted by applying it gradually, slowly, even over years. For some, this is about how radically new socio-economic conditions, such as neoliberalism, were imposed in the 1980s and 1990s, giving rise to privatizations and intensifying precariousness.

4. The strategy of deferring

Another way to accept an unpopular decision is to present it as “painful but necessary”. It’s about gaining public acceptance now, with the promise of applying it in the future. It is easier to accept a future sacrifice than an immediate one because the effort does not have to be made immediately. This gives people more time to get used to the idea of change and to accept it with resignation when the time comes.

5. The tendency to speak from a higher intellectual position

Most commercials aimed at the general public use somewhat childish speech, arguments, characters and intonations. As if the viewer is not mature or does not have the capacity to understand certain ideas. So that when it comes to deceiving the public, they can respond in an even more childish way.

6. The tendency to appeal to the emotional aspect rather than to reflection

Resorting to the more emotional side of people is a classic technique to stop the rational analysis of a situation, as well as its critical thinking. The use of an emotional register also calls for instinctive behavior, based above all on desires or fears.

7. Keeping the public in the dark

Another of Sylvain Timsit’s meditative manipulation strategies is to make the general public incapable of understanding the technologies and methods used to control them. This applies to restrictions in education, reductions in the number of teachers, scholarships, high-cost masters, studies that are impossible for a large part of the population to follow, etc.

8. The tendency to indulge the public in mediocrity

It is about promoting the belief that it is appropriate and fashionable to be a vulgar, uneducated, uneducated or incorrect person as we can see in a lot of TV shows.

9. The reinforcement of self-guilt

It is about making the individual believe that he is solely responsible for his misfortune, due above all to his lack of intelligence, his weak capacities or his lack of effort. So that the individual will blame and devalue himself rather than rebel against the system.

10. The tendency to believe that we know people better than themselves

The last of Sylvain Timsit’s media manipulation strategies is to develop a system that allows people to know people better than themselves. Techniques such as biology, neuroscience or psychology will be used for this purpose. This will allow extensive control over the masses.

Knowing these strategies will not prevent some from continuing to use them in their favor and in their interest. It will, however, allow us (as an individual within a very large group: society) to decide to what extent we will allow them to influence us, and how we will react when we detect their presence.