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The Dumb Leading The Blind: The Persuasive Power Of The Media |
By:
Kenrick Cleveland |
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The Dumb Leading The Blind: The Persuasive Power Of The Media
Kenrick Cleveland
"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." -Friedrich Nietzsche
If only five or six corporations controlled the dissemination of information, do you think you would find the information to be unbiased and accurate? News and media outlets are part of the corporate culture and owned by the corporations so of course it's in their own best interest not to jeopardize profitability.
Television is a huge part of the average American's life. According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., said average American watches more than 4 hours of television per day. That's twenty-eight hours a week. Two months out of each year. By the time you're 65, that's nine full years of television.
The same thing happens when we watch television as when we hear a story-our critical minds shut down and we absorb the information with very little resistance. We become passive. We allow the message to sink in and carry us away. The media sucks us in, it alters our consciousness and that's one of the reasons that it's so absolutely powerful. Another reason is it uses so many of our senses, it engages us fully.
The days of real news, the kind of news that kept us engaged in the world, are over. Instead we have infotainment and celebrity gossip. Could this be happening on purpose? Could the 'powers that be' have taken a hint from Lao-Tzu when he said, "People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge."
I overheard a conversation in line at the supermarket. A young woman, probably around seventeen, was looking at an entertainment magazine talking a blue streak to her father about who's dating who, and what this one's wearing and why such and such is going to be a great movie. She could name every one of the celebrities from front to back. And after a few minutes of this the father simply said, 'Do you know who the Secretary of State is?' She didn't. And this wasn't a kid. This was an older teenager.
Even stranger than the girl not knowing the answer was that she was completely unashamed at the fact that she didn't know. What does this illustrate? The media diverts our attention from what is truly important. We now know all there is to know about who's in rehab and sharks off the coast of Florida or whatever couple is divorcing keeping us in a dumbed-down, altered state so that we don't object very loudly.
Here's another tactic used to keep us from concentrating on what's really happening: terror. The terror alert level never drops below orange never allowing us to feel "safe", but in a constant state of fear. This also allows for a political slight of hand. Using 'terror' they were able to get the Patriot Act passed chiseling away at our civil liberties.
How can you use diversion in business to help with your sales? More importantly, how can these persuasion skills be used to protect ourselves when others are trying to persuade us?
Kenrick Cleveland teaches strategies to earn the business of affluent prospects using http://www.maxpersuasion.com/ persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in http://www.maxpersuasion.com/ persuasion strategies.
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Article Source: http://www.statssheet.com/articles/article67313.html |
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