Public needs to get versed in 'Perception Management' - the sooner the better.

[salin]

Perception Management.

The public needs to understand it, and start recognizing it for what it is - empty rhetoric that often has no ‘reality’ behind its use. This was an early (and sadly effective) method of Newt Gingrich in his ascension to power. The idea, simply put, was to consistently use derogatory and demonizing terms to tag the opposition or their ideas/positions. Didn’t matter how ridiculous the terms were on their face value - just that they terms were used consistently and with vehemence. The point was that over time the public would come to perceive the imagery being created as reality. Reality didn’t matter. In lesser talented hands, the rhetoric is often laughable and absurd. Most people don’t really buy into the rhetoric of Rush or Coulter in a literal sense - the hyperbole is recognized. However the less clumsy, and those given more of a serious public platform (think Sunday am talk shows), have often been successful in perception management.

The Bush administration has taken this to a whole other level. Long before 911 and the blatant use of ‘fear’ and ‘security’ to sell nearly all of their policies and legislative efforts (think “energy security” among other early attempts at linking the GOP privatize and corporate welfare agenda as “security measures”) - the Bush administration had taken perception management to new heights. Read Joshua Green’s “The Other War Room” (link: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0204.green.html ) which describes the use of Madison Avenue style methods of repackaging with words unpopular policies, and market testing to find the words that would “sell” the public on programs and policies - even when the policies (not popular) hadn’t changed. It is a great blue print for what we have seen foisted upon the public for years.

Why is this important for the public to understand? Because this type of public manipulation will reemerge, unless the public becomes savvy and calls to task those that try such cynical manipulations. Nixon wasn’t out of office for 6 years before the GOP came storming back with Reagan. I am pretty sure that it will be exceptionally difficult for a republican to win the next presidential campaign. However, I am concerned that an unaware public will write these awful years off to a couple of bad apples - rather than the detrimental policies of the GOP, and the cynical public manipulation used to sell such policies. This has been disastrous for our country and seriously threatens our political system.

Why talk about this now? Because huge swaths of the public are now cynical - particularly regarding bush and the republicans who try to push his policies. Now there would be more receptivity to understanding how we got to this point - and how to avoid it in the future. The level to which the contemporary GOP has taken the practice of Perception Management - and basing policies and actions, not on reality, not on studious debate of policies, but on their wanton lust for power and $ for their cronies, and then use PM to “sell” the public.

Netroots has grown in its ability to push conversations into the mainstream. This is one that is vitally important to scratch the public psyche, such that the term and what it means becomes part of the publics ‘conventional wisdom’.

Lets brainstorm some examples, lets start the conversation moving - and perhaps, just perhaps, we can grow the current public cynicism beyond disgust with the war - into disgust with the avarice and ongoing deceitfulness of the contemporary republican party.

Example 1) One very obvious example - a very telling public misstatement came in the early aftermath of 911 in a press conference held by then Sec of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. The press conference was to ‘inform the public of how to keep safe in the case of a terrorist attack’. Ridge slips up and states that the methods (duct taping plastic on all windows and doorways) had been tested on... focus groups. (er.. what was that again, Tom?) So what was the point of the press conference? Did the nation’s safety experts really believe that duct tape and plastic would keep the public safe? Or was it part of creating the “fear” reality in the public’s mind, that such an attack was likely? Why were the ‘safety tips’ focus-grouped/market tested? It only makes sense when thinking about the ‘Perception Management’ rules of governing a nation.

[salin]

1. Example 2: "Clear Skies Iniative"

Who could be against 'clear skies'? Or, how does one get the public to back a broad scale policy to increase the amount of airpollution? Certainly folks don't want more smog, more toxins in the air, more health-related respitory and other problems due to increased pollution, do they?

Cynically packaged as a way to "cut down air pollution" - this policy, simply put, was based on the idea of "trading credits" so lower level polluters can trade their earned credits to higher level polluters - which does nothing to lower the overall amount of polluting - and indeed, I believe that the legislation actually RAISED the ceiling of allowable pollution released into the air.

[sofa king]

5. Closely followed by the "Healthy Forests Initiative"

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/healthyforests

The Wilderness Society found that what the new law would actually do was:

* allow the Forest Service to conduct large-scale, environmentally damaging logging projects without considering any alternatives or their relative environmental impacts;

* eliminate the statutory right of citizens to appeal Forest Service logging projects;

* impose unprecedented limitations on judicial review and give lawsuits challenging Forest Service projects priority over virtually all other civil and criminal litigation.

[salin]

7. If I recall correctly... they marketed the policies during West Coast

fire season - and pushed the idea that 'clear cutting' = getting rid of the deadwood that made wild fires blaze more out of control. Also, if I recall correctly - the idea that the clear cutting would somehow decrease the intensity of wild fires was handily dismissed - enough so that in later times when the policy was discussed that whole line of argument was dropped.

[sofa king]

14. I think you're right.

I worked on it briefly, on just one small component of the new rules. The new law had cleverly provided for the establishment of a "safety zone" (read: clear cutting zone) between the forests and residential areas, maybe a quarter-mile thick.

But any starving college kid knows the difference between a 14-inch pizza and a 16-inch pizza is about 30% more pizza. The provision allowed for the clear-cutting of literally thousands of acres of formerly off-limits timber around the perimeter of our forest land. (Except for forest land on tribal reservations, because our government can't be bothered to write their laws to include the unique legal status of Indian tribes. That was the distasteful part that I was working on.)

[undeterred]

2. Its like when the software is buggy, but you call it a "feature".

[Straight Shooter]

3. Most recent term of bamboozlement: "surge" instead of "escalation"

Pathetic.

Very good post, Salin. :thumbsup:

[salin]

6. This is important - it isn't *just* about not using the word escalation...

but it is an intentional choice of a term that tends to mean "short term" (which there is no indication is the case) - and a term that assumes forward movement (as in 'moving ahead of a tie in a ball-game... the 'third quarter surge'). Very intentional word choice. I was very pleased to read an Editor and Publisher item that encouraged local newspapers to use the word escalation rather than surge.

Thanks for the comps, SS, this and a few other tactics of todays GOP have had me thinking for quite sometime - that if the public was more aware/intune and could detect the tactics - they would be angrier than they are today - and would reject those politicians and leaders who lead through such manipulative methods. That isn't to say that the public is inherently going to reject moderate to conservative positions on issues - but that they would be more discriminating in regards to which leaders they followed per those issues given said leaders' methods of selling their policies/politics. Not to mention that I think a whole lot of moderates/independents would pay closer attention - and be less convinced by BS when it comes time to vote in local and national elections.

[Lars39]

9. It also sounds like something naturally occurring in nature, instead of man-made.

Ocean waves surge, wars are escalated by man.

[salin]

21. good catch - subtle - and significant.

[sandnsea]

16. Very very good, we should all work on this

Every single blog should have pieces about this word choice right now, so that people can understand how they're being manipulated. It isn't JUST about the debate over the best course of action in Iraq. We can't even get to that debate as long as people are bamboozled by the images these word choices create.

[salin]

22. which is why not only the words are important - but the name of the tactic

"Perception Management" - it gets easier to detect and see (and at this point in time when folks are already cynical - easier to see and begin to predict what comes next - something we have been doing here for years - based on 'getting it' in terms of what the rhetoric really is suggesting.

You are right - we need to get folks in 'predictive' mode - that is, that they begin to recognize it when they hear it (it being PM b*ll sh*t) - but we also have to get folks to recognize the tactic for what it is - spinning unreality into "reality" via words that have no meaning, save their meaning to try to manipulate we the people. This is far more insidious than "spin" (putting a slightly more palatable spin/take on current events - but a spin that is still rooted in reality.)

[Straight Shooter]

17. True. But also, when I think of "surge," I think of everything being destroyed.

I think of a great rush of power far in excess of what can be handled, Which is why we have surge protectors for our equipment. :(

And it's also such a "sexy" term, what with the "urge" sound in it.

[salin]

23. "powerful" point

pun, fully intended... Isn't W trying to show that he (and by extension those that he keeps sending into war) are macho and powerful? Sure sounds more positive than "escalation" which allows for the sideways view of 'putting more folks at risk.'

[TahitiNut]

37. "Social Security 'personal accounts'"

It was amazing how that almost ... almost snookered people. Even still, we see people posting that nonsense.

[sofa king]

4. Rumsfeld leaking the spurious "Czech connection" with Iraq

Just days after the attacks of 9/11 Donald Rumsfeld let it be known to the press that Iraqi intelligence officers were seen meeting with Mo Atta in Czechoslovakia. The Czechs later said it wasn't so, but within a year or two a majority of Americans believed the U.S. had found evidence of a link between Iraq and al Qaeda.

There was no evidence.

[salin]

8. the whole buildup to the war (for more than a year) was an act

of great granduer in perception management. Sadly it took the Downing Street Memos for the idea that the admin had intentionally misled the public (eg lied to with slick and intentional marketing) finally began to prick the public psyche.

[Quantess]

10. What's the name of that advertising genius hired by the GOP?

He was the brainchild behind changing the "Estate Tax" to the "Death Tax", because it evoked a more personal, friendlier, more populist, image for test subjects in his studies. Just changing a word changed people's perceptions.

Someone help me remember his name. Was it Eric Luntz?

[Quantess]

28. His name is Frank Luntz.

PBS Frontline featured him in an excellent program about advertising.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Frank_Luntz

(edit: change was to is)

[seafan]

11. Robert Parry describes "perception management" used during Iran-contra.

History on the Ballot
November 5, 2000

To protect the growing number of secrets, the Reagan-Bush administration organized a domestic public diplomacy operation, headed by another CIA officer named Walter Raymond Jr.

The goal of this operation was to conduct what was called “perception management,” that is the control of how the American people perceived the events unfolding in Central America and elsewhere. A high priority was given to bullying U.S. journalists who didn’t toe the government’s line. (For details, see Parry’s Lost History.)

This protection of the Iran-contra secrets almost worked. The few reporters (including myself) who uncovered parts of the story were subjected to assaults on our reputations and careers.

Despite the growing evidence, most of the major news media dismissed the stories of secret operations and related drug trafficking as conspiracy nonsense.

(emphasis added)


Muffling of the truth and grinding away its existence are the bastion of despots.

[salin]

24. thank you for this more 'historical' (short-term historical albeit) perspective.

Had more folks been aware of the tactic in that time - it would have been much more difficult to sweep the endpoints (or the shortcutting of the endpoints) of the investigation under the rug and out of view. I think this is exceptionally important when considering the upcoming congressional investigations. I hope those leading such investigations drop the "we need to spare/protect the American people" rationale used by Ford to pardon Nixon - and used again admidst the Iran Contra hearings to rationalize cutting short the depth of those investigations and prosecutions.

[Cleita]

12. Hitler wrote about this as a propaganda strategy in Mein Kampf.

He claims to have learned it from the Americans in WWI.
I don't know how we fight it unless we make laws that prevent public servants and officials from spreading disinformation. I don't know how you would do this without running into trouble with freedom of speech. Some have suggested that lawmakers be put under oath to tell the truth when they are speaking in an official capacity. I don't know what you can do with the media.

However, I was listening to an interview with Helen Thomas this afternoon and she made the point that years ago each city had two or three newspapers offering differing points of view which kept them honest because they couldn't afford to spread blatant lies and be taken seriously when the competition was offering a different truth.

Since these newspapers were independently owned the system worked. However, with our deregulation of everything corporate, one media giant like Rupert Murdoch can buy up everything and spread the same lie on all the media and there is no one to contradict him.

[rebel with a cause]

20. Funny thing about hitler.

There are some who say that he patterned his mustache after Charlie Chaplin's because if he was perceived as a clown by other countries they would not take him serious enough to be afraid of him until it was too late. It worked pretty well for him until he had almost all of Europe taken. Sound like any clown in government that you can think of?

In 1994 I used this bit of information (mustache) in a speech I did on (of all things) blond jokes. I used this, and other use of humor to gain power, to convince my listeners that the blond joke was being used as a way of defusing the idea that "white power/right wing politics" was threatening (it was not called right wing back then, but I don't remember what it was called). The speech must have been pretty good, because after I had finished all those white kids were convinced I was right and seemed just a bit afraid. Good also because I got an A for the speech and the class.

:silly:

[salin]

26. hopefully - that message came to resonate later

with some in the audience - as in cognitive dissonance when they were being fed bush propoganda and the propoganda didn't fit the reality of the news they were seeing. That is called planting seeds that can grow to doubts at a later time - because something so fundamental was tweaked. Good job :thumbsup:

[salin]

25. An excellent point per the importance of the balance of media control.

Per combatting this use of propoganda - the best line of defense is a savvy and wise receiver. That is, if a greater portion of the public recognizes the tactic, and begins to ignore messages that are clearly more "preception management" (b/c the public understands what PM is) than the less effective it will be as a propoganda tool - AND - the more detrimental it will be to those who use it, as their overall message and integrity will come into question in the public. In short - the public has to understand what the tactic is - and recognize it when it is use - and to reject it - powerfully.

[Morgana LaFey]

13. Do you happen to have a link for that Tom Ridge revelation?

I'd LOVE to pass that along to someone I know on the right.

[salin]

27. I will look for it ... most media didn't comment on it... but it was

a riot of a slip here at DU.

[salin]

29. here is an article that refers to it (an interview with Ridge that defends

the program - and mentions the focus groups). http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0302140308feb14,0,6113119.story?coll=chi-news-hed

[Morgana LaFey]

33. Thanks.

That doesn't quite say the same thing in the same way, but it certainly does cover it.

[sandnsea]

15. Gullible Goobers

Well said. This is the biggest problem we face.

OUR side of the problem is our willingness to consider 'all sides' of a debate. LIES are not the equivalent of valid, yet opposing, ideas or theories. We can't even get to debating solutions as long as we're stuck knocking down their endless litany of lies.

[rebel with a cause]

18. This may be way off subject, but

I see the print media doing bush's dirty work for him. Today, almost every story I see concerning the troops and Saddam say that he is to blame for our soldiers being killed. I just want to shout out to the world, Saddam may be guilty of a lot of things but this is not one of them. He did everything that was asked of him and bush and the bushettes still called for the war. Saddam was defeated within days, it is the Iraqi people that we are fighting. The same people that we supposedly went there to save.

While I am getting this off my chest, another misconception that even gets repeated here, is that democrat senators and congressmen voted for the war. No, some of them voted to give bush the power to go to war, not the war itself. Was this a stupid thing to do, in my opinion, YES! But don't repeat the GOP's words to take the responsibility off bush and put it on the democrats. Trust me, it will be used again by them, and they don't deserve any help from us. If you must attack someone for this vote, at least use the right words - they were stupid enough to give bush power to do anything. ;(

[Nikki Stone1]

19. Good points

:kick:

[omega minimo]

30. "this type of public manipulation will" NOT "reemerge"-- IT NEVER WENT AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's a continuum that began WITH A VENGEANCE with Reagan, it never ended, it did not begin with Gingrich or with Bushco.

You are right, but the view is shortsighted. This is very important-- but to fight it you have to see the Big Picture, the Big Lie and scariest of all, consider how accustomed Americans really are to their Percpeption Managed Cocoons.

[Quantess]

31. Not only did it never go away, but it's worse now than ever, in my opinion.

BushCo can't exist without it!

[sofa king]

32. But there is a counterforce at work: informed comment.

One of the nicer things about this country is that a literate and well educated subset of our population has become ever-more connected thanks to the Internet. There are hundreds of thousands of us, perhaps millions, who see through the bullshit and know we're being manipulated.

Better still, our voice has become infinitely more powerful because our insight and predictions have proven to be correct. The disillusioned are looking for answers and when they go looking, they're finding us. We're informed; we're authoritative; we have the facts and the pain of the recent past on our side.

At this point, the right wing has been reduced to their favorite lines of argument from days gone by: "look over there!" and "can we please just stop talking about it?" But the people getting screwed can't really think of much else, and we're not shutting up. The right wingers at the cocktail parties and water coolers, armed only with Papa Bear's talking points, don't have a chance anymore in the face of cold reality.

I think it was the counterforce of informed comment that gave us the edge in the past election, combined with a brilliant perception management scheme on the part of the Democratic Party. We never stopped telling people that the Republicans were corrupt, morally bankrupt, and incompetent. Then, in the last month of the electoral season (and after the five percent padding had already been built into the voting machines), the TV started telling voters the same thing. We pinned down peoples' perception by word of mouth, by authoritative written rebuttal, and then by a series of unpredicted (by most) events which underscored precisely what we were saying.

I just made up the phrase "informed comment" to describe what I think is going on, but it's no coincidence that it also happens to be the name of Juan Cole's web page. Those who know what's really going on in Iraq, as best as it can be known to us, are the ones who read Informed Comment.

[bobthedrummer]

34. From 1-6-06 "Reality vs. perception management: the tin-foil controversy"

Many Dems have followed the leader on this-and it does US no good--it's a command and control propaganda network designed to break and replace belief systems and eliminate organized opposition
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x71919

[Capn Amerika]

35. Great post. They should start by reading Walter Lippman

And Edward Bearnays.

[bobthedrummer]

36. kick

[undergroundpanther]

38. The saddest part

is people don't want to admit THEIR perception is managed, it bruises the ego to admit one is not master of their own reality to some. Admitting you are not always master of your mind or reality means there is uncertainty here and control is not yours all the time and some people fear uncertainty and losing the illusion of control and exploring the fact their 'free will' is tampered with or managed' more than death.
Denial and ego is a strong motivator for some nitwits to scream tin foil about perception management and tell themselves it does not exist or does not effect them,and so never ask questions and ridicule those who DO. Coikidink? I think NOT.