inkbluesky

The actress Selma Blair Beitner. I don't have a favorite photograph. Photographs to me are like music, my favorite depends on what my mood is. Though I will say that this photo would consistantly be on my list of favorites. I like the slightly muted colors that make it more then another staged shot; they give it a layer of composition. I like the juxtaposition of the formal blouse with the casual American classic cut-off jeans. A classic of one era combined with the classic of another. The act of balancing throws in some extra visual tension. She could have just stood on one leg or stood on tip-toes, but she or the photographer combined both to great effect.

The Doors Of Perception: Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything 

Bernays learned early on that the most effective way to create credibility for a product or an image was by "independent third-party" endorsement.

For example, if General Motors were to come out and say that global warming is a hoax thought up by some liberal tree-huggers, people would suspect GM's motives, since GM's fortune is made by selling automobiles.

If however some independent research institute with a very credible sounding name like the Global Climate Coalition comes out with a scientific report that says global warming is really a fiction, people begin to get confused and to have doubts about the original issue.

So that's exactly what Bernays did. With a policy inspired by genius, he set up "more institutes and foundations than Rockefeller and Carnegie combined."

Quietly financed by the industries whose products were being evaluated, these "independent" research agencies would churn out "scientific" studies and press materials that could create any image their handlers wanted. Such front groups are given high-sounding names like:
Temperature Research Foundation
Manhattan Institute
International Food Information Council
Center for Produce Quality
Consumer Alert     Tobacco Institute Research Council
The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition
Cato Institute
Air Hygiene Foundation    
American Council on Science and Health
Industrial Health Federation
Gllobal Climate Coalition
International Food Information Council
Alliance for Better Foods

Sound pretty legit don't they?

Canned News Releases

As Stauber explains, these organizations and hundreds of others like them are front groups whose sole mission is to advance the image of the global corporations who fund them, like those listed on page 2 above.

This is accomplished in part by an endless stream of 'press releases' announcing "breakthrough" research to every radio station and newspaper in the country. (Robbins) Many of these canned reports read like straight news, and indeed are purposely molded in the news format.

This is a rather long article and it is best to read the whole thing. People generally don't like to think that they can be or are manipulated by advertising, but obviously some people are since Madison Ave. doesn't look like it will be closing its' doors anytime soon. There is nothing inherently wrong with telling people about a product that they may find useful, or may even improve the quality of their life, but as the article points out corporations frequently cross the line into propaganda. Some of us just tune it out. Some do not, to the detriment of others.

Less foreboding is the new documentary, Truth Be Told

If you believe a recent article in The American Prospect, Gore's meta-plan since 2000 has been disintermediation: removing the information middleman. After bitter experience, he knows how the media filter can distort. He knows how press narratives can mold "conventional wisdom" unconnected to reality and immune to revision.

With his peripatetic slideshow, Gore is effecting the most brute-force, stubborn kind of disintermediation: he's traveling room to room, city to city, country to country, reaching people in small batches. He's speaking for himself, one crowd at a time.

It's hard to see how anyone could leave the presentation unconvinced that global warming is a problem. There will be points of controversy — you can expect, for instance, to hear kvetching over what is really melting the snows of Kilimanjaro, and whether climate change really caused Katrina — but there are so many separate data points, their sheer weight will crush all but the most adamantine denial.

Gore comes off well playing the professor. He was hobbled as a political candidate in an era that mistakes folksy soundbites for wisdom; he sucks at the folksy soundbite. But when he's got 1.5 hours of your time, he loses the robotic bearing and relaxes. As a professor, he's affable, self-effacing, and patiently, steadily persuasive.

The former Vice-President wouldn't have to make such herculean efforts if the mainstream media would do its job, which is getting out honest information to the public regardless of whose tender sensibilities they offended. It also doesn't help that industry spokesmen are already out there using the most despicable ad hominem attacks.