How to Defy Weaponised Media Narratives

Posted by Jeremy Dyer

‘The 2000 Yard Stare’

A 1944 illustration by Thomas C. Lea III

depicting World War II.

It’s just bad news, it will pass, right? But why does it make me feel so depressed? Why does it eat away at my peace and happiness? Why do I constantly feel this uneasiness? Why can I not shake off this feeling of impending doom? You are mercilessly and relentlessly pressured to adopt one of the binary positions of ideological narratives.  Ideological violence is in fact a war, with real-world consequences. 

At this time in history, suicides are rising – I won’t post the references, but it is logical. So. For those people, the stress became unbearable. I saw someone have a major Coronaphobia freak out at the grocery store a few days ago. What is unquestionably all around, is:

Personal financial fear

Concern for the future of the world

Rampaging looting, stealing, and killing

Stress around lockdowns and regulations

Lack of normal outlets such as gym, restaurants, and social gatherings

A media onslaught of negativity

‘Doomscrolling’ 

You can look after yourself, stop watching the news – or schedule a time for it – eat healthy, start a plan for a better job, cut your social media time wastage, exercise in some other way, chat with positive friends ... yet in the face of the war, it is a daily effort and discipline, isn’t it? It is exactly like fighting a mental war every day. 

You war with the things you have to do physically. 

You war with the people you come into contact with (I was a teacher, so I know).

And then there is that fuzzy, insidious pyscho-ideological war. On this last point, I am referring to the tsunami of negative, emotionally-driven ‘news’ and more importantly the ‘narratives’ (ideological viewpoints) that inform such news. Memes, articles, sound bites, and so on.

What is going on?

It is this ideological war that drives most of the depressing news – 5G is killing you, you are a racist, the planet is dying, history is all wrong, magical love is the answer to everything, coconut and cannabis oil cure all illness, socialism is better than capitalism, the normals must worship the weirdos and awfuls, another virus is being created to kill us, a murderous Uhuru is coming, vegans are better than carnivores, BDSM is better sex, world food is running out, all GM food is poisonous, the government controls you, the media is all lies ... 

It’s a long list covering a lot of issues.

The thing to note is that each of these messages is absolute and crystalised – very little shades of grey in any of them. Each intrusive narrative is polarised, like the Dems and ’Pubs in the USA. You are mercilessly and relentlessly pressured to adopt one of the binary positions in each of these ideological narratives. They are now ‘weaponised’, and they seek to enforce compliance in you – join the riots, burn the 5G towers, boycott Chinese goods, buy a gun, eat only vegetables, stock up on food, hate men, hate women, wear a face-mask, don’t wear a face mask ...

Doubt, fear, uncertainty ... depression and anxiety. This is logical when confronted with ‘evidence’ from both sides of these aggressive narratives. The whiplash from the changing evidence of experts alone – on life, the universe, and everything – leaves us all in need of physiotherapy.

‘What is revolt?’ asked Albert Camus. ‘Simply defined, it is the Sisyphean spirit of defiance in the face of the Absurd … in that day-to-day revolt he gives proof of his only truth, which is defiance.’ What kind of defiance remains, then, which will not find you caught up in the war? 

One has to either sift through all these narratives, to find one’s position on any number of issues… (Some people are able to do this, but many are too ADD or incapable. Some choose to believe the fictions of conspiracy theories instead, because it is simpler and easier. Facts and science are irrelevant after all, only opinion matters in what you choose to believe. Wow, talk about dangerous.) 

Or ...

Cultivate an attitude of defiance! 

Look after your own wellbeing. Mind, body and spirit. Reject mental poison.

Do the things that make you happy.

Pursue your meaning.

Say to yourself :

Siss China!

Siss the face masks!

Siss the vegans!

Siss MAGA!

Siss Antifa!

Siss the 5G towers! 

Go fishing. Go swimming. Get seriously sceptical. Take a news fast. Find a lover. Get an awesome sense of humour – loads for free on the internet if you need priming. Be unconventional, meet cool people, do new stuff. Be cheeky, be awesome! Be a thought leader, not a follower. Hey! Find God, if that is what it takes!

Siss the news!

Siss the conspiracies!

Siss depression and negativity!

African Propaganda In a Nutshell

Posted by Sifiso Mkhonto

Change is happening all over the world. It is impossible to stand still. Yet as we change, there are those who would wish to influence that change—some in a positive and some in a negative way. My intention is to focus on invidious change that others seek to bring about through propaganda. Specifically, in Africa.

Propaganda is biased, misleading, and intends to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behaviour. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy defines propaganda as ‘the active manipulation of opinion by means that include distortion or concealment of the truth.’ It usefully distinguishes between ’agitation propaganda, which seeks to change attitudes, and ‘integration propaganda’ which seeks to reinforce existing attitudes.

Africa has been the victim of both agitation propaganda and integration propaganda—and while propaganda anywhere in the world may share the same characteristics, I here offer examples which are characteristically African, which Africans are primarily aware of—or ought to be. Mark Nichol, a writer, offers these four useful descriptions of propaganda, from which I develop my thoughtful analysis:

• An appeal to prejudice, or the black-and-white fallacy. Africa is a place of unusually stark contrasts, historical, cultural, social, and geographical. Politicians and religious leaders exploit this by presenting only two alternatives, one of which is identified as undesirable. They do so to exploit an audience’s desire to believe that it is morally or otherwise superior. However, the goal is the pleasure of the propagandists, regardless of whether the victim is in poverty or has riches.

• An appeal to fear. Africa still wrestles with fundamental issues, more so than other regions of the world, so that it faces many fears and uncertainties. Propagandists exploit fear and doubt, disseminating false or negative information, to undermine adherence to an undesirable belief or opinion. They do so to exploit audience anxieties or concerns through fear of political identity, gender, race, tribes, and religious or traditional practices.

• Half-truths. Governments and political parties in Africa tend to be secretive about information, which may further be difficult for the public to access. Full knowing the full truth, they still make statements that are partly true or otherwise deceptive to further their own agenda. The government often disguises this as a matter of national security, so that the full truth lies under a veil of secrecy.

• Obfuscation and glittering generalities. In Africa, the spoken word may have priority over the written word, so that it is received personally, not critically. Propagandists resort to vague communication and word prejudices intended to confuse the audience as it seeks to interpret the message. In South Africa, the ruling party has for each election campaign used this method to continue holding power. It tells the story of apartheid history and how its injustices ought to be fixed, however may only be fixed if each person votes in remembrance of their leaders who fought the apartheid system.

Where does the solution lie? It surely lies in our personal choice, as to whether to accept or reject what we see, read, and hear. Our identity and its underlying attitudes are changed over time, through those choices that we make—and our ideology, which is the consequence of what we were and are exposed to, often plays a crucial role in shaping our perception of what is truth and propaganda.

As individuals, we need to examine our judgements of information at the bar of mature reasoning, in order to avoid judging amiss and believing the propaganda. If we continue to fail this test, propaganda will prevail as it allows what is biased popular opinion to turn into the judgement of the minority opinion.  This then infringes on the right we all ought to or do have—freedom of speech.

The theologian Isaac Watts gives us this timely advice:

‘When a man of eloquence speaks or writes upon any subject, we are too ready to run into his sentiments, being sweetly and insensibly drawn by the smoothness of his harangue, and the pathetic power of his language. Rhetoric will varnish every error so that it shall appear in the dress of truth, and put such ornaments upon vice, as to make it look like virtue: it is an art of wondrous and extensive influence: it often conceals, obscures, or overwhelms the truth and places sometimes a gross falsehood in a most alluring light.’ 

Let us use logic as the measure of reasoning and sharing information. Not biased opinion from an eloquent man.

Picture Post #17 The Mask

---

'Because things don’t appear to be the known thing; they aren’t what they seemed to be neither will they become what they might appear to become.'

Posted by Tessa den Uyl and Martin Cohen

The headquarters of Mussolini's Italian Fascist Party, 1934 via the Rare Historical Photos website

The curious thing about this image is that it looks so much like an over-the-top film set. The dictator looks down on the hurrying-past public, from the facade of the Party HQ. Which in this case is imaginatively, yet also somehow absurdly, covered in graffiti - in the original sense of writing or drawings that have been scribbled, scratched, or painted. The 'Si, si, si' is of course Italian for 'Yes', which is actually not so sinister. The occasion was the the 1934 elections, in which Italians were called to vote either For or Against the Fascist representatives on the electoral list. Indeed, the facade was not always covered up like that.

In 1934, Mussolini had already ruled Italy for 12 years, and the election had certain fascistic features: there was only one party - the fascist one - and the ballot slip for 'Yes' was patriotically printed in the colours of the Italian flag (plus some fascist symbols), while 'No' was in fine philosophical sense a vote for nothing, and the ballot sheet was empty white.

The setting of the picture is the Palazzo Braschi in Rome, and the building was the headquarters of the Fascist Party Federation - which was the local one, not the national, Party headquarters.

According to the Fascist government that supervised the vote, anyway, the eventual vote was a massive endorsement of Il Duce with the Fascist list being approved not merely by 99% of voters but by 99.84% of voters!

But back to the building. Part of Mussolini’s and his philosopher guru, Giovanni Gentile's, grand scheme was to transform the cities into theatrical stages proclaiming Fascist values. Italian fascism is little understood, and was not identical to the later Nazi ideology - but one thing it did share was the belief in totalitarian power. As George Orwell would later portray in his dystopia, 1984, in this new world 2+2 really would equal five if the government said so. Si!

---

People, Photographs, and Reality

A Deconstruction of Picture Post 13 - ‘The Worshippers’

Posted by Keith Tidman

Ludwig Wittgenstein succinctly observed in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, “The picture is a model of reality.” But was it ever that; and is it still that?

Photos can be bland, or they can powerfully evoke. Pi’s Picture Post 13: ‘The Worshippers’ fell into the latter category—powerful, hauntingly moving. The photograph spotlights supporters of U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump—what the posted text referred to as an ‘admiring throng’. The subjects in the photograph took on the persona not just as common supporters wanting to hear the regurgitation of policy positions, but potentially 'fans' celebrating celebrity. Or so it seemed.

At first blush, the supporters’ enthusiasm appeared almost over the top—perhaps why the text accompanying the Picture Post referred, in the opening words, to a ‘cartoonish air’ about the image. Those two words spoke volumes. The supporters really do appear absorbed in the presence of a celebrity-turned-presidential candidate. Yet photography captures reality only by means of analogy; and it always has a point of view—at some point, even at the (unintended) risk of transitioning to theatre. Meanwhile, what, and whose, reality political photographs capture often remains uncertain, even opaque. Made all the more challenging by how inspiration and aspiration—both the photographer’s and viewer’s—might affect the experience. An observation reinforced by the essayist Anais Nin, who poignantly noted, "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."

Even under the best of circumstances and with the best of intentions, photographs can sometimes prove unreal—and arguably, in the eyes of some, possibly unfair. They’re frozen moments in time and space, captured by one individual who's under intense pressure to quickly decide what’s important, and when. Given the fluidity of what happens in reality at any moment of, say, a public campaign appearance, eyeballs focused on what’s occurring may well be drawn by what's different, by what might set a photograph apart from the many others. In other cases, what gets captured boils down to simple serendipity. These are among the diverse possible circumstances in which photojournalists with serious, honest intent, including the creator of PP 13's image, perform their craft. Yet, as Marshall McLuhan noted, there’s a governing dynamic at play here, a reciprocity between photographer and camera that shapes outcomes: “We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us.”

Whether it matters if political photographs are not so subtly edited, as some circulating around the Internet are, depends on circumstances. Hence there’s the question as to what reality do photographs reveal and, largely unintentionally, conceal. In photojournalism, the standard is fairly strict—though perhaps disputable. The public expects that the photograph has not been edited, beyond such acceptable techniques as cropping. And it is expected that there has been a good-faith effort to preserve content integrity. People view such images with a degree of automaticity, whereby trust suspends critical judgment. Expectations are that the image is as ‘true’ as possible to what was going on. But photographers are human. Also, the risk in photojournalism is that some interested third party surreptitiously, but brazenly, ‘hijacks’ and manipulates an image of an unsuspecting photographer, to advance a political or social agenda. Pictures, after all, can stir up emotions as much as words can.

Accordingly, photographic imagery has obviously been used, historically, for political and social purposes—whether to amplify or as a sleight of hand. Even for outright ‘propaganda’—both the malign kind and the benign kind. Photography is a powerful medium, subject to far-ranging purposes and broad interpretation—hence a rich source for shaping the message. And in turn for shaping history. There’s a distinctly nontrivial element of trust—especially given that some viewers might accept image content prima facie. This is true, even though the sense of reality that people take away from looking at photographs can be skewed, notably by any ambiguity as to an image’s intent—not different in that sense than other media. So what was going on with PP 13, as best we can tell? And is there evidence, on the Internet, that people have digitally doctored this original photograph to create permutations for their own (political?) purposes, to make events appear other than they were when the photograph at PP13 was snapped?

Indeed, one must tread warily in the morass of online political imagery. Online searches can locate other versions of the photograph that appear to have been manipulated, and not always deftly. By some person, or some group, over the course of the photo’s Internet lifespan. The result of apparent distortion sometimes therefore taxes people’s ability to connect with the image, as something may not seem quite right. The Pi text characterized the supporters’ reactions in PP 13 as ‘zany’—the manipulated versions of the photograph found online are made, in some cases, to appear all the more so. Did the perpetrators doctor these photos to advance a political agenda? Did they wish to mock, disparage, or even demonize others of a different political persuasion? Was it just a prank? Or were there other motivations? This is just one area in which political photographs need to be decoded.

Online there’s a panoply of other photographs purportedly manipulated, resulting in distracting memes. Whether all the photographs are indeed manipulated, or some are not and have simply been swept up in the hurly-burly of the Internet, is germane, of course. Yet it’s clear from these myriad images, whether edited or not, that there is an intimacy between image and viewer. Or, as Vilém Flusser observed in Towards a Philosophy of Photography, it’s evident “there is a general desire to be endlessly remembered and endlessly repeatable.” At the same time, people bring all sorts of predispositions (ideological, political, personal, experiential) to interpreting photographs. Internet searches serve as a trove of when and how some photographs are morphed into something other than the original. This morphing, mixed with viewers' potentially complex predispositions, can muddy the experience of viewing the photograph all the more.

The idea that a picture is a ‘model of reality’, which Wittgenstein claimed, has to be critically parsed to be even remotely true in the modern era, when a picture’s digits can be handily manipulated, subtly or clumsily, by just about anyone, often to enormously dramatic effect. This ability to manipulate images is not only ubiquitous—rearing its head in every corner, with its results shared virally around the Internet—it challenges the very premise of photo ‘realism’. Both reputable photographers and the public alike become unwitting victims, whose caution about photos’ provenance—and the supposed window on the world of ‘realism’ they offer—becomes rich fodder for dissection.

Picture Post No. 13 The Worshippers

---

'Because things don’t appear to be the known thing; they aren’t what they seemed to be neither will they become what they might appear to become.'

Posted by Tessa den Uyl and Martin Cohen

Agency image from the 2016 US Presidential Primaries campaign. These fans can’t quite believe they're standing near THE Donald Trump

There’s a cartoonish air to this image, amusing and entertaining underlying something grotesque, fake and appalling, thus appealing? The (Italian) cartone, a sheet of paper, offers us a blank space to start to represent a scene. America is the land of the comic book, and of Disney.

Take the central woman who seems almost a caricature of an excited fan. Her face expresses the meeting with the unexpected. The facial expression of the boy on the left is equally intense, almost orgiastic. The woman on the right seems to unfold her ladylikeness by touching her hair and the woman behind her seems embraced by unexpected joy. Similarly ingredients for cartoon characters are mixed on paper. Perhaps this is why the picture is funny at first sight; we are recognising our own emotions in caricatures. Laughter disguises pain.

Looking up to people, (admiration) is a very human, very old phenomenom. So it touches belief, right? The belief not so much in people but in a better and in a worse universe. An age-old human trait that seems as strong as ever, and yet a bit strange in the 21st century…And so, yes, first there is this zany, ‘funny cartoon’ impression but behind the facial masks, what is hidden?

Images should make us think, like rain is the memory of plants. The scene of the enthusiastic crowd, the 'admiring throng', is an old visual stand-by. But the belief is not so much in individual people as in the existence of a better universe, populated by imaginary characters.

Picture Post No. 13 The Worshippers

---

'Because things don’t appear to be the known thing; they aren’t what they seemed to be neither will they become what they might appear to become.'

Posted by Tessa den Uyl and Martin Cohen

Agency image from the 2016 US Presidential Primaries campaign. These fans can’t quite believe they're standing near THE Donald Trump

There’s a cartoonish air to this image, amusing and entertaining underlying something grotesque, fake and appalling, thus appealing? The (Italian) cartone, a sheet of paper, offers us a blank space to start to represent a scene. America is the land of the comic book, and of Disney.

Take the central woman who seems almost a caricature of an excited fan. Her face expresses the meeting with the unexpected. The facial expression of the boy on the left is equally intense, almost orgiastic. The woman on the right seems to unfold her ladylikeness by touching her hair and the woman behind her seems embraced by unexpected joy. Similarly ingredients for cartoon characters are mixed on paper. Perhaps this is why the picture is funny at first sight; we are recognising our own emotions in caricatures. Laughter disguises pain.

Looking up to people, (admiration) is a very human, very old phenomenom. So it touches belief, right? The belief not so much in people but in a better and in a worse universe. An age-old human trait that seems as strong as ever, and yet a bit strange in the 21st century…And so, yes, first there is this zany, ‘funny cartoon’ impression but behind the facial masks, what is hidden?

Images should make us think, like rain is the memory of plants. The scene of the enthusiastic crowd, the 'admiring throng', is an old visual stand-by. But the belief is not so much in individual people as in the existence of a better universe, populated by imaginary characters.

Picture Post No 10: Faceless Fighters of Vietnam, 1972

---

'Because things don’t appear to be the known thing; they aren’t that what they seemed to be neither will they become what they might appear to become.'

Posted by Tessa den Uyl and Martin Cohen

Somewhere in the Nam Can forest, Vietnam, in 1972 ( Image: Vo Anh Khanh)

In the pciture above, faceless activists meet in the Nam Can forest, wearing masks to hide their identities from one another in case of capture and interrogation.

For many Americans, the dominant image of the Vietnamese and their Viet Cong allies during the war was as a ghostly enemy sneaking down the Ho Chi Minh trail defying US bombs and apparently inured to suffering.

The visual history of the Vietnam War has been defined by such images. There is Eddie Adams’ photograph of a Viet Cong fighter being executed; Nick Ut’s picture of a naked child fleeing a napalm strike, and Malcolm Browne’s photo of a man setting himself alight in flames at a Saigon intersection.

Brexit? What's really been going on in Brussels

Posted by Martin Cohen

What’s really been going on in Brussels? On the face of it, the UK Prime Minister, Mr Cameron, has taken Britain to the brink of rupture with the European Union over the issue of child support payments to EU citizens working in the UK, but whose children live at home. The arguments over this raged for two nights and two days, as Mr Cameron pounded the table and wagged his finger and threatened to pull the whole EU house down. Official European plans for a post-discussion English dinner, and then - even more sacrosanct! - English Breakfast were left in tatters.

And that means something serious is going on. Eventually the ‘migrants’ as apparently fellow EU workers are now to be called, lost the right to the full child support benefit, but retained the right to a miserly version phased on the cost of living in their home country.

You’d have to be either pretty stupid, or very ignorant, like the vast majority of English people itching to unshackle themselves from the world's largest free trade area, to think this issue really was what the best minds of the Tory party were concerned about.

Terrorists, Secret Services and Private Incomes

Sceptical reflections and conspiracy theories relating to the politics surrounding the killings at Charlie Hebdo and the recent massacre in Saint Denis

 

The shooting at the start of this year of the cartoonists at the Parisian satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo has all the hallmarks of a CIA inspired brutal incident. November's massacre at Saint Denis looks much more like an attempt to replay, in the center of European social life, similar deadly outrages to those committed in towns and cities across the Middle East. Colin Kirk* teases out the links.

That most of the perpetrators of these atrocities were known to French secret services is now admitted. There are even several indications of what may have been secret service and police assistance to the Charlie Hebdo incident. Help apparently given to the get-away vehicle and discovery of the driving license dropped by the driver recalls some aspects of the slaughter of over 3000 people on the ninth of November 2001 in New York.

Charlie Hebdo was a satirical magazine before it got its current name after an atrocity in Northern France that resulted in over a couple of dozen deaths was reported in Paris as 28 dead in Northern France. It caused little stir compared with mourning for De Gaulle, who died a few days later. Un homme mort à Paris was the bold, black cover of what was thereafter called Charlie Hebdo.

President Charles De Gaulle founded the Fifth Republic in his own image with draconian rights of state surveillance of its citizens that are not dissimilar to those afforded by the American Patriot Act. The State of Emergency currently in force allows police entry without warrant and arrest without charge. There really isn’t any further to go in state legal rights of citizen control, is there?

The CIA is known to have funded media to promote certain political messages in America, Britain and France in particular. On his own account, Stephen Spender, the editor of the British literary magazine Encounter, originally founded by the poet Stephen Spender, resigned  when he discovered the source of much of its 'well-wisher' donations.

Satirical media and those critical of the state were important to western democracies to demonstrate state toleration of dissent in comparison with actions of totalitarian states. Egalité and Fraternité were far less important to politicians than the sacred notion of Liberté.

Wikipedia on Climate Change

 

How has the World's largest encyclopaedia been covering the Climate Change debate?

 

BBC propaganda

BBC propaganda

An alarming insight into how the BBC operates?
 

 

  Who's Churning the BBC Machine?

 • 'How the BBC became a propaganda machine for climate change zealots 
 - as recounted by its former news frontman, Peter Sissons

Based on  the Daily Wail story which in turn drew on Peter Sissons's memoirs, with additional comments by Pi editors.

Sissons diagnoses it as 'political correctness'. Worrying about manmade climate change was an incontrovertible duty - a view also taken, for example, at the Guardian and the Times newspapers. But Sisson's writes:

'From the beginning I was unhappy at how one-sided the BBC's coverage of 
the issue was, and how much more complicated the climate system was than 
the over-simplified two-minute reports that were the stock-in-trade of 
the BBC's environment correspondents.

These, without exception, accepted the UN's assurance that 'the science 
is settled' and that human emissions of carbon dioxide threatened the 
world with catastrophic climate change. Environmental pressure groups 
could be guaranteed that their press releases, usually beginning with 
the words 'scientists say..'. would get on air unchallenged.

On one occasion, an MP used BBC airtime to link climate change doubters 
with perverts and holocaust deniers, and his famous interviewer didn't 
bat an eyelid.

On another occasion, after the inauguration of Barack Obama as president in 2009, the science correspondent of Newsnight actually informed viewers: 
'scientists calculate that he has just four years to save the world'. What she didn't tell viewers was that only one alarmist scientist, NASA's James Hansen, had said that.

My interest in climate change grew out of my concern for the failings of 
BBC journalism in reporting it. In my early and formative days at ITN, I 
learned that we have an obligation to report both sides of a story. It 
is not journalism if you don't. It is close to propaganda.