Manipulation Methods and How to Avoid from Manipulation
The news media can manipulate people and shape society with multiple ways of reporting
information. In the World that communication is considered vital, the news media that is a
critical part of the chain of communication play a quite important role. Therefore, people
should be aware of the manipulation ways, and they should be more conscious about how
they achieve the information. Being informed of the types of perception management and how
these methods are applied is quite vital so that the public can avoid these biases. Is it possible
to achieve objective information? Can people obtain a personal, original point of view?
The labeling method is one of the methods implemented by the media to manipulate the
audience. A label preconceives an affair without any elucidatory details, and it merely gives a
positive or negative tag to it (Parenti, 2015). The public may visualize words as specific
thoughts or emotions, especially if they have potentially powerful meanings. In their studies
and experiments about how words impact people’s perspective of thinking, Hauser, and
colleague Schwarz (as cited in Wadley, 2016), a USC provost professor of psychology and
marketing, explains that there is a fellow feeling about the word ’cause’ between the people.
Most of the people do not identify this word as unfavorable at first. However, they usually
perceive it with negative statements, such as ‘death,’ ‘problems,’ ‘harm,’ ‘cancer,’ ‘pain,’ and
that situation reveals its negative sense. This survey can prove that word choice is a way to
manage people’s perception, which provides an opportunity for reporters to manipulate the
news with different selective words in the contexts. ‘Leftist guerrillas,’ ‘ultra-right
conservative,’ ‘Islamic terrorists,’ ‘Marxist extremist’ are some of the negative labels
(Parenti,2015). The potentialities of these labels are quite important because, in this way, their
perspective about the issue has become a formalized point of view rather than a critically
thought personal thoughts and feelings. Thus, the media is manipulating the public and
formalizing their ideas with the labeling method.
Framing is one of the other methods the news media utilizes for shaping society and
influencing how people feel and act on essential issues. Framing has to do with the
presentation of the news, and it can potentially change the audience’s perspective. The
presentation way can be in multiple ways, but one of the most effective ones is language since
it has to with people’s senses. The language has the potential to penetrate the public’s feelings
and thoughts. According to Aalai (2017), language is vital within these displays since it serves
as the psychological feature framework in which we tend to perceive the world around us and,
in the case of exposure to news, make sense of an event or a story. Therefore, the change in
the language tends to affect people’s senses, and it can change the way they perceive
information. The level of toughness of the language in the reports changes the reflection. For
instance, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death is reported in October 2019 in the Washington Post,
and he is described as ‘austere religious scholar.’ (Warrick,2019). This description contains
moderating language to tone the attitude toward him by using the framing method of
manipulation in these senses. The reaction people gave to his personality has the potential to
mellowing after this statement. Therefore, the framing method shapes people’s perspectives a
done of the most effective ways for it is language.
Being aware of these manipulation methods such as framing and labeling and starting to
examine the information in different aspects may be considered crucial to avoid perception
management in the news media. Developing critical thinking is one of the essential steps to
starting an awareness of perception management. Ones with critical thinking mind will
probably not accept the information immediately because they will consider the possibility to
confront manipulations, bias that most of the time generated by the media sources. However,
the reporters usually serve their and their companies particular believes, political stances,
thoughts. Having one perspective about issues is one of the final obstacles in the awareness
process because if people read multiple sources, they will probably start to analyze
objectively. The public will have the potential to understand different ideas and the fullest
extent of the subject. Mastrine (2020) validates these statements in his writing about 5 Tools
to Avoid Media Manipulation This Election Year. “Avoiding political manipulation means
cutting through partisanship and having a truly informed stance on issues — not living in a
filter bubble and refusing to speak or listen to the other side.” (para. 9) After cutting through
partisanship and reading, observing objectively, people may start to develop an awareness of
media’s effects. People will recognize the filters in the media after they examine other
perspectives on an issue. This may facilitate a more conscious consumption of media and help
people to avoid media manipulations with critical thinking.
In conclusion, the news media is trying to shape society’s thoughts; feelings by using methods
of manipulation. While labeled words that have positive or negative meanings induce a sense
of community and influence the public’s perception about the issue, framing information
manages the people’s perception with cognitive frameworks. Moreover, these days
manipulations are almost in every source, so the audience should not stop to consider bias.
They should avoid these manipulations by knowing its methods, raising awareness, and
examining different aspects.
References:
Aalai, A. (2017). Media Framing Effects. Retrieved from:
[Link]
framing-effects
Parenti, M. (2015). Methods of Media Manipulation. Retrieved from:
[Link]
Mastrine, J. (2020). 5 Tools to Avoid Media Manipulation This Election Year.
Retrieved from: [Link]
election-year
Wadley, J. (2016). Word choice: Hidden meanings can influence our judgment.
Retrieved from: [Link]
our-judgment/
Warrick, J (2019). Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, extremist leader of Islamic State, dies at 48
Retrieved from: [Link]
baghdadi-islamic-states-terrorist-in-chief-dies-at-48/2019/10/27/0d004abc-663d-11e7-
8eb5-cbccc2e7bfbf_story.html
