After reading George Orwell’s 1984, Jake Vengraitis and I presented a “Tech Talk” that was inspired by the issues raised in the book, such as government surveillance, freedom of speech, thought, and expression, privacy, or technology. Jake and I decided to focus more on the media as a whole as well as large media conglomerates and different ways the media can influence and even brainwash an individual, which relates to 1984’s concept of doublethink and the “big brother” propaganda used to fool the citizens.
The media brainwashes us in many ways. We talked about the specific ways the media appeals to our emotions, use infotainment, clickbait, and biases in order to achieve their own selfish agenda. Our first two videos were examples of political bias in news organizations. The first one was on reactions to Michelle Obama’s speech in 2008, and the second was on reactions to Donald Trump’s “sh*thole countries” remark.
The two videos showed the ways the media enforces their biases onto the public by showing the same viewpoints over and over again. Although it is important to note that it is impossible to completely remove bias, it is apparent that many times these news organizations that claim to be unbiased are not really even attempting to expand their viewpoints. In this way, media companies can overly influence their viewers and even brainwash them to the point where society is unable to come up with new and original ideas, and are rather just going along with their “political beliefs” without understanding what they truly are. When we asked the class about their thoughts on these videos, Grace Morrissey stated that a good way to combat this problem would be to regularly watch both media sources that appear to be on both sides of the spectrum in order to expand our views and beliefs without being brainwashed by the media in this way. Colin Arber also responded by reiterating the point that all news should be taken with a “grain of salt.”
The next source we showed was an example of ways the media could appeal to our emotions in order to achieve this ulterior motive. Generally, this technique is seen in ASPCA commercials (appealing to our empathy), and food commercials (appealing to our food cravings). In this video, however, a comedian takes this technique to the next level by setting up an elaborate fake viral video of a pig saving a baby goat in order to attract tourists to the petting zoo. The video was made mostly for comedic relief but the effects of the video are very real. News companies and a majority of the public was fooled into believing the video. Although the comedian decided not to include the name of the petting zoo in the video as he felt it was not the right thing to do, it is apparent that the media has the capabilities to brainwash us in this way and are likely doing it right now without us realizing it. We also showed another example of a group of people fooling the internet into thinking Justin Beiber eats burritos sideways. through the use of this technique, asserting the idea that this issue is relevant in our society today.
As a final activity, we decided to have the class draw small symbols or logos “sketchnote” style on a post-it note that represented anything they had learned during our presentation. These are some of the sketches they created:
I feel that our facilitation of this discussion went very well. We made good choices with the sources as the class remained mostly engaged and interested in the topic. I think one thing that could have worked better was that we should have come up with a better system to display the sketches of the class since many of the post-its were sub-par in their stickiness levels. I was pleasantly surprised by how during the reflection with the post-it activity, most of the class focused on the large idea of the ability of the media to influence and brainwash its audience, rather than just focusing on the video of the pig and Justin Beiber. I had expected more of the class to focus on the more “entertaining” parts of the facilitation and was glad to see that everyone had paid attention to the important lessons as well.
Annotated Bibliography:
“’Brainwashed Cult’: US Broadcast Group Slammed for Mass ‘Fake News’ Promos.” SBS News, SBS News, 2 Apr. 2018, http://www.sbs.com.au/news/brainwashed-cult-us-broadcast-group-slammed-for-mass-fake-news-promos.
Central, Comedy. “Nathan For You – Petting Zoo Hero Pt. 2.” YouTube, YouTube, 8 Mar. 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvtJj6HoYHg.
Central, Comedy. “Nathan For You – Petting Zoo Hero.” YouTube, YouTube, 26 Feb. 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2My_HOP-bw. This video is an example of how the media can use appeals to emotion in order to brainwash the viewers. Although it was intended as a comedy video, we believed it also effectively supported our idea of media being too overly influential.
Farhi, Paul. “How Biased Are the Media, Really?” The Washington Post, WP Company, 27 Apr. 2012, http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-biased-is-the-media-really/2012/04/27/gIQA9jYLmT_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a6cd2c8de4f5.
Liebau, Platt. “The Biggest Problem With Media Bias.” Townhall, Townhall.com, 25 Sept. 2012, townhall.com/tipsheet/carolplattliebau/2012/09/25/the-biggest-problem-with-media-bias-n665273.
Purcell, Natalie. “Doublethink in 1984: Definition & Examples.” Study.com, Study.com, study.com/academy/lesson/doublethink-in-1984-definition-examples.html.
Post, Washington. “CNN and Fox News Hosts React to Trump’s ‘Shithole’ Remark.” YouTube, YouTube, 12 Jan. 2018, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrynNeqx48I. This video is an example of major media corporations showing biases. The source, The Huffington Post is reputable and reliable but it is still biased. However, the video doesn’t contain any opinions, only examples.
Slate. “Fox vs. MSNBC: Michelle’s Speech.” YouTube, YouTube, 27 Aug. 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2Pjudf0810. This video, like the Huffington post video, is merely a compilation of clips from other news corporations that show media bias. Although the source itself could be biased, the information in the video is reliable because it only gives examples, not opinions or claims.
“The Art of Brainwashing.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brain-chemistry/201803/the-art-brainwashing. This article from Psychology today was the source we used to research media brainwashing and different techniques the media uses to brainwash the viewers.
Theory, Yes. “We Fooled the Internet w/ Fake Justin Bieber Burrito Photo.” YouTube, YouTube, 28 Oct. 2018, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs6In7UtyXY.