Mass media

"Social media has degenerated into a deafening cacophony of groups signaling and repeating their shared myths." Naval Ravikant

"There is no such thing, at this stage of the world’s history in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dare write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my papers, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes." John Swinton

"History will show that humanity in the 21st century was not enslaved by whips, chains, knives, or guns. It was enslaved by a small black box with around 666 (or so) channels, known as the television. They pump bullshit into our brains and expect us to regurgitate it to the next farmer we talk to." Unbekannt

"I say we close down the national media for 30 days and watch 80% of the world's problems go away." Unbekannter Autor

"As proposals for action along new lines arise to compete for the moral and physical support of masses, propaganda attains eminence as the one means of mass mobilization which is cheaper than violence, bribery or other possible control techniques." Harold D. Lasswell

"Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent every year to control the public mind" Noam Chomsky

"It is hardly necessary to point out that the inability of the masses to judge correctly deprives them of any capacity for critical thought—that is, the ability to distinguish truth from error and to form a sound judgment. The judgments adopted by the masses are merely imposed on them and are never the result of careful examination. Many individuals, in this respect, do not rise above the level of the crowd. The ease with which certain opinions become widely accepted is due above all to the inability of most people to form an opinion of their own on the basis of personal reasoning." Gustave Le Bon

"The influential news and press agencies are deeply intertwined with the interests of high finance." Christian Faltermeier

"The mass media are a kind of mouthpiece for the consciousness of the population. If this powerful instrument falls into the wrong hands, it can cause more damage than all available nuclear weapons combined." Christian Faltermeier

"When I sometimes leaf through my company's press review in the morning, I get the feeling that the range of opinion used to be broader. There is an astonishing homogeneity in German editorial offices when it comes to weighing up and classifying information. The pressure to conform in the minds of journalists seems to me to be quite high." Frank-Walter Steinmeier

"he who dictates and formulates the words and phrases we use, he who is master of the press and radio, is master of the mind." Joost A.M. Meerloo

"If terrorism is based on creating fear—the greatest terrorism is media." Simen Valom

"Mass media do not convey reality, they create it." Prof. Querulix

"What they call ‘public opinion’ is media opinion: an opinion created by education and the media." José Luis Sampedro