https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/03/02/coronavirus-the-contagion-of-propaganda/
Here I want to comment on the true contagion of propaganda.
The press is piling on, as it always does. A story, true or false—it doesn’t matter—describes how basic items are disappearing from store shelves in a town like there’s no tomorrow.
The STORY causes fear. So more products disappear from store shelves in more places. Now a NEW story with photos of empty shelves takes center stage. More fear. More panic buying. And so forth and so on. The build-out of propaganda.
The psychological equation is: if there is fear, then the virus must be dangerous. But this is actually like saying: if a man walking on a street at night believes a mugger is about to parachute out of the sky, the sky-mugger must be real.
The story the press should be featuring is: “our coverage of so-called panic is creating panic.” RUN THAT PIECE.
“Today in Manhattan, six greed-head editors of major newspapers and television news outlets met to discuss how their coverage is causing more and more fear. They agreed they were collaborating to incur a desired reaction…”
“Hey, guess what?” five hundred thousand readers and viewers of mainstream news say immediately. “THEY’RE making us afraid.” If only that could happen, we’d be living in a different world.
The press is also cross-cutting stories. This technique works well. In the middle of a piece about empty store shelves, we’re suddenly treated to a statement from some public health official, who says, “Epidemic cases are coming to America. We can’t stop them.” Now you have two themes; each one gives added strength to the other. But wait. There’s more. In the SAME STORY, we read or hear about a man in Montana or Arizona who has been identified as a carrier of the virus. He’s being sequestered in a hospital. It’s a triple play. Three streams of nonsense pouring into one another.
We’re not nearly finished yet, because…social media. Someone takes the above story and flashes it on Twitter. Comments stretch out. A Twitter reader with a YouTube account sits down and turns out a quick video and posts it. His twist is: this is the big one; doomsday; it’s a planned attack using the coronavirus.