How The Media Persuades

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." -Friedrich Nietzsche

There's always a frame around the things we hear, whether it be intentional or unintentional. Take the media, for example. There are only five or six mega corporations that disseminate information to us about what is going on in the world, and really, if you watch much TV, you'll see that they're really not giving out much real news at all. There's a bottom line to consider and jeopardizing the corporation's profitability is not an option.

We are a nation of television addicts. According to A.C. Neilsen Co (those are the ratings people), the average American watches more than four hours of television per day. That's twenty-eight hours a week. Two months out of each year. By the time you're 65, that's nine full years of television.

The same thing happens when we watch television as when we hear a story-our critical minds shut down and we absorb the information with very little resistance. We become passive. We allow the message to sink in and carry us away. The media sucks us in, it alters our consciousness and that's one of the reasons that it's so absolutely powerful. Another reason is it uses so many of our senses, it engages us fully.

At this point, the news doesn't really care about informing us, they really are mostly about keeping us entertained and consuming. Could this be on purpose? Could they have taken a piece of wisdom from Lao-Tzu who sad, "People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge."

Recently I was in line at the grocery store and overheard a young woman talking a blue streak to her father. She was rehashing all the current gossip and referring to the celebrities by their first names, as if she knew them personally. This went on for a while until her father said, 'Do you know who the Secretary of State is?' A blank stare was all he got back.

The girl was absolutely unashamed of the fact that she didn't know. Willfully ignorant. 'What difference does that make in my life?' she said. And what does this illustrate? Increasingly, the media diverts our attention from what is truly important and funnels it to starlets in rehab, or sharks off the coast of Florida or who is in rehab. All kinds of things keep us in an altered state so that we don't object very loudly.

Another way to keep us off guard is the way they've figured out how to divert our attention to terror. Notice the terror level never drops down below orange. Keeping us in a permanent state of fear helps them to point at one thing (terror) while, with a slight of hand, they're enacting something like the Patriot Act which chisels away our civil liberties.

Think of some ways you can use diversion to help in business and sales. And more importantly, think of the ways these persuasion skills can be used to protect yourself from others trying to divert and persuade you.

About the Author

Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of affluent prospects using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques.

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