{"id":32956,"date":"2017-06-24T01:00:03","date_gmt":"2017-06-24T05:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=32956"},"modified":"2018-06-18T14:00:49","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T18:00:49","slug":"qotd-manipulation-of-public-opinion-using-optics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/06\/24\/qotd-manipulation-of-public-opinion-using-optics\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Manipulation of public opinion using &#8220;optics&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Public business is now done this way in \u201cdemocracy,\u201d thanks to media that can capture emotional moments, usually posed and contrived. A successful politician, such as Barack Obama, exploits them with genius, and a cool confidence that the public has a very low attention span. They will only remember emotional moments. Angela Merkel herself usually does a better job, but nothing much can be done about an ambush. She did her best to diffuse it. She\u2019s a pro: I\u2019m sure she knew exactly what the game was; that she\u2019d been set up. From working in the media, I have seen such set-ups many times: all the cameras flashing on cue. Tricks of editing and camera angle are used to enhance the \u201cteachable moment\u201d; to condense the narrative into a hard rock of emotion, aimed directly at the boogeyperson\u2019s head. For the media people are pros, too. They know how to adjust the \u201coptics.\u201d Pretty young woman crying: that will sway everyone except the tiny minority who know something about the subject. And they are now tarred with the same brush.<\/p>\n<p>Huge changes in public life can be effected with big money, careful organization, and ruthless attention to \u201coptics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>David Warren, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.davidwarrenonline.com\/2015\/07\/17\/authority\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Authority&#8221;, <em>Essays in Idleness<\/em><\/a>, 2015-07-17.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Public business is now done this way in \u201cdemocracy,\u201d thanks to media that can capture emotional moments, usually posed and contrived. A successful politician, such as Barack Obama, exploits them with genius, and a cool confidence that the public has a very low attention span. They will only remember emotional moments. Angela Merkel herself usually [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,53,41],"tags":[1212,158,269,101],"class_list":["post-32956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-politics","category-quotations","tag-angelamerkel","tag-barackobama","tag-propaganda","tag-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-8zy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32957,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32956\/revisions\/32957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}