Wen Yang, 8/10/20
文扬：西方的舆论操纵如何毁伤了自身？
In 2020, I believe historians in the future will pay special attention to the year, because too many things happened in the year.What happened to the international development of China’s IT industry? China’s IT industry has been collectively blocked this year. Huawei, ByteDance and Tencent, the three leading IT enterprises, have been suppressed.
On the surface, IT seems to be a matter of IT industry, which is a technical and market issue, involving information technology. But at deeper level it involves flow, distribution and dissemination of information and ultimately the control of information. The U.S. Department of Commerce and some other western countries all restrict the expansion of Chinese pioneer IT enterprises in the global market.
But is the problem limited to technology and market? In fact, since Snowden in 2013 revealed the inside story of the United States really monitoring the world and collecting important information in various countries. Geopolitics, big power diplomacy, global governance, and cyber security were the issues. Therefore, after the Snowden incident, we can use the reasons used by the United States to attack other countries to counter it. The fundamental problem is not technology and market.
The concept of information is too broad. If we focus on news, we will see that there is another side to things. If we examine information technology in a news network, we will find that there is something called “news technology”, which is related to the flow and dissemination of news, and even the control of news.
Not only that, but our world is also shrouded by something called the “Truth Network”. There is a kind of technology called “truth technology”, which is related to the flow and spread of truth. In the end, it will be discovered that someone is controlling the truth of the world. This is not a simple information technology issue, it includes some very complex technologies.
The Big Four news agencies
The control of global news and truth is not just happening now. It has a history of 200 years. This matter should start from the middle and late 19th century. Anyone who has studied journalism and history knows that the media output news through newspapers in the early days, and the public also relies on newspapers for new ideas.
By the mid-19th century, the Big Four news agencies began to appear one after another. In 1835, Charles-Louis Havas founded the world’s first news agency, namely the Agence Havas in France; then the Harbor News Association (the predecessor of the Associated Press) in the United States; The Wolf News Agency appeared in Germany; and Reuters in the UK.
After the emergence of news agencies, a network was formed at that time, which was responsible for distributing news to the global newspaper media. In other words, after the rise of these four news agencies, the news in the world was divided up by these four news agencies (see figure below).
Why were these news agencies able to carve up the world? This is of course related to the absolute leadership of the colonial empire in politics, military, economy, culture, and technology. The sphere of influence divided by them is actually a large part of colonies, and these colonies do not have these advantages.
The figure below shows the world communication cable shares. The world of communication cables at the time was a bit like the Internet today. At that time, most areas did not have a share of communication cables at all and did not have this technology at all.
As we all know, McLuhan has a famous saying that media is information. I believe many friends who first came into contact with McLuhan’s theory don’t quite understand this sentence. In fact, this was true at that time, because it was a pre-information age, and information was scarce. All new information was spread with the new media technology, so there was such an effect that “media is information” in a certain period of time. At that time, Roderick Jones, general manager of Reuters, once said:
It can be seen that the news agency’s control of world news at that time was a kind of monopoly, which was a cartel. Cartels are actually illegal in various countries. The United States has a special antitrust law, and the monopoly implemented for the common interests of such enterprise alliances in the same industry must be restricted. But who can limit the monopoly control of the global news information flow by the Western news agencies at that time? No, none at all.
Resistance to Media Imperialism
Later, some resistance gradually appeared in the south countries. The south countries were formerly colonized countries, and they began to feel strongly the domination of media imperialism. All the important happenings in their own countries are explained and defined by western news agencies, and hence these countries have taken a series of actions to resist the imperialist overreach.
Before the collective action of the south countries, a group of left-wing scholars in the West actually put forward some theories, which are truly effective until today. For example, in 1968, some western non-governmental associations held a meeting in Yugoslavia, at which it was pointed out that the system of controlling people’s thoughts has become increasingly better, and foreign thoughts have been continuously imposed on the minds of people in other countries, so that people’s minds in contemporary society have become prisoners of foreign thoughts without knowing it. In other words, people were being systematically brainwashed.
In 1969, UNESCO pointed out a problem at a meeting in Montreal:
Although the news media can expand the international consensus, the flow of information between cultures does not necessarily improve the international consensus. On the contrary the so-called free flow of information is actually a one-way flow of information, and not a real exchange of information.
In the confrontation between these western left-wing scholars and South countries against the North countries (the West), China was absent from the picture. The West distorts the world reality by controlling the news and truth, but resistance to the hegemony of western media came into being very late.
But during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the Anti-CNN movement rose in China. At that time, the Chinese people suddenly found that the western media completely ignored the truth and made a lot of distorted reports about China, which led to the Anti-CNN movement. In fact, some discourses used by the people at that time had already been used by scholars from south countries and western left wing as early as 1960s and 1970s, and thus China were quite late in this respect.
The third battlefield is UNESCO. For a long time, UNESCO has been the main battlefield against Western media imperialism. In the early 1970s, UNESCO adopted a resolution requiring the Director-General to submit a draft declaration on consolidating peace, strengthening international consensus and opposing war, racism and apartheid by using mass media at the next plenary meeting. It has been clearly pointed out that the global mass media should have collective justice, anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism and anti-racism. This requirement led to a declaration made by UNESCO in 1978:
The Basic Principles Declaration on the Contribution of Mass Media to Strengthening Peace and International Consensus, Promoting Human Rights and Opposing Racism, Apartheid and War Incitement.
The declaration basically includes the positions of three parties: one is the Eastern camp headed by the Soviet Union at that time, the other is the Western camp represented by the United States, and the other is the Southern camp of the Non-Aligned Movement countries. The positions of these three parties are very clear: the eastern camp mainly emphasizes the responsibility of the media, which is very similar to the position of our Chinese government now; Of course, as always, the Western camp emphasizes freedom; The southern camp emphasizes neither responsibility nor freedom, but balance. The three parties repeatedly played games, and finally formed a declaration that included all three words. However, the word “responsibility” appeared only once, “freedom” representing the western position of the United States appeared seven times, and “balance” representing the position of non-aligned countries appeared four times.
In 1980, UNESCO published a famous report, The MacBride Report, also known as Multiple Voices, One World. It was named after Seán MacBride, an Irish and a famous anti-imperialist fighter who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974. The report contains 82 suggestions, conveying that the media and news should not only be allowed a certain degree of freedom, but also emphasize responsibility and balance.
Western compromises and counterattacks
However it appeared all these resistance seem to have little effect in the end. In the 1980s, the West carried out an organized counter-offensive. Looking back now, it can basically be said that three fists and two feet have defeated the efforts of the Eastern Block and the South Countries for so many years. What happened then?
The three parties experienced many struggles and games back and forth, but as a result, something happened in 1980s. The West utilized it advantages in various aspects, especially in technology and carried out its plans through the United Nations. It provided advanced electronic technologies to assist South countries in developing radio and television stations, and introduced all kinds of communication technologies. Finally, the Media Development Assistance Program was formed.
Hundreds of millions of dollars was spend on this program, and there are about a dozen contributing countries that help the third world countries develop modern media technology and establish media industry. Today, we can hardly imagine that India was one of the 13 donors at that time, and China was the object of help. The Communication University of China once had two projects, which came from this program.
At the beginning, developing countries thought that it seemed that they could make up the gap with the West through this mean. However, after the implementation of the program for a period of time, developing countries found that the effect was just the opposite, as they became more dependent on the West and the flow of information was more asymmetric. They could use their own limited media power to fight against it, but the broadcasting equipment, technicians and supports are controlled by others. The plan actually failed in the end. This is the first wave of western counter-offensive. Then things got worse and worse.
As we all know, the so-called neo-liberal revolution started from the mid-1970s, and in the early 1980s, with Reagan and Thatcher coming to power, a big right-wing counter-offensive in the whole West began. This counter-offensive includes attacks on the left wing of media in the south and east since the mid-1960s. At about that time, 21 western countries held a conference on media in France, and the declaration issued at this conference declared the beginning of the Western counter-offensive.
They put forward that freedom of the media is one of the basic human rights, and completely revised the concept that the access and dissemination of information is a basic human right put forward by the South countries and the Eastern Block countries. The basic human rights put forward by the South countries are based on the fact that every citizen in the world should have the basic right to obtain all kinds of information. However, at this conference in France, the western countries mentioned media rights, but in fact only the western big global media which have formed monopoly in history have corresponding rights, thus reversing the whole direction.
In 1983, the U.S. government began to openly attack UNESCO, arguing that UNESCO undermined media freedom and freedom of speech. At that time, American officials, from Vice President Bush to State Department Spokesman to Secretary of State, began to attack UNESCO continuously. In 1984, the United States and Britain formally withdrew from UNESCO.
With the withdrawal of the United States and Britain, in fact, the attack of the world left-wing forces against western media liberalism basically failed. Since that period, the arguments about freedom of speech and freedom of media in the west began to be rampant.
Because China began to reform and open up in the late 1970s, for a long period of time, we hope to be in line with international standards, live in peace with the West and win-win cooperation, so in such a situation, China did not participate in this round of game. In the late 1990s and the 21st century, China found that western media had double standards, but in fact, many words we used later had been used in international forums more than 50 years ago.
Why the resistance against Western media imperialism failed?
Let’s sum up, why we never leap out of the circle of this game, and why these justification of western media imperialism can always be established. In fact, it has finally become a political philosophy problem, where the West, the East and the South each hold on their own core concepts of political philosophy. The West emphasizes that the media also has rights. In fact, the media rights in the West have become power in history.
By the way, power (权力) and right (权利) are homonyms in Chinese, which is a great confusion. In English, they are completely two concepts. Up to now, our news media are often confused. There is so much confusion in such an important core concept of political philosophy, which shows that there are actually many problems in our ideological circle.
Right of media is actually power, and the greater its right, the greater its power. Therefore, the West emphasizes that its own media have rights, which actually means power. To put it bluntly, the freedom of speech is used to exercise its freedom to do wrong deeds.
Eastern block countries are late-developing countries. In order to pursue their own independence, the late-developing countries especially emphasize sovereignty, so we emphasize the responsibility of the media, while the South countries mainly emphasize human rights and balance. These three concepts are always circling around, and no one can convince anyone.
What is the problem? Let’s go back to the information network, news network and truth network I talked about at the beginning. Let’s look at it from another angle. Information is actually unannounced happenings, and people cannot grasp the flow of all information. News is reported events and selected related events. On top of this, there is another thing, that is, current knowledge and public opinion (see below).
Since the four major news agencies carved up the world for the past 200 years, popular knowledge and public opinions about the world have always been controlled by the West. The West talks about freedom of speech, media rights and pluralistic views all the time, but in the final analysis it is actually maintaining a monopoly on popular knowledge and public opinion. In every round of game, the West will reduce it to technical issues and always talk about technologies, and conceals the core problem.
A big lie
On the monopoly of popular knowledge about the world and public opinion, once you have unrestricted power, what can you do? There are actually some things in this world that can really be called big lies.
It is a basic fact that the debts of developing countries are actually increasing all the time. Developing countries will find themselves trapped in a debt trap all the time. This debt trap basically started after World War II. The more they owe, the more they keep borrowing money from the West which attach more conditions to these loans.
This is a big lie about debt, and almost all developing countries are now stuck in it. But go back and search for “debt trap” with Google or other search engines. What do you find? Now, the West has blamed all the debt crisis on China. If you want to search the relevant information of debt trap, you will all blame China for letting developing countries fall into debt trap through “the belt and road initiative”, BRICS Bank and aid to Africa.
Let’s look at another thing that can be called a big lie-the Washington Consensus.
The troika of the U.S. Treasury Department, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank promotes the so-called liberalization, marketization and privatization to the whole world, claiming that as long as you follow this, your economy can develop and the debts of your underdeveloped countries can be repaid as soon as possible. What is the final result? Even Stiglitz criticized that whatever new consensus is better than Washington consensus. But when the Washington Consensus was first implemented, the whole world had no power to resist.
Big lie on global climate change.
In 1992, the United Nations formulated a framework convention on climate change. Since then, 99% of scientists in the scientific community have recognized that climate change is a reality, and collective actions must be taken to reverse the trend. But after 30 years, you will find that this matter has become more and more uncertain, and there are some opinions, even so-called scientific arguments, that deny global climate change all over the world.
How did this come out? A scholar from an American university made a survey. From 2003 to 2010, about 140 American conservative foundations distributed $558 million to 91 different non-profit organizations in the form of 5,299 funds, and launched a huge movement to turn things around. Therefore, we will see things that have already been clearly stated. The collective reports of scientists, the conventions reached between governments and the consensus formed have gradually been overturned and become so uncertain.
The remarks against climate change from these right-wing politicians, conservative foundations and media think tank experts sound ridiculous. They will incite the public, saying that once energy is saved and emission is reduced, even the food for your cats, dogs and small pets will increase by 40%, and you may have to put your pets to death. They use this kind of speech to incite the public to oppose various policies on green environmental protection.
Big lie on COVID-19 epidemic.
This year, we have seen that since the outbreak of the epidemic in Wuhan, Hubei Province, other provinces and cities in China have been given early warning, acquired relevant knowledge and adopted a series of measures. It is said that overseas countries are farther away from Wuhan, Hubei Province, and they have a longer warning time. If similar measures are taken, their curves should be similar to those of non-Hubei areas in China. But what is the reality? The proportion of confirmed cases in China has disappeared now, while many overseas regions are still growing rapidly.
Although the facts are obvious, many people in the West are blaming China for the problem, particularly the United States and Trump. They are still using their monopoly on the truth and major news events to make big lies, and they know exactly what they are doing.
Chinese people always rebutted by claiming the “double standards” in Western media, saying “you practice double standards” and “you are reversing black and white”. In fact, this rebuttal has no power. Let’s stop talking about double standards, as they clearly know that they are implementing double standards and unabashed about it.
The power manipulating public opinion
This is the most important thing. We must recognize clearly that in western history, pursuing this kind of power ensues defining opponents as criminals, criminalizing opponents’ actions, and defining oneself as the embodiment of justice, exonerating ourselves from crimes and justifying the crimes committed.
This is a kind of theocracy, a kind of power deeply rooted in monotheistic tradition. Since its rise, the West has always adhered to this kind of power. Holding the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other hand, it conquered the world. In the modern society, as religious power declined they still maintained this power by monopolizing the truths, by manipulating major news and popular knowledge.
So what technology do they use?
In 1986, the Guardian newspaper published an advertisement “Points of view” on TV stations and cinemas, which is one of the most famous short films in advertising history. At first, everyone saw a perspective. A young man was escaping from a car, just like a very typical Hollywood gangster film. He seemed to be avoiding people’s pursuit. Immediately the perspective was changed and it turned out that there was a businessman in front, and it appeared he was trying to rob the businessman. But from another perspective, it turned out that building materials were falling from the top of the businessman’s head. He actually pushed the businessman away and saved him.
Given the three perspectives, we come to three different judgments. The final conclusion is that only the Guardian can provide the most comprehensive perspective to let you know the truth (that is only when you get the whole picture, you can fully understand what is going on). Most people have no problem in agreeing very much that this is about freedom of speech, pluralistic views and only the Western media can reveal the truth. In fact, this is a huge scam.
People who really study media theory will understand that to describe a reality, three perspectives are far from enough. When we see western media newspapers and televisions, they will definitely follow this rule. An event will interview both pros and cons, and then ask three or four experts to talk about this matter on TV. After 10 minutes’ talk, the western public is usually relieved and thinks that’s it. In fact, the real truth is just concealed by this superficial three perspectives. These media people and think tank scholars who really manipulate public opinion in the West fully understand this point, but most Western public think, “Is it right? That’s it. “
The second mechanism, everyone knows that there is a “Gresham’s Law” in economics, and bad money drives out good money; If we think of speech as a free market, we will find that there is a rule called “bad words drive out good words”.
Why don’t you go back to our Chinese tradition? Let’s take a look at the many words beside our words. In ancient times, there were more words. Now, many of them are no longer used. However, if you simply search, you will find that there are many more bad words than good ones.
A kind of speech is called “impartial remark”. It is not very useful now. In the past, it meant honest, kind and good words. We ancients never referred to a person’s speech as speech, and then said that speech should be free, never like this; Speech itself has been divided into good and bad, and bad speech is qualitative from the beginning, so people can’t say it casually.
However, there is still a popular saying today, “rumor opens one’s mouth, rumors run and legs break”. Rumors can fully enjoy the rules of freedom of speech. We will find a large number of public rumors, lies and forged truths in the western media. But the mechanism does not allow one to refute it easily.
Chomsky told a story. He complained to the TV station, “Why don’t you always let me talk? I have seen many rumors in the media, and I want to expose them. ” The editorial director of the TV station is also his friend. He said, “It is not that you are not allowed to speak, but your language is too’ not concise’.” Chomsky tried hard to think about the meaning of this word, and then he finally understood that if you want to refute him, it will take at least three times or five times to clarify the truth against him, but the TV station won’t give you this time, because the advertising time is up. Therefore, he discovered that those who reveal the truth will never have a chance. He said there are only two choices, either you talk crazy and talk nonsense with those people, or you give up this right. So this is also one of their mechanisms.
The third mechanism is deeper. Western media has brainwashed the western public for a long time, resulting in shrinking thinking. Everyone has the opportunity to read Possman’s “Entertainment to Death” again. This book is not outdated until today. The more entertainment, the less thinking.
Recently, there was a documentary film “The Great Divide of America: From Obama to Trump”. Everyone will see a background sound running through the whole documentary film, that is, the laughter of American TV viewers. As long as they turn on the TV to watch political news, the first reaction is that I am ready to laugh, not to think.
So Possman said, if I tell a very important news on TV, saying that nuclear war is inevitable, the destruction of mankind is just around the corner. What will happen next? The following is still advertising time, or what to do. No one will say that after listening to this news or this point of view, the national TV should stop for half a day, and leave half a day to think about what to do. It won’t be like this. Still, there is an entertainment program below. Everyone continues to laugh, but there is no formal thinking.
Everyone knows that Navarro blatantly talked nonsense in the media during the whole epidemic. He said that all the viruses were spread by China, and the viruses were produced in the laboratory, and then the Chinese government allowed Chinese citizens to freely travel around the world and spread the viruses. No one has time to refute him. Many Americans still believe him.
Society damaged by “modern theocracy”
So this is a society that has been damaged by “modern theocracy”. We know where the diseases are in today’s western society. There are many angles, and this is one angle. In fact, they have always been a country where politics and religion are integrated, and this religion is a kind of “modern theocracy”. The real rulers are these people who manipulate public opinion.
Isaac Isaac Asimov, a Jewish American writer born in Soviet Russia and a biochemist, said in 1980 that there has always been an anti-intellectual tradition and “a cult of ignorance” in the United States. How do we understand it today?
We all know that Hayek wrote “Fatal Conceit”. In fact, today’s Western society is “fatal deception”-the upper elite worships deception, because they have always ruled the world by it. The lower class people worship ignorance. This epidemic clearly exposes the damage to society .
Source: https://www.guancha.cn/WenYang/2020_10_08_567412.shtml
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