Study Task 1 - Reading and Understanding a Text

Tone of voice

Almost angry that people sit by and watch the government manipulate or thoughts.

Key points

Invisible Government

Manipulation of the mass consciousness

The way our society is structured

Mechanised society

Society: “those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country”

Culture: “As civilization has become more complex the technical means have been invented and developed by which opinion may be regimented”

Technology: “With the printing press and the newspaper, the railroad, the telephone, telegraph, radio and airplanes, ideas can be spread rapidly and even instantaneously over the whole of America"

Political: “Modern means of communication of getting quick replies and effective discussion have opened a new world of political processes”

The main issue that Bernays covers in this article is the fact that our mechanized society has been man made by an invisible government to mold and manipulate our minds as a form of order and control. This sense of control has been created and filtered into the public over many years by rich organisations that are predominately white men.

The ‘invisible government’ controls our westernized society from the shadows; they do this in multiple ways through the use of propaganda that is force fed to the public via numerous sources of media, including newspapers, posters and television. They plant subtle forms of control and due to the rising technological world, these ideas rapidly spread throughout the public and into the mass conscious, meaning that the government tell us lie after lie and because the public are being manipulated into forms of control they will believe everything they see on T.V.

To summaries, modern society’s like America are being manipulated through propaganda and are given a false sense of free will. Free will is something that has been taken from us and used against us. We don’t realize it but the corrupt system has made us think the way we do. Brainwashed.