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Old February 22nd, 2008 #5
Alex Linder
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Join Date: Nov 2003
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Igor Alexander View Post
The problem with the U.S. is that much (most?) of the propaganda is coming from the private sector, e.g. Hollywood. Any time a critic points out that Hollywood is disseminating propaganda, Hollywood replies that it's just "giving the public what it wants," or that it's "art reflecting life," or if worse comes to worst, that it's a free market and anyone who doesn't like what they're doing can butt out (this last line is particularly hard to swallow, since Hollywood is under the control of a cartel). People working in the media are overwhelmingly liberal (or are what Bob Whitaker calls "respectable conservatives") and figure the propaganda they are disseminating is "for a good cause."

I think the Hollywood propaganda is worse than anything the Soviet Union ever had, because at least in the Soviet Union, people knew it was propaganda.
There's some truth to that. The U.S. has paid directly to get anti-drug messages written into scripts. It would be silly to think that all these agencies have money to run PSAs (public service announcements) all over tv and radio but refrain from getting into mature pictures and prime-time content.

Also, the government forces advertisers to incorporate 92% minorities into practically every ad on television. So there's plenty of direct governmental involvement in American media too.