How could modern propaganda be more effective? - Or have we reached maximum propaganda potential?

[Overly Serious]

So I am writing a short story and in it just as an aside I wanted a character to suggest a way that modern mass media propaganda could be made more effective. And I suddenly came to a stop because I couldn't think of anything. Everything it occurred to me to suggest was already being done and done very well. I pulled up a Wikipedia page (irony when researching propaganda) to get a list of propaganda techniques. There wasn't one I couldn't immediately point out in modern society used at great length.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_techniques

https://archive.md/4xijb

Third Party Technique? Countless well-financed examples. Scopes, ADL, et al. Virtue Words? Oh, ha ha! Good Lord, yes! 'Diversity' and 'Equity' are everywhere. Milieu Control? Every university in North America. Latitudes of Acceptance? I.e. start with what you can get away with and then slowly creep it forward? LGBTQTSIOMGBBQ++ is a case in point where we now have paedophiles trying to rebrand themselves as "MAPs"

Honestly, with almost anything in society, opinionated me, I can point at it and say "well it would be better accomplished if they..." But on propaganda I'm drawing a blank. Which leads me to ask, have we reached the point where propaganda has reached its maximum viable effectiveness in our society? There's not a technique that doesn't seem to be used and used to its maximum possible effectiveness.

Is there actually any way that propaganda in Western society could be made more effective?

 

[CowPox]

Make people hungry enough and they will do anything you tell them to.

 

[Breadbassket]

Deliberately erode senses of community, atomize people, exploit political tribalism and aggressively control the flow of information as much as possible?

 

[WTBOnlineFather]

We brainwash children since the first time they see a screen, which now is typically at a few months old at most, or even earlier if the parents are retarded. This brainwashing picks up the pace heavily and shapes the kid's entire personality in kindergarten and in school.
I don't think propaganda can get much more powerful than that, it'd just be a matter of nuance.

 

[Overly Serious]

Make people hungry enough and they will do anything you tell them to.

Hmmm. That's one I hadn't considered. I feel like soaring energy costs in Europe and deliberately shutting down farms in the Netherlands and banning Russian grain exports all sort of contribute towards that. But yes. It's an interesting technique. But only so long as you can reliably resist the pushback. I'd say this is almost antithetical to what I'm asking - Bread and Circuses keep the masses obedient. I was thinking the less bread there is, the more you need to ramp up the circus (which might be a good summation of current society, actually). But you're saying threaten to withhold the bread to control people.

Deliberately erode senses of community, atomize people, exploit political tribalism and aggressively control the flow of information as much as possible?

The thing is, these are all things currently done and done very effectively. The question is what more could you do than is already being done.

We brainwash children since the first time they see a screen, which now is typically at a few months old at most, or even earlier if the parents are retarded. This brainwashing picks up the pace heavily and shapes the kid's entire personality in kindergarten and in school.
I don't think propaganda can get much more powerful than that, it'd just be a matter of nuance.

Brainwash how? What is the effect of this do you think and how would it benefit those in power?

 

[Bonesjones]

All you have to remember is that everything is based on putting people into lose/lose situations. You constantly have to spend more time, effort, or money to come out ahead constantly.

If you spend your time trying to piece together the truth from 20 different news sources that tell slightly different stories, then you've lost. The rich constantly do this repeatedly so you can never come out ahead unless you work through the system, which molds most people to join onto it in the first place.

 

[libRT]

They'll need a new method, once people actually realise they're being fed propaganda, they become more suspicious of the medium being used. I guess the most effective way to create new propaganda today would be faux-independents producing false but believable scientific papers (gamed p-values etc). They'd also need to reframe the propaganda, anything with the keywords like diversity etc would need to be changed but the beliefs it instills should remain the same (e.g get more niggos in the country)

 

[Breadbassket]

Brainwash how? What is the effect of this do you think and how would it benefit those in power?

The indoctrination of children is on the table but that isn't a new idea in of itself.

It is a rather difficult task to think of ways to "improve" propaganda when there has always been someone trying to manipulate the direction a society takes and so many of the tried and true methods have been written down. Maybe the key to innovation in such a field would be to make things more subtle?

 

[Fastest Hand In The East]

Make people hungry enough and they will do anything you tell them to.

No, this is a dangerous slope. The modern governments are based upon the adundance of food because when people have food your chances of rebellion or coup are dramatically redused.
Keeping population hungry is the most dangerous thing a government can do. Population can (and most likely will) ignore disappearances and/or cangaroo courts, but they will not tolerate empty stomach.
That fucker Lenin wrote that revolutions happen "when the top doesn't want to live a new way and the low can't live the old way".

 

[PFM]

Brainwash how? What is the effect of this do you think and how would it benefit those in power?

The gender shit is one example. If you can properly stop children from forming a concrete sense of self they become easy to control.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

Brainwash how? What is the effect of this do you think and how would it benefit those in power?

Internet-enabled devices deliver constant dopamine hits, gamification, instant gratification, and are definitely given to toddlers now. Social media encourages group think, and is now more curated than ever before to deliver the "correct" propaganda. TPTB can also play groups against each other.

If you want to get more effective than what we have today, let's talk VR/AR and ultimately neural implants. You could literally censor at the level of the brain to stop someone from perceiving what is not allowed, or substitute in the propaganda, make certain things appear better/worse than they are, etc.

 

[Apustajan apustaja]

Hunger was already correctly pointed out, but expanding on that you can use particular malnourishment, feeding people little and low quality proteins, make people eat a vegan diet (or insects). Cults use this trick often.
Sleep deprivation could also be ramped up.

 

[Shart Attack]

Make it harder to access past information that contradicts current propaganda. For example, if Biden were to slur out some drooling Alzheimer's-speak that could be translated into English as, "I've always supported same-sex marriage," it's fairly trivial to access his voting record and see that he supported the Defense of Marriage Act. That contradicts his current propaganda, which makes you question what else he's lying about. Without easily accessible archives, you'd only have your own memory of his voting record to go by, and memories can be fickle things subject to manipulation. On the one hand, you'd have your own memories of the time Biden was obviously opposed to gay marriage. On the other hand, you'd have millions of people who were ignorant of the past, millions of people maliciously trying to memory-hole it, and millions of people who just want to browbeat you into submission because they get off on it telling you your memories are wrong. Most people will break under that kind of sustained pressure, eventually starting to doubt their own memories or agreeing to the new version of history because it's easier than fighting the entire world.

 

[Overly Serious]

No, this is a dangerous slope. The modern governments are based upon the adundance of food because when people have food your chances of rebellion or coup are dramatically redused.
Keeping population hungry is the most dangerous thing a government can do. Population can (and most likely will) ignore disappearances and/or cangaroo courts, but they will not tolerate empty stomach.
That fucker Lenin wrote that revolutions happen "when the top doesn't want to live a new way and the low can't live the old way".

Yes, this is what I was getting at but better put. I would say to control people rather than make people hungry, make them fat. Or rather I think that's what They™ believe.

Hunger was already correctly pointed out, but expanding on that you can use particular malnourishment, feeding people little and low quality proteins, make people eat a vegan diet (or insects). Cults use this trick often.
Sleep deprivation could also be ramped up.

So... malnourishment more so than hunger. That's... horrible. And plausible.

 

[Lemmingwiser]

Is there actually any way that propaganda in Western society could be made more effective?

The book Combating Cult Mind Control discusses 10 ways of brainwashing that destructive cult use.

One that isn't that commonly used in western propaganda are:
Getting a new identity/name. It's just for trannies. But receiving a new name causes you to subconsciously act like the new identity and help separate it from habits and self-perception of your previous one.

Also, don't forget you can just use the ones you just named, because not everyone is aware of them. You can even present them as fictional so the sheep will accept it and the semi-sheep will go "hey waitasecond!"

 

[Fastest Hand In The East]

Yes, this is what I was getting at but better put. I would say to control people rather than make people hungry, make them fat. Or rather I think that's what They™ believe.

Well, you can take what exists and move it to the max. I've noticed that modern states, especially dictatorships, have adopted somewhat to the digital age and invented new methods.
They take your money. Let me illustrate- in Russia there is a "list of extremist and terrorist supporters". If you get in this list- your accounts in all banks are frozen. It happens, off course, outside of any court orders, on the order of police or FSB. It's official, it's not some cloak and dagger shenanigans.
Now, with the war, they don't shy from imprisoning people anymore, so money are not used as often. But the method remains.
So take it to it's logical conclusion- all the money are digital and are control absolutely by banks. And banks do what the politicians say.

 

[Rubick]

I'd argue propaganda is more effective this days then it used to be last couple of decades. But that's frankly due to population lacking in critical thinking and common fucking logic and sense.

 

[Catgirl Tyranid]

The book Combating Cult Mind Control discusses 10 ways of brainwashing that destructive cult use.

One that isn't that commonly used in western propaganda are:
Getting a new identity/name. It's just for trannies. But receiving a new name causes you to subconsciously act like the new identity and help separate it from habits and self-perception of your previous one.

Also, don't forget you can just use the ones you just named, because not everyone is aware of them. You can even present them as fictional so the sheep will accept it and the semi-sheep will go "hey waitasecond!"

I hadn't ever considered this. People do this online all the time as a means of cutting off past interactions and inventing a new persona for themselves, but to be FORCED to change your name especially when you're young could really screw with one's self perception. Names have power and you'll often find people will grow to fit the names their parents give them which is why picking a good name is such a big deal to parents.

@Overly Serious If your fictional short story includes the seizing of children from parents for illegitimate reasons, forcing them to change their name as a means of creating a schism between them and their parents seems like a natural start of the indoctrination process and a hellish way of removing ALL connection the child had to their parents.

 

[DDR Yoga]

The current propaganda is too subtle. The frogs are already boiled. White liberals will take baths with their toasters if Beyonce tells them to. Trust the science!

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I think a way Clown World propaganda can be more effective is when it's passed off as "being a decent human being", or "progress". Like one is called a "bigot" and a "bad person" if they think there's 2 "genders", or that "transgender" is delusion. Or calling sexually explicit LGBTQ+ books that are meant for small kids "stunning and brave".