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-Facebook/Instagram
-Sports
-Internet
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Oppression of press.
Totalitarianism.
Government.
Shell,
Trump.
Oppression.
Fruit.
Corporation.

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Economic Gap
Extreme Poverty
Rich
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Slums

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advertisement
publicity
promotion
advocacy
brainwash
poster
information
news

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Violence, of course, is all around us in reality, and perhaps we like to talk and read about it to make it understandable to us. How is it possible that someone could cut off someone's head? we wonder reading the news or even watching the beheading by a masked man who speaks our language, English, to us on a video. Where does such evil come from? And why does it continue to fascinate us? Why do all the heads turn when there is an accident on the road? Why do we read about violence not just in the newspapers but also in murder mysteries, or even in the great novels where murder is enacted by a hero or even heroine.

There are many notable examples in the modern or sometimes not so modern novel.

One of the most famous murder scenes which comes to mind, where we can follow the thinking of the protagonist and even understand, though we may not identify with the character, is the great murder scene in Dostoevsky's " Crime and Punishment." Here Raskolnikov goes to the money- lender's apartment with an ax. He needs money desperately but this woman, too, seems to be a useless human being to him, someone whose life is not worth saving.

Dostoevsky writes:

He had not a minute more to lose. He pulled the axe quite out, swung it with both arms, scarcely conscious of himself, and almost without effort, almost mechanically, brought the blunt side down on her head. He seemed not to use his own strength in this. But as soon as he had once brought the axe down, his strength returned to him.

We feel that the murderer is in some way not really responsible for his act. He seems distanced from it, and thus hardly implicated in the evil of his crime.

In Camus murder scene in "The Stranger" Mersault seems to kill almost because of the extreme heat on the beach where he sees the Arab. There are the sound of the waves, the sun, and in the distance a small ship passing. The shadow on the Arab's face seems a smile. The sweat drips down Mersault's forehead and he steps forward. The Arab pulls a knife. Blinded by the sun, the world seeming to vacillate around him, Mersault fires and then fires four more times.

Another description of a violent murder is in Marquez's brilliant "Chronicle of a Death Foretold." The butchery here is described in great detail with honesty and precision in the last pages of the book. "Shit cousin," Pablo Vicario told me, "You can't image how hard it is to kill a man." Having used the whole of this novella to work up to this death, Marquez milks it for all it is worth. The mother sees her son, Santiago Nasar, "In front of the door, face down in the dust, trying to rise up out of his own blood. He stood up leaning to one side and started to walk in a state of hallucination holding his intestines with his hands."

We wonder why we read of such violent acts with such interest. They are all around us, and perhaps by writing about them and placing them within the structure and order of a story we may believe that we are able to control this violence that lies surely partly within each one of us.

Sheila Kohler is the author of many books including Becoming Jane Eyre and the recent Dreaming for Freud.
Becoming Jane Eyre: A Novel (Penguin Original) by Sheila Kohler Penguin Books click here Dreaming for Freud: A Novel by Sheila Kohler Penguin Books click here

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Violence is all around us and perhaps we like to talk about it to make it understandable to us. How is it possible that someone could cut off someone's head? we wonder reading the news or even watching the beheading done by a masked man who speaks our language, English, to us on a video.

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We are fascinated with the lurid details of sensational murder trials. Horror fiction and slasher movies thrill us--the gorier the better. When we drive by the scene of an accident, we're compelled to slow down. And it's no secret that brutal video games are solid moneymakers. Why do we thirst for the frighteningly grotesque? In The "LUST FOR BLOOD: WHY WE ARE FASCINATED BY DEATH, MURDER, HORROR, AND VIOLENCE" (Prometheus Books, $25) veteran psychologist Jeffrey A. Kottler explains our dark desire for guts, gore, and the gruesome.

Based on a series of interviews with perpetrators, victims, and "consumers" of violence, including several celebrities, the author of a best-selling book on serial killers explores what there is about this subject that draws such a wide audience.

Unlike many other books that attempt to probe the murky psyches of deviant individuals, this book focuses on normal, average people who, despite themselves, enjoy getting close to the most forbidden, perverse side of destruction and evil. The persons interviewed range from homicide detectives and emergency room personnel to a heavyweight boxer and groupies of serial killers on death row. Author and professor of forensic psychology Dr. Katherine Ramsland calls "The Lust for Blood," "A personable and comprehensive tour of the violent entertainment we love to hate and hate to love."

"[Kottler] ably explores our paradoxical lust and revulsion as a cathartic means of restraint, with specific attention to its psychological impact: seeing violence within a media frame makes us feel alive, recharging us to face our private anxieties about life-and-death issues. This book offers something for everyone, from media psychologists to fans of splatter-films," said Ramsland.

Kottler considers ideas from a variety of theories and research to explain our responses to violence, raises questions about the shifting line between normal and abnormal, evaluates the confusion and ambivalence that many people feel when witnessing others' suffering, and suggests future trends in society's attitudes toward violence.

About the Author: Jeffrey A. Kottler, PhD, is a practicing psychologist, professor of counseling at California State University, Fullerton, and the author of more than seventy-five books, including the New York Times best seller "The Last Victim: A True-Life Journey into the Mind of the Serial Killer." He is also head of Empower Nepali Girls, which provides educational scholarships for at-risk, lower-caste girls.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

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Why are we fascinated by death, horror and violence?

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We are fascinated with the lurid details of sensational murder trials. Horror fiction and slasher movies thrill us -- the gorier the better. When we drive by the scene of an accident, we're compelled to slow down. Why do we thirst for the frighteningly grotesque? In

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From violent TV shows like the Walking Dead and Game of Thrones to video games such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, we are no strangers to violent acts in culture. In fact, we have almost become desensitized to it. Even the media, once a place to check up on what is going on in America, has turned into sensational news that only shows and tells us gruesome details in order to keep us interested. The question is, why is 2016 American entertainment so much more violent than it was 20-30 years ago? Why has the government allowed more and more leniency on shows for violence? Most importantly, why do we, as a culture love violence so much?

According to this article on the center for media literacy , violent scenarios can actually act as a drug for us. Violence is something that we often don't see in real life and thus it can be extremely exciting to view on television. We can view these violent acts as something to fill our mostly boring, average lives. Likewise, television pushes all the right buttons to light up our neurological senses in order to make it so we get "hooked" on the show, because they pander to our aggressive natures that we often suppress in real life situations. These television companies do things like this to make money. They don't care about the fact that they are desensitizing more people and children to violence. They do not think about or care about the fact that this desensitization could result in more violence. when the youth of today is faced with a problem, they, perhaps, will use violence to solve that problem because they have become used to violence and have learned so much of what they know from violent television shows and video games.

We originally looked at violent TV shows and movies, and why they become so extremely addictive for us. Now, let's look at the more stereotypical "violent" thing-video games. Why are video games always portrayed by the media as "too violent" but violent movies and TV shows get a pass? Why are infamous video game moments like Call of Duty's No Russian over no russian ( video here) allowed to show the mass shootings of innocent civilians (WARNING: The video above is extremely controversial. Watch at your own risk). The question is, why do game developers make this violence so common in their games? Well, according to this article, it's quite simple. read this! Game developers make violence in a lot of games because it causes a lot of tension, which we associate with a good story that keeps us focused. Likewise, it keeps our adrenaline up- something that TV shows do as well, as I previously mentioned.

The main issue with video games over television in the violence factor is that in games, you are the one controlling the violence. In Call of Duty, you kill hundreds of other soldiers. In Grand Theft Auto, you kill, torture, and rob many people. Likewise, with multiplayer now being the norm, you are, in fact, killing another player's character. If you think about it, in essence, you are killing someone else. Likewise, video games are played a lot by kids, often without parental supervision. Movies and television, however, often do have parental supervision. According to this article, over 91% of kids between 2-17 play video games. 91%! That is a huge majority of kids. Parents often don't understand what their child might be playing. Often times, parents allow their children to play games without knowing the rating of the game. Therefore, many children are playing violent games where they murder people and beat people up. There is no supervision to stop them! They do so because it heightens their senses, give a sense of escape from real life, and give them the adrenaline boost they want. Granted, I'm sure not all of the 91% are playing violent video games.. but many are.

So, in conclusion, Americans as a whole enjoy violent video games and other media because it helps them with their natural want to escape from reality, helps push their adrenaline up, and focuses on their neurological wants to get us hooked. Violence has become second nature to Americans that we often don't consider the consequences of our children growing up in a world filled with violence everywhere we turn. Will it lead our children to becoming more violent? Unfortunately, only time will tell for that.

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SiOWfa16: Science in Our World: Certainty and Controversy

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From violent TV shows like the Walking Dead and Game of Thrones to video games such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, we are no strangers to violent acts in culture. In fact, we have almost become desensitized to it.

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Some people who think about the future are in a rush to get there.

They forecast an America where robots do all the work. A future where humans will live off welfare programs. It is a Silicon Valley pipe dream.

It is true that automation is changing the nature of work. Workers without a college degree may be out of luck. Their jobs will be about doing "tasks." Their wages will be meager. Their prospects for advancement will be dim.

Today, the vast majority of new jobs are in workaday service industries. These industries are health care, hospitality, retail, and building services. The pay in these industries is mediocre.

America's market economy has its own rules. High wages go to workers who produce high profits. Profit margins in hotels, restaurants and nursing homes are low. To be successful, wages paid to the workers must be low.

Recent studies show that robots are reducing the demand for workers. Their use may keep wages down. Some economists think the use of robots explains the decline in workers' paychecks.

Hi-tech workers do make more profit for the company. But even these workers have to watch out for automation. The drive to automate is everywhere. Where is job growth? Growth may be in the jobs that design robots.

The health care industry is a different example of why workers do not make more money. Doctors are well paid. Most of the workers are orderlies, technicians, and aides. The system uses advanced technology. Technology does make health care better. But technology does not replace health care workers. That means that technology will not lead to more income for a hospital. It will not help to raise wages.

Investing in automation makes less sense if it does not increase profits. That means that low-wage jobs may be most of the jobs of the future.

The number of higher paid jobs like those in finance, factories, and trade has gone down over the years.

People who work for non-profit agencies have their problems. The wages of teachers, social workers and others who do not produce a profit remains low. Paying higher taxes to support such workers means taxpayers have less money for themselves.

The future may not be like the past. The assembly line produced good cars at low cost. The demand for cars grew. Autos accounted for vast new industries. In the years past, technology sparked prosperity.

What if new technology does not increase prosperity? What if it means that future jobs will be in low-wage industries?

It is something to think about.

Source: The New York Time February 4, 2019

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Some people who think about the future are in a rush to get there. They forecast an America where robots do all the work. A future where humans will live off welfare programs. It is a Silicon Valley pipe dream. It is true that automation is changing the nature of work.

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There will be consequences for the constant bombardment of violence from the entertainment industry.

By

Photo by Dillon Deaton andSavannah Haas | 09/20/16 2:44amDillon Deaton | The State Press A zombie walks around and interacts with the media during a zombie bootcamp led by Greg Nicotero, co-executive producer and director of "The Walking Dead," at the Globe Theater at Universal Studios on Wednesday, June 8, 2016.
In 2003, 18-year-old Devin Moore killed two police officers and a 911 dispatcher after he was arrested for stealing a car. Moore then escaped in a stolen patrol car and was arrested again. When asked by police why he did it all, he said: "Life is a video game. Everybody's got to die sometime."

It's not uncommon to see "Rated M for Mature," "Rated R" or "TV-MA" on any given video game, new movie or popular television show. This generation is known for pushing the limits with shows containing these ratings for unconventional violence like " American Horror Story" and " Bates Motel."

We enjoy the jolts of fear from the safety of our couches because it's a distraction from the mundane duties of our everyday lives.

The world's strange desire to make tourist sites out of concentration camps and our haste to gawk at gruesome car accidents as we drive by on the highway is another demonstration of our craving for constant shock and awe.

With every corpse we see on "The Walking Dead," we become more desensitized to real-life horrors. We witness so much live footage of terrorist attacks that the idea of someone leaping out of a burning building doesn't affect us any more than Kim Kardashian's 72-day marriage.

The argument against violent video games has been discussed frequently since the two Columbine High School shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were found to have been frequent video game players. The problem is not just in video games, it's in the entire entertainment industry.

Movies in the horror genre, music videos promoting gun usage and online viral videos posted by major news outlets depicting violent beheadings - we see it every day, but it doesn't stand out to us because it has turned into a norm.

The sick obsession we have with gore is not just affecting us, it's affecting the next generation to come, too. It's no secret that children observe and replicate behaviors demonstrated by adults in their lives.

In David Buckingham's novel " After the Death of Childhood," he describes children's particular fascination with horror.

"While many of the children described how they had been scared and given nightmares as a result of watching horror, their prime motivation for doing so was clearly to do with pleasure," the book reads. "Many of the children expressed the wish to watch 'scary' things again, even where their first experiences of them appeared to have been quite traumatic.

"The wish to 'see it again' - and the practice of repeat viewing - are, on one level, simply about reliving the pleasure."

Buckingham's description illustrates children's unhealthy curiosity with moments of violence, and it's disturbing to think that we may be raising a group of people to be impervious to the devastation of murder and crime.

Anna Conn, pre-med health science major and mother-to-be, believes in limiting the amount of violence her child is exposed to as much as she can.

"It's impossible to not have any because of the world we live in, but it definitely takes a kid's childhood away with putting that much violence in front of them," Conn said. "I'm one of those people where I have a visual memory and remember everything I see and that stuff gave me nightmares."

"Comfortably Numb: Desensitizing Effects of Violent Media on Helping Others," a study put together by the University of Michigan, the University of Amsterdam and Iowa State University, found that "people exposed to media violence become 'comfortably numb' to the pain and suffering of others and are consequently less helpful" in dangerous situations.

The inherent issue with this numbness is that we'll have to keep pushing the boundaries in entertainment, we'll have to keep escalating to satisfy the world's hunger for shock value.

At some point, we as a society need to recognize the dangers of desensitization and do our part to reverse the damage we've already caused before we lose all sense of compassion toward one another's pain.

We don't want our children to think that violence is only "make-believe" or that it isn't as serious as it is.

It is every parent's prerogative to decide how much their child is exposed to, but we need to start taking this attraction to brutality more seriously before we start to see a total lack of regard for human life.

Reach the columnist at sphaas@asu.edu or follow @_SavannahHaas on Twitter.
Editor's note: The opinions presented in this column are the author's and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on Twitter.

Want to join the conversation? Send an email to opiniondesk.statepress@gmail.com. Keep letters under 300 words and be sure to include your university affiliation. Anonymity will not be granted.

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The danger of our culture's obsession with violence

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Our society's disturbing obsession with violence and crime has led to a lack of compassion for others.

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Newsela | Zuckerberg apologizes for failing to protect Facebook users' privacy

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Lawmakers are pondering federal regulation of social media outlets following Facebook's failure to protect the personal information of millions of users

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monitoring
observing
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security

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In SOTU address, Trump calls for end of resistance politics

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Newsela | The wealthy charter planes, but the poor settle for any ride in Irma exodus

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Almost everywhere else in life, we have to pay for the goods and services we use. Except on the Internet, where the business model is flipped. In return for giving us free email and social media accounts on Facebook, Google and Instagram, companies collect data on us and sell it to advertisers.

How much do you value your privacy? Would you be willing to pay for social media and email in exchange for your privacy?

In the Op-Ed essay " Mark Zuckerberg, Let Me Pay for Facebook," Zeynep Tufekci writes:

Facebook. Instagram. Google. Twitter. All services we rely on - and all services we believe we don't have to pay for. Not with cash, anyway. But ad-financed Internet platforms aren't free, and the price they extract in terms of privacy and control is getting only costlier.

A recent Pew Research Center poll shows that 93 percent of the public believes that "being in control of who can get information about them is important," and yet the amount of information we generate online has exploded and we seldom know where it all goes.

Facebook and other social networking sites that collect vast amounts of user data are financed by ads. Just this week Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, announced plans to open users' feeds to more advertisers. The dirty secret of this business model is that Internet ads aren't worth much. Ask Ethan Zuckerman, who in the 1990s helped found Tripod.com, one of the web's earliest ad-financed sites with user-generated content. He even helped invent the pop-up ad because corporations were wary of the user content appearing next to their ads. He came to regret both: the pop-up and the ad-financed business model. The former is annoying but it's the latter that is helping destroy the fabric of a rich, pluralistic Internet.

Mr. Zuckerman points out that Facebook makes about 20 cents per user per month in profit. This is a pitiful sum, especially since the average user spends an impressive 20 hours on Facebook every month, according to the company. This paltry profit margin drives the business model: Internet ads are basically worthless unless they are hyper-targeted based on tracking and extensive profiling of users. This is a bad bargain, especially since two-thirds of American adults don't want ads that target them based on that tracking and analysis of personal behavior.

This way of doing business rewards huge Internet platforms, since ads that are worth so little can support only companies with hundreds of millions of users.

Ad-based businesses distort our online interactions. People flock to Internet platforms because they help us connect with one another or the world's bounty of information - a crucial, valuable function. Yet ad-based financing means that the companies have an interest in manipulating our attention on behalf of advertisers, instead of letting us connect as we wish. Many users think their feed shows everything that their friends post. It doesn't. Facebook runs its billion-plus users' newsfeed by a proprietary, ever-changing algorithm that decides what we see. If Facebook didn't have to control the feed to keep us on the site longer and to inject ads into our stream, it could instead offer us control over this algorithm.

Students: Read the entire Op-Ed essay, then tell us ...

- How much do you value your privacy? Are you concerned about the amount of information Internet companies are collecting about you? Why?

- Would you be willing to pay for social media and email services in exchange for your privacy?

- Facebook makes about 20 cents per user per month in profit. Would you be willing to pay that amount to use Facebook? How much would you be willing to pay to use services provided by Facebook, Google, Instagram or other Internet companies?

- Do you think most people would ever be willing to pay for these services they currently get for free? Or do you think the business model based on free accounts and paid advertising is the best system? Why?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

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Would You Be Willing to Pay for Facebook or Google in Exchange for Your Privacy?

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Almost everywhere else in life, we have to pay for the goods and services we use. Except on the Internet, where the business model is flipped. In return for giving us free email and social media accounts on Facebook, Google and Instagram, companies collect data on us and sell it to advertisers.

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Newsela | FCC outlines plans to dismantle net neutrality rules that govern Internet

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FCC's plans to repeal Internet regulations opposed by tech companies and consumer groups

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September 24, 2015
NASA tweeting that Congress should give it more money so our astronauts won't have to ride on Russian rockets. Recovery.gov reporting overly optimistic statistics on jobs saved and created by stimulus funds.The Department of Health and Human Service Web site encouraging the public to "state your support for health care reform" during the congressional debate over Obamacare.

These are just some recent examples of the executive branch using our tax dollars to shape our opinions. Unlike the National Security Agency's personal data collection or the overuse of "secret" stamps to withhold information, this government-produced propaganda receives almost no attention. But that doesn't mean this "third dimension" of government information is not a problem. America becomes less democratic when the $3 trillion executive branch uses its resources to tilt the debate in its favor.

Of course, a democratic government has an obligation to inform and be transparent. Citizens need to know the government's policies and plans. We have a right to know which companies receive government contracts, how to collect insurance benefits and social security payments and what public school educational reform will look like. But too often, the government uses its information machinery to do more than simply inform us about a policy. Sometimes, it tries to persuade us to adopt a particular position, regardless of its efficacy.

Consider, for example, the Department of Labor's campaign to raise the minimum wage, a topic on which there is considerable debate. Raising the minimum wage, the Congressional Budget Office points out, will eliminate some jobs. Still, the government devotes a Web page to the topic that proclaims, "See how raising the national minimum wage will benefit America's workers." Americans are invited to tell the Labor Department why they "support raising the federal minimum wage." Twitter users can see a video of a squiggle of mustard spelling out "#RaiseTheWage" on a hot dog, a reference to the recent interest group advocacy to pay fast-food employers more money. The Labor Department's Web page treats raising the minimum wage as an unalloyed good and labels possible job losses a "myth."

Such aggressive communications are neither novel nor exceptional. Government agencies historically have made a habit of crossing the blurry line between informing the public and propagandizing.

Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton's 1791 report on manufacturing promoted policies to grow the nation into a commercial republic. President Woodrow Wilson's Committee on Public Information recruited 75,000 members of the public to give speeches in favor of such World War I measures as Liberty Bonds and the draft, blanketed the nation with pamphlets and posters, and generally set in motion the modern publicity apparatus that exists today

A decade ago, the Government Accountability Office faulted the second Bush administration's Department of Health and Human Services for overselling the benefits of the new Medicare law. Several years before, in 1997, the GAO caught the State Department paying a consultant to write op-ed pieces in support of the Clinton administration's policy on Central America.

As these revelations dribble out, they sometimes become fodder for vitriolic partisan political battles, and occasionally prompt congressional hearings. Just three years ago, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Republicans issued a report detailing various propagandizing efforts by the Obama administration. Democrat Rep. Henry A. Waxman leveled similar accusations during the second Bush administration. But the issue then gets forgotten until the next propaganda scandal erupts.

This cycle has been occurring for at least a century, and it repeats itself because no corrective mechanisms are in place. There is no systematic monitoring of government information. Inspectors general and the GAO do not regularly report on agency communications. No congressional committee has jurisdiction over government information.

The scope of the third dimension is difficult to assess. In 2014, the government spent $760 million to hire private advertising firms, according to USASpending.gov. The contracts purchased advertising space on all forms of media, marketing research and opinion polling, message-crafting assistance and more.

That figure does not include the salaries of the innumerable federal employees who promote their agencies' work in print, on air and online. It does not include the anti-drug media campaigns, or the cost of printing and publishing reports and government journals, such as the Federal Highway Administration's Public Roads magazine. Speaking of publishing, the Government Publishing Office, which costs $110 million to operate, has more than a million publications online.

The Internet has only exacerbated this problem by making it so easy to communicate with the public. Not long after President Obama arrived in office, his administration carried out an audit of federal government Web sites. They found 24,000 of them.

The Obama administration has made heavy use of social media, which was so successful during his run for president. The Department of Commerce has a YouTube channel. The Environmental Protection Agency - to name just one of the 120 government agencies - has about two dozen Twitter accounts. It uses a social media tool called Thunderclap, which spreads messages so widely that an agency communications official calls it a " virtual flash mob."

EPA communications to the public include both factual updates on the agency's response to the Gold King Mine spill and aggressive advocacy in favor of the EPA's Clean Power Plan. Presidential appointees spinning for an administration is unobjectionable. But using agencies as presidential messaging machines sullies the civil service, which is supposed to be nonpartisan.

Congress has tried to curb this behavior. In 1913 it passed legislation forbidding, without its expressed approval, the expenditure of appropriated funds on "publicity experts." Several years later, it enacted its grass-roots lobbying ban, which forbids the executive branch from using tax dollars to whip up public pressure to influence law-making.

Each year appropriations bills forbid agencies from spending funds for "publicity or propaganda purposes." But this has done little good. As noted by Mordecai Lee, one of the few scholars to pay any attention to this issue, agencies have given their communications staff different titles, such as "public affairs specialist," and renamed their communications "outreach" and "public education."

The GAO defines "propaganda" very narrowly as government information that is not labeled as such. Unfortunately, it otherwise has proven all but impossible to write a law that absolutely differentiates information from advocacy.

Congress again is trying to do something about government information in a modest way. The Taxpayer Transparency Act of 2015 would force agencies to label their ads and media as government-produced, which agencies do not always do.

But this reform would be even more helpful if it required agencies to cite and share the sources for their "facts." Where, for example, are the Department of Labor data that prove hot dog venders earn less than $9 an hour?

Congress should direct agencies to annually inventory the number of public communications they produce, the number of staff who assist in communications, and the approximate cost. These reports should additionally reference whatever laws authorize agencies to communicate with the public and for what purposes.

All these data should be submitted to the Government Accountability Office, which can audit the data, and then publish publicly an overall inventory of government public communications.

This is only a start, of course. But it would be a big step ahead of where we are now. Just as setting the federal minimum wage is a ripe subject for energetic political debate and decision-making, so too is the third dimension.

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How the American government is trying to control what you think

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September 24, 2015 NASA tweeting that Congress should give it more money so our astronauts won't have to ride on Russian rockets. Recovery.gov reporting overly optimistic statistics on jobs saved and created by stimulus funds.The Department of Health and Human Service Web site encouraging the public to "state your support for health care reform" during the congressional debate over Obamacare.

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Though it is typically produced by governments, propaganda can also be created by non-state actors, including political parties. Roger Ailes understood this a long time ago. Ailes unabashedly embraced propagandistic techniques as a means to secure power for Richard Nixon and the broader Republican Party. As John Cook reported for Gawker in 2011, a 1 970 memo by an anonymous GOP staffer-called "A Plan for Putting the GOP on TV News"- detailed plans for a pro-Republican news channel, with the enthusiastic support of Ailes.

Ailes's subsequent efforts didn't pan out, but he didn't give up on the idea of a semi-official GOP outlet, and later founded Fox News in 1996. We reap the results of his work. "The Republicans have had a highly effective propaganda machine, a propaganda culture which is operated on many levels, and has consolidated their base and consolidated loyalty to them," O'Shaughnessy said. This phenomenon can now be seen in everything from the Fox News viewer's belief that Hillary did Benghazi to the conservative consensus that Obamacare is "collapsing."

But these stories at least take kernels of truth-the Obama administration's mishandling of its intervention in Libya, the troubles in the individual health care market-and blow them up to conspiratorial proportions. The new propaganda we are seeing is closer to outright fantasy.

Speaking for the NRA, Dana Loesch insists that Barack Obama and his band of wicked elites tell liberal protesters "to smash windows, burn cars, shut down interstates and airports, bully and terrorize the law-abiding until the only option left is for the police to do their jobs and stop the madness." She doesn't add with their guns, but she doesn't need to. Trump himself sounded a similar theme when discussing the recent violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, claiming, contrary to all available evidence and common sense, that "many sides" were responsible for a deadly attack by a white supremacist that took the life of a woman protesting his ideology. Trump's position played into a deeply embedded conservative narrative that left-wing, often minority activists fighting for their rights are just as dangerous as racists seeking to suppress those rights-that the broader struggle for civil rights is violent and illegitimate and hateful.

In this, Trump and Loesch aren't just trying to deceive their followers. They are reinforcing and expanding on what their supporters already believe, which Jacques Ellul, a Christian anarchist who lost a university position for refusing to collaborate with France's Vichy regime, identified as a staple of propaganda. "All propaganda must respond to a need," Ellul wrote in 1965's Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes. "Whether it be a concrete need (bread, peace, security, work) or a psychological need."

And, like their historical predecessors, our propagandists rely on highly charged appeals to emotion, not reason, tapping into resentment and anger and fear. All of this plays into the larger phenomenon of negative partisanship, the theory that voters in America are largely motivated by their antipathy toward the other party. The relationship between negative partisanship and propaganda is a bit chicken-and-egg, but they clearly strengthen each other. According to a CBS poll, nearly 70 percent of Republicans agree that "both sides" are to blame for what happened in Charlottesville. Meanwhile, a full 61 percent of Trump's supporters say there is nothing he can do that would make them ever disapprove of him.

Nowhere has the appeal to blind belief been more apparent than in the never-ending stream of falsifiable claims and outright lies that pour from the White House, whether it's from the press secretary's podium or Trump's Twitter feed. These statements seek to elevate Trump to glorious, cult-like heights, while painting America as a lawless hell. Former Press Secretary Sean Spicer started his short-lived tenure by claiming the crowd at Trump's inauguration was the largest in history, when it was obviously not. That was only the beginning: In no particular order, Trump has falsely claimed that three million to five million illegal ballots cost him the popular vote; that the murder rate in this country is the highest it has been in nearly 50 years; that he won the biggest Electoral College victory since Ronald Reagan; and that Barack Obama had tapped his phones during the campaign.

The list goes on and on. These lies are bolstered by a galaxy of conspiracy theorists and conservative media outlets that in turn affect the coverage on more centralized outlets like Fox News, particularly Trump's chief propagandist Sean Hannity, who is so in the tank that he has clashed with other Fox News anchors. The conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group, the largest local television station owner in the United States, is only expected to grow under the lax oversight of Trump's Federal Communications Commission, which means more households will be treated to familiar storylines that could have come straight from the White House, including that economic growth has become white-hot under Trump and that voter fraud may have cost Trump the popular vote. (Sinclair's chief political analyst Boris Epshteyn used to be a White House staffer.) This is an era in which an entirely false story can result in a gunman shooting up a pizzeria, in the belief that it was the site of a child sex ring run by the Democratic Party.

For this campaign to flourish, its architects must delegitimize actual news outlets with the ability and the reach to expose their lies. This is why "fake news"-originally a description of untrue stories concocted by conservatives that went viral on the internet-was appropriated by conservatives to defend Trump and undermine his critics. Breitbart is particularly fond of the term, labelling Trump's sparring partners in the press as malicious purveyors of fake news. One recent headline screamed: " CNN Historian Compares Jim Acosta to Fake News Godfather Dan Rather. "

On other sites, like The Daily Caller, the smear is implied rather than explicitly invoked. "We Film What Really Happened At That Boston Antifa Rally," one headline winks, portraying a recent Boston protest as a seething mess of violent radical leftism.

And of course, the fake news rhetoric is constantly deployed by Trump himself, who shrieks the phrase at all critical coverage:

Heading back to Washington after working hard and watching some of the worst and most dishonest Fake News reporting I have ever seen!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 20, 2017

Drain the Swamp should be changed to Drain the Sewer - it's actually much worse than anyone ever thought, and it begins with the Fake News!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017

The Fake News Media works hard at disparaging & demeaning my use of social media because they don't want America to hear the real story!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2017

Trump has repeatedly claimed, falsely, that The New York Times and The Washington Post have apologized to their readers for running erroneous stories about Trump. At a rally in Phoenix last week, Trump laid into his preferred whipping boy, leading supporters in a chant of "CNN sucks!" It has become an article of faith on the right that non-right media is malicious propaganda, even as the right itself has been almost entirely overtaken by actual propaganda. But does the mainstream press understand this?

"I think it's really important to have voices on CNN who are supportive of the Republican nominee," network CEO Jeff Zucker told Variety in 2016 after hiring Corey Lewandowski, Trump's former campaign manager. "It's hard to find a lot of those. Our competitors tried to hire him too." Lewandowski appeared on the network for months as a regular commentator-a conservative foil for liberal guests-despite having worked for a chronic liar and remaining in close contact with the campaign. On November 11 of that year, shortly after Trump's election, Lewandowski resigned from CNN, the suspicion being that he wanted to join the administration.

But contra Zucker, there has hardly been a scarcity of pro-Trump pundits on CNN. The network regularly booked McEnany, Trump campaign adviser A.J. Delgado, and Trump's longtime hatchet man Roger Stone. It hired Jeffrey Lord until he crossed a line by tweeting "Sieg Heil!" at the head of Media Matters for America.

CNN's own media reporter, Brian Stelter, recently wrote that the network has around a dozen pro-Trump commentators on its roster-a decision the network justifies as proof of its objectivity and its respect for conservative viewpoints. And yet what CNN's audience is treated to is propagandized dreck. Lord once claimed that Trump's Muslim ban would have prevented 9/11, even though Saudi Arabia, the home nation of the hijackers, was not included in the ban. He also made patently absurd statements that only make sense in the fevered context of propaganda, such as, "Think of President Trump as the Martin Luther King of health care."

CNN is an egregious example, but standard conservative propaganda is published in even the most prestigious news organizations. Despite the fact that the United States boasts the only major political party in the developed world that denies the existence of climate change, The New York Times just hired a climate denier for its op-ed page. A day after that white supremacist killed a woman in Charlottesville, the Times ran an op-ed that perpetuated some of conservative propaganda's worst tropes, even as it condemned Trump. "As a conservative, I see both the social justice warrior alt-left and the white supremacist alt-right as two sides of the same coin," Erick-Woods Erickson wrote.

The line between a conservative opinion and straight propaganda has become exceedingly thin, to the point that it is often difficult to distinguish between the two. For media outlets that choose to air or publish these views, there is a danger of normalizing and disseminating that propaganda, as well as giving it the imprimatur of authority. They can become collaborators, unwitting or otherwise, just as Hollywood tycoons once were.

Conservative propaganda succeeds because it taps into real fear and a real sense of alienation. It doesn't have to explain that fear and alienation with facts, as Trump's campaign proved. It merely has to mirror and amplify them, creating an alternate universe where hordes of ultra-violent Mexicans are pouring over the border, America's cities are burning from black-on-black crime, the free press is public enemy number one, and whites everywhere are under siege. People believe these claims because they want to, and because they believe Trump has the answers. "I alone can fix it," Trump promised at the Republican National Convention, offering himself as the savior his base was clamoring for.

The point isn't to fight lies with lies, but to admit that truth is political.

But though emotional appeals are powerful, they have limits. It took the calamity of utter defeat to dispel the hold that propaganda had exercised over the citizens of Nazi Germany. America's conservative propagandists at some point will have a similar encounter with reality. Its efficacy will inevitably erode when the gap between it and the lived experiences of its targets becomes too wide. And there is emerging evidence that this is already happening. Some Republican voters are starting to desert their hero. An August 2017 poll produced by Firehouse Strategies showed that only 29 percent of Americans now report a "strongly favorable" opinion of the president. A Gallup poll released the same month showed a significant drop in support in crucial Rust Belt states.

Still, it would be foolish to presume that the Trump supporters of this world will one day wake up, see the light, and start voting for Democrats. In terms of reaching conservatives where they live, Democrats could learn a thing or two from Republicans-without pandering to the prejudices that the party promotes . As Ellul argued, "The mechanism used [in propaganda] is to slip from the facts, which would demand factual judgement, to moral terrain and ethical judgement." In a sense, the best way to fight propaganda is to compete with it on its own territory. Voters need a message that speaks to their fears without deploying Trump's racism and sexism. A counter-propaganda campaign must pair facts and reason with a competing version of reality: an ideology, defined by bold moral claims.

"The liberal left have got to learn to mobilize emotion, to actually eschew rationality," O'Shaughnessy asserted. "You have to offer people a vision." The point isn't to fight lies with lies, but to admit that truth is political. The Democratic Party needs a compelling vision of its own, something that goes beyond technocratic competence and incremental progress and means-tested welfare. It needs a cogent explanation and remedy for the inequalities of the world. It needs to speak in terms of power and justice.

The alternative is to allow conservative propaganda to fester. An impenetrable bloc of voters will continue to blame Latinos for their woes, to ignore basic facts that are staring them in the face, to trumpet American exceptionalism while neo-Nazis roam the streets, and to look to a strongman in their image to save them. We will have an unfree country, ruled by fear, and if we do not act we will bear some of the blame.

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How Trump Is Creating a Propaganda State

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Though it is typically produced by governments, propaganda can also be created by non-state actors, including political parties. Roger Ailes understood this a long time ago. Ailes unabashedly embraced propagandistic techniques as a means to secure power for Richard Nixon and the broader Republican Party.

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Newsela | Teen suicide rates rising, study says social media use could be a factor

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Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites have become an integral part of teenage culture. Yet the snarky comment or inappropriate picture we share with our friends just might not project the image we want the rest of the world to see, especially as we get older. How careful are you online?

In this Preoccupations column, Cal Newport argues that social media can hurt your career:

As you become more valuable to the marketplace, good things will find you. To be clear, I'm not arguing that new opportunities and connections are unimportant. I'm instead arguing that you don't need social media's help to attract them.

My second objection concerns the idea that social media is harmless. Consider that the ability to concentrate without distraction on hard tasks is becoming increasingly valuable in an increasingly complicated economy. Social media weakens this skill because it's engineered to be addictive. The more you use social media in the way it's designed to be used - persistently throughout your waking hours - the more your brain learns to crave a quick hit of stimulus at the slightest hint of boredom.

Once this Pavlovian connection is solidified, it becomes hard to give difficult tasks the unbroken concentration they require, and your brain simply won't tolerate such a long period without a fix. Indeed, part of my own rejection of social media comes from this fear that these services will diminish my ability to concentrate - the skill on which I make my living.

The idea of purposefully introducing into my life a service designed to fragment my attention is as scary to me as the idea of smoking would be to an endurance athlete, and it should be to you if you're serious about creating things that matter.

In contrast, Patrick Gillooly argues in this column that your social media presence can be as important as your résumé.

Most employers and customers I've talked to are ultimately looking for confirmation of their excitement about you, not reasons for suspicions or doubts. Not having any profile could be seen as a red flag, so why give a potential employer any reason to question your candidacy?

Your social media presence - and, really, your whole digital footprint - is no longer just an extension of your résumé. It's as important as your résumé. Social media use is now a standard of the hiring process, and there's little chance of going back.

You need to realize that social media wields great power: What you say there - including saying nothing at all - has an effect on your network or on the employer who is checking out your Instagram account. But remember that you control what people see. By being more judicious about what you share or by altering the platform settings where possible, you can manage your digital trail to increase the odds that a potential employer will form a positive impression of you.

Students: Read both articles, then tell us:

- Do you think social media will help or hurt your college and career goals? Why?

- Was either columnist more persuasive, in your opinion? Which one, and why?

- Did you have a strong opinion about the value of social media to a person's professional life before you read the articles? Regardless of your stand either way, did reading the columns sway you to one side or the other? Why or why not?

- Conduct a personal social media audit. Make a list of your social media accounts, including old platforms you no longer use. How do think admissions officers or employers might view your social media presence on those accounts.
Students 13 and older are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

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Will Social Media Help or Hurt Your College and Career Goals?

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Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites have become an integral part of teenage culture. Yet the snarky comment or inappropriate picture we share with our friends just might not project the image we want the rest of the world to see, especially as we get older. How careful are you online?

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If you can't imagine your life without social media, you've probably fallen victim to the strong power that social networking sites have over the public. Chances are that you've also experienced some of the negative effects social media has on people.

Unfortunately, the bad effects of social media are all too real for a lot of us. Let's look at the negative impacts of social media on real people, so you can recognize these symptoms and get help if needed.

You might be surprised to learn that the negative effects of social media are both physical and mental. They can change your perception of the world and yourself. While social media does have some positive effects, and there are certainly positive social media stories, it also has a lot in the drawback column.

Don't believe this? Read on for a list of social media's negative effects. If you recognize any of them as issues in your own life, it may be time to reduce your usage or even stop using social media altogether.

1. Depression and Anxiety

Do you spend several hours per day browsing through social media? Spending too long on social networking sites could adversely affect your mood. In fact, chronic social users are more likely to report poor mental health, including symptoms of anxiety and depression.

It doesn't take much thinking to figure out why. Social media lets you see the carefully selected best parts of everyone else's lives, which you then compare to the negatives in your own life (that only you see). Comparing yourself to other people is a sure path to anxiety and unhappiness, and social media has made this much easier to do.

So how do you use social media without causing yourself psychological distress? If you turn to the same research (and common sense), the recommended amount of time you should spend on social networks is around half an hour per day. As with many other potential ills in life, it's all about moderation.

If you find yourself upset after a social media session, also consider the networks you use and the people you follow. You're much more likely to feel anxious after reading political arguments and doomsday news than you are after seeing fun updates from your favorite musicians or photos of your friends' pets.

2. Cyberbullying

Before social media, bullying was something that was only possible to do face-to-face. However, now people can bully others online-anonymously or not. Today everyone knows what cyberbullying is, and most of us have seen what it can do to a person.

While social media makes it easier to meet new people and make friends, it also enables cruel people to tear into others with little effort. Perpetrators of bullying can use the anonymity that (some) social networks provide to gain people's trust and then terrorize them in front of their peers. For instance, they might create a fake profile and act friendly to a classmate, then later betray and embarrass them online.

These online attacks often leave deep mental scars and even drive people to hurt themselves or take their own lives, in some cases. And as it turns out, cyberbullying doesn't just affect kids. Adults can become victims of online abuse, too. Since screens hide our faces, you can end up being a jerk on social media and other websites without even realizing it.

Learn how to make your Instagram profile more private, and apply the same advice to other social networks, if you suffer from this issue.

3. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is a phenomenon that became prominent around the same time as the rise of social media. Unsurprisingly, it's one of the most widespread negative effects of social media on society.

FOMO is just what it sounds like: a form of anxiety that you get when you're scared of missing out on a positive experience that someone else is having. For example, you might constantly check your messages to see if anyone has invited you out, or focus on your Instagram feed all day to make sure that nobody is doing something cool without you. You may also see pictures of something fun that your friends were able to do, feeling left out that you couldn't go because you had another responsibility.

This fear receives constant fuel from what you see on social media. With increased social network use, there's a better chance for you to see that someone is having more fun than you are right now. That's exactly what causes FOMO, so if you're prone to this, know how to prevent FOMO when using social media (or cut back on using it altogether).

4. Unrealistic Expectations

As most people are probably aware, social media forms unrealistic expectations of life and friendships in our minds.

Most social media sites have a severe lack of online authenticity. People use Snapchat to share their exciting adventures, post about how much they love their significant other on Facebook, and load up their Instagram page with heavily staged photos.

But in reality, you have no way of knowing whether this is all a farce. While it looks great on the surface, that person could be in massive debt, on bad terms with their significant other, or desperate for Instagram likes as a form of validation.

One simple way out of this mess is for everyone to quit lying on social media. But in the era of Instagram influencers and YouTubers who earn millions from being inauthentic, that isn't going to happen anytime soon.

Remember an important adage: you should not judge your everyday life against the highlights of someone else's.

5. Negative Body Image

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Speaking of Instagram celebrities, if you look at popular Instagram accounts, you'll find unbelievably beautiful people wearing expensive clothes on their perfectly shaped bodies.

And to nobody's surprise, body image is now an issue for almost everyone. Of course, seeing so many people who are supposedly perfect (according to society's standards) on a daily basis makes you conscious of how different you look from those pictures. And not everyone comes to healthy conclusions in this situation.

It's really important to remember that everybody is human. No one wakes up every day looking like a supermodel, and while many people have gone to great lengths to train their bodies, that's not the case for everyone who looks fit. Many people, in search of social media fame, have definitely taken unhealthy routes to appear more attractive.

Surround yourself with people who love you for who you are, and you won't have to stress about fake Instagram beauty.

6. Unhealthy Sleep Patterns

On top of increasing the cases of anxiety and depression, another bad thing about social media is that spending too much time on it can lead to poor sleep. Numerous studies have shown that increased use of social media has a negative effect on your sleep quality.

If you feel that your sleep patterns have become irregular, leading to a drop in productivity, try to cut down on the amount of time you browse social media.

This is especially the case when using your phone in bed at night. It's all too easy to tell yourself that you'll spend five minutes checking your Facebook notifications, only to realize an hour later that you've been mindlessly scrolling through some nonsense on Twitter you don't even care about.

Don't let social media algorithms, which are designed to keep your attention for as long as possible, steal your valuable sleep too. Getting less sleep, combined with that sleep being lower quality, is a dangerous, unhealthy combination.

7. General Addiction

Social media can be more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol. It has a powerful draw for many people that leads to them checking it all the time without even thinking about it.

If you're not sure whether you're addicted to social networks, try to remember the last time you went a full day without checking any social media accounts. Do you feel rejected if someone unfollows you? And if your favorite social networks completely disappeared tomorrow, would the absence make you feel empty and depressed?

At the end of the day, social media sites want to keep you scrolling for as long as possible so they can show you lots of ads and make more money. Because of the attention economy, these sites need your eyes on them for as long as possible. Apps like TikTok feed you a constant barrage of quick videos that destroy your attention span over time.

Just because you've been going overboard on social media use doesn't mean you necessarily need to wipe out all your social networking accounts. However, if you think quitting is the best solution for you, it isn't a bad idea. See our guide to quitting social media for good if you'd like help.

As with everything else, there are good and bad aspects of social media. We've discussed some of the negative impacts social media has for many, but you're the one who must decide whether there's more help or harm in it for you personally.

If you find that social media is having a negative impact on your life, stop using it. However, if you decide to stay, there are ways to waste less time on social media, and thus maintain a healthier relationship with it.

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7 Negative Effects of Social Media on People and Users

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If you're a heavy social media user, it's wise to think about the negative impacts of social media on you and your peers.

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Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media

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Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda

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