Media Manipulation - Planting The Seed Of Doubt

America is a country governed by public opinion, which in turn was traditionally governed by newspapers and specifically the economics of newspapers. In the new online media landscape, where clicks are king and underhand manipulation is rampant, it seems that Donald Trump has got a better handle on these dynamics, in the first Presidential election to be played by the new set of rules.

@Ryan Holiday is a master of the dark arts of media exploitation. He made his name with several books, including the now legendary 'Trust Me, I'm Lying', which has become the bible of new media manipulation. In an interview with Real Vision TV he has assessed how each candidate has performed in the campaign so far and the degree of influence that the media itself has had in shaping the debate for America.

"The things that the media system is a slave to is ultimately what's the master over us. And I think you're seeing that in this election."

Instead of just hoping that the media picks up on the flaws of his opposing candidate, Trump tweets about them so the media has to talk about it, whether it's true or not. And in talking about whether they're true or not, journalists are planting the seeds of doubt.

"It almost doesn't matter whether what you say is true or not. What matters is how often you say it."

It used to be there were relatively few and difficult ways to manipulate or distort the media. People did it, but it was fewer. Now there's essentially an unlimited amount of ways, and you have the fact that the media is incentivized to suspend disbelief in a lot of ways.

"Journalists write a story about a hoax. Then the next day, they have to retract the story about the hoax. And then the third day, they write a story about how this hoax was propagated. That's three stories about something that they should have covered zero times."

As for the way the networks cover elections, Holiday says it's no surprise that they tend to go exactly the way they would want them to, looking like a close race right to the end, when it isn't even a close race.

Watch the full interview on media manipulation and the effect on the US election only on Real Vision TV.