The rich control the poor brains

Are you sure you are in control of your own brain? If the answer is “yes”, I strongly feel you must introspect at this stage.

Did you ever get emotional while watching a daily soap on TV or some movie with a tragic story? Did you ever get scared watching some horror movie or a TV show? The answer is yes, more than often. Didn’t you know that its just a TV show or a movie and is far from reality? You knew it. It happened because you got involved in the story. The story had some impact on your subconscious mind. Though your conscious mind is aware that its not a real event, its the effect of subconscious mind that leads to the emotional response. Your conscious mind is aware of this just being a story. The emotional response is transient and you often get normalized very soon.

But something that is shown to you repeatedly surely affects your thinking. Numerous kids have been reported to have become violent due to over exposure to violent video games. You might have noted that your kids start talking the language that they are exposed to, on cartoon channels. They would demand a brand that is frequently shown during commercial breaks. Not just the kids, but you too would more likely buy a product that is frequently shown on TV channels.

So that’s a good news if you are a seller. You can market the quality products that you sell on TV channels and people would buy them. But do you know how much does it cost. On an average a good channel would charge Rs. 3,50,000 for 10 seconds. If you wish to show the commercial 100 times a day, you would spend 3.5 crores a day and around a hundred crores in a month. The commercials are not for charity, but for business. All that money is recovered from viewers. That is how a cold drink or a packet of potato chips with manufacturing cost of Rs 1 is sold at Rs 10.

There are bigger players who not just want you to buy their products but also want to control the government policies in their favor. They would not want someone in power who can investigate the wrongdoings they are involved in. The corporate lobby would always want to have corporate friendly people in power. It wont be possible till the time majority of people would vote for candidate of their choice. And there comes role of political branding. Political branding is a costly affair for someone who wants to be in politics for social service. But then you have corporate sponsors, who would not just fund your political campaign but would influence the thinking of your voters in your favor.

There comes the role of news channels.

News is typically something that is new, unusual, significant and is about people. If there is some new political event that has an impact on people, it would be news if people are informed about it. What if it is repeatedly shown throughout the day? What if more than news, you are shown views of people. The channel decides whom to be invited to put up his views. The anchor decides whom to be allowed to speak. You are served particular views on a specific subject repeatedly. Most of the news channels today are Views Channels.

Want to guess what side a news channels is inclined to? Look at the topics that they cover most often. See if they are trying to divert our attention towards a less important issue. Look at the invitees for the debate, observe the opportunity that panelist get. The anchor is in command and can move the debate in a particular direction. Look at the way they frame titles of a debate. Title plays an important role.

How do you decide whom to vote for? Just before you go for casting your vote that you do once in 5 years, would you not want to assess the performance of people, you are going to vote for? Wont it be worth discussing the overall performance of ruling party and opposition during past 5 years? The ruling party came in power with some promises that were documented in their manifesto. The opposition was supposed to act as a check and question each act of the ruling party. How often do we get to see their performance being discussed on news channels. Or is it that during elections some non issues are discussed.

We must understand that we are being controlled. The rich control the poor brain through media. Lets start learning to differentiate between News and Views. Lets learn not let others decide what who should be thinking. Lets not let the rich rule our brains. The day we start having our own views with a conscious thinking we would surely be liberated and be a democracy in real sense.

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