Introducing Propaganda 2.0

Propaganda 2.0 (as I propose to call that eerie phenomenon when more or less quality media is compelled – perhaps compelled inwardly – to go into idiot mode) is based on a clever observation that you don't really need classical propaganda. Propaganda 1.0 is overkill. Without a monopoly on information, it's counterproductive. It makes you vulnerable to any factual counter-claims. When you're caught manipulating facts, you lose your credibility.

Propaganda 2.0 has an answer. Manipulate in plain sight. Just give the plain facts, or the actual words, alongside your twisted interpretation. It'll work. Just like those billboards that shout "FREE* LAPTOPS!!" and whisper, "*with a purchase of $500,000,000 or greater". Did laws requiring the fine-print footnotes make ads with hollow promises go extinct? No. The fine print, besides being a requirement, is good practice. Don't lie to people: use the people's own imagination. And it doesn't matter that in a news article, you can't make some parts larger than others.

Wait, you can. It's called a headline. Everything under a headline is essentially fine print. However, you don't have to stop there. Inside the article, you can twist-in-plain-sight just as successfully. Think that's impossible?

Russia Warns Baltics, Poland To Pay For Georgia Stance

Russia's ambassador to Latvia Monday warned the Baltic states and Poland that they would pay for their criticism of the Kremlin over the conflict in Georgia, the Baltic news agency BNS reported.

"One must not hurry on such serious issues, as serious mistakes can be made that have to be paid for a long time afterwards," Alexander Veshnyakov was quoted as saying by BNS.

See? It's both there. "What he said" and "what we want you to believe he said". Actually, no: "what you want to believe he said". Propaganda 2.0 doesn't make the mistake of trying to instill prejudices. It caters to the ones that are already there.

Thus was Alexandr Veshnyakov, ambassador to Latvia, former head of the Russian Centrizbirkom, the authority overseeing elections, and as such, widely remembered as a very well-mannered and pleasant public speaker, something we could admittedly have more of in Russia, – thus was he transformed into a shoe-banging, knout-wielding drunken bear bellowing, "You wheel pay, Pauland! You wheel paaaay for krrriticking the Krrremlin!!" Thus was the idea of paying for a mistake twisted into "paying" in the adrenaline-rush sense of imagined violent retribution.

You can always rely on someone saying it's what he meant anyway.

More on Propaganda 2.0 as further particularly juicy examples come up.