"Whoever controls the media, controls the mind."

bobcat

bobcat

Well-known Member
Location
Northern Calif
That was a quote from Jim Morrison back in 1969 during an interview.
Jim wasn't just a rock star wrapped in leather pants. He was an educated and very perceptive individual known for his intellectual depth.
Beyond being the charismatic frontman of The Doors, he was a poet, philosopher, and provocateur who challenged conventional thinking.
He studied at UCLA and had a keen understanding of human nature and the subconscious.

He also had an early grasp of media's power to shape society and what many perceive of as reality, and that was decades before huge media conglomerates became mainstream. Anyone listening to his music could sense his complex inner world. I think he may have feared society's vulnerability to becoming puppets and dancing to whatever tune is being played.

Today, more independents are being bought up, and their voices disappear quietly into the night, thus concentrating the power to influence in the hands of a few. Hopefully Jim's words will echo in the canyon of time as a wakeup call. He could have even added .... "and he who controls the mind, controls the world". He was a very perceptive individual.
 

It’s all about controlling the narrative.

Many years ago I worked for a man that believed the person that wrote the minutes for a meeting was the most powerful person on the team. He always made sure that he volunteered one of his people to write and distribute those minutes.

Take it from me, there was more than a bit of truth in it. 😉🤭😂
 
That's why I seek out news from non-mainstream sources. Just watching network or cable news, you'll miss about 80% of what's happening in the world. They all run the same 4 or 5 news stories for a week.
 
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bobcat said:
That was a quote from Jim Morrison back in 1969 during an interview.
Jim wasn't just a rock star wrapped in leather pants. He was an educated and very perceptive individual known for his intellectual depth.
Beyond being the charismatic frontman of The Doors, he was a poet, philosopher, and provocateur who challenged conventional thinking.
He studied at UCLA and had a keen understanding of human nature and the subconscious.

He also had an early grasp of media's power to shape society and what many perceive of as reality, and that was decades before huge media conglomerates became mainstream. Anyone listening to his music could sense his complex inner world. I think he may have feared society's vulnerability to becoming puppets and dancing to whatever tune is being played.

Today, more independents are being bought up, and their voices disappear quietly into the night, thus concentrating the power to influence in the hands of a few. Hopefully Jim's words will echo in the canyon of time as a wakeup call. He could have even added .... "and he who controls the mind, controls the world". He was a very perceptive individual.
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I know that Aldous Huxley commented along those lines starting in the 1950s, and there was/is a YouTube where he's talking about it in a TV interview. Pretty sure he lectured on this theme. Of course, the internet didn't exist at that time (though I believe the military developed some precursor of it).

Huxley was not convinced about the type of authoritarian methods George Orwell portrayed in 1984, which was the dystopian condition Orwell worried about for the future. Huxley believed instead that the power of subtle, guileful persuasion was more likely the looming threat to social opinion and political policy. Apparently the author Vance Packard was also writing on this theme in the '50s.

Not that I know much about Jim Morrison, I only know bits & pieces. But it's very possible he'd have read some Huxley stuff. And, since JM was educated in Southern California, he may have attended a lecture by Huxley, who spoke at numerous universities (and died in late 1963).
 
JBR said:
I know that Aldous Huxley commented along those lines starting in the 1950s, and there was/is a YouTube where he's talking about it in a TV interview. Pretty sure he lectured on this theme. Of course, the internet didn't exist at that time (though I believe the military developed some precursor of it).

Huxley was not convinced about the type of authoritarian methods George Orwell portrayed in 1984, which was the dystopian condition Orwell worried about for the future. Huxley believed instead that the power of subtle, guileful persuasion was more likely the looming threat to social opinion and political policy. Apparently the author Vance Packard was also writing on this theme in the '50s.

Not that I know much about Jim Morrison, I only know bits & pieces. But it's very possible he'd have read some Huxley stuff. And, since JM was educated in Southern California, he may have attended a lecture by Huxley, who spoke at numerous universities (and died in late 1963).
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I think you're right that Morrison was heavily influenced by Huxley—he even named The Doors after Huxley’s book The Doors of Perception. Morrison’s quote about media control echoes Huxley’s concerns about how mass communication can be weaponized to shape thought and behavior. Not sure if he attended one of Huxley's lectures, but if he didn't, I'm sure he would have enjoyed it.
 
Paco Dennis said:
"Whoever controls the media, controls the mind." Old meme..,very old. Now there is the WEB. Tons of independent media. I am not sure anymore that meme is true. Public opinion controls the media....?
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Well, in North Korea all newspapers, television stations, and radio broadcasts are owned and operated by the government. I don't think that's a coincidence. I think the old meme may still hold up. JMO
 
bobcat said:
Well, in North Korea all newspapers, television stations, and radio broadcasts are owned and operated by the government. I don't think that's a coincidence. I think the old meme may still hold up. JMO
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The meme “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind” reflected a time before the internet when just a handful of newspapers, radio and TV stations shaped what most people heard and believed, often with strict government or corporate oversight. If one group owned or influenced the major broadcasters and publishers, they could more easily set the public agenda and limit dissenting voices. (North Korea for sure ) People had little choice but to trust what the nightly news or morning paper told them, making mass persuasion and even propaganda far more powerful and centralized—history is full of examples of governments and organizations using these levers to sway entire societies.
Today, thanks to the web, the information landscape is vastly more open and diverse. Independent journalists, citizen witnesses, and countless bloggers can investigate, verify, and challenge official stories, giving everyone the ability to read multiple viewpoints and democratize information. Social media, podcasts, video platforms, and personal websites mean that no single company, government, or editor holds total sway over what the public sees and hears—alternative narratives and underreported stories can quickly reach millions.
Of course, there are still concerns about misinformation and new ways information can be manipulated online. But overall, the web ended the monopoly of traditional media and put the power to inform, question, and communicate into the hands of regular people all over the world, making it much harder for anyone to entirely “control the mind” with media alone.

Perplexity AI
 
JustDave said:
I never would have guessed all that about Jim Morrison. Well actually, I guess I never thought about it. I liked his voice.
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Same here. He was probably no model citizen in some regards, but he was inciteful. In interviews I think he said that the most important kind of freedom is to be who you really are. I think another quote was: “There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors”.

I think what he meant was that if our perception of things remained locked, we could never discover what we don't know.
He was a colorful sort and enjoyed thoughtful journey, however it came about.
 
Paco Dennis said:
The meme “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind” reflected a time before the internet when just a handful of newspapers, radio and TV stations shaped what most people heard and believed, often with strict government or corporate oversight. If one group owned or influenced the major broadcasters and publishers, they could more easily set the public agenda and limit dissenting voices. (North Korea for sure ) People had little choice but to trust what the nightly news or morning paper told them, making mass persuasion and even propaganda far more powerful and centralized—history is full of examples of governments and organizations using these levers to sway entire societies.
Today, thanks to the web, the information landscape is vastly more open and diverse. Independent journalists, citizen witnesses, and countless bloggers can investigate, verify, and challenge official stories, giving everyone the ability to read multiple viewpoints and democratize information. Social media, podcasts, video platforms, and personal websites mean that no single company, government, or editor holds total sway over what the public sees and hears—alternative narratives and underreported stories can quickly reach millions.
Of course, there are still concerns about misinformation and new ways information can be manipulated online. But overall, the web ended the monopoly of traditional media and put the power to inform, question, and communicate into the hands of regular people all over the world, making it much harder for anyone to entirely “control the mind” with media alone.

Perplexity AI
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If that was accurate, we would all be dining on the banquet of truth. It's not the reality I see.
 
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