"Whoever controls the media, controls the mind."

[bobcat]

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.

 

[Aunt Bea]

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.

 

[Pepper]

The medium is the message.......

 

[Oldeagle66]

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.

 

[KSav]

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.

And more often than not imbue the story with their own narrative. The U.S. news media does, anyway.

You make a great point, @Oldeagle66.

 

[Oldeagle66]

And more often than not imbue the story with their own narrative. The U.S. news media does, anyway.

You make a great point, @Oldeagle66.

Thanks

 

[Paco Dennis]

"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....?

 

[JBR]

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.

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).