How to Coach Yourself and Others Beware of Manipulation | Page 202

This experiment suggests certain analogies between the environments created for rats by the scientists
and the environments created for us humans by language and the various mass media of
communication. Like the saccharine environment, an environment created or infiltrated by doublespeak
provides the appearance of nourishment and the promise of survival, but the appearance is illusionary
and the promise false.
Contemporary writings
Doublespeak might also have some connections with contemporary theories as well. Edward S.
Herman and Noam Chomsky note in their book that Orwellian Doublespeak is an important component
of the manipulation of the English language in American media, through a process called
‘dichotomization’; a component of media propaganda involving ‘deeply embedded double standards in
the reporting of news’. For example, the use of state funds by the poor and financially needy is
commonly referred to as 'social welfare' or 'handouts', which the 'coddled' poor 'take advantage of'.
These terms, however, do not apply to other beneficiaries of government spending such as tax
incentives and military spending.
E xamples of the structural nature of the
use of Doublespeak have been made by
modern scholars. Noam Chomsky argues in
Manufacturing Consent: The Political
Economy of the Mass Media that people in
modern society consist of decision-makers
and social participants who have to be
made to agree. According to Chomsky, the
media and public relations industry actively
shape public opinion, working to present
messages in line with their economic
agenda for the purposes of controlling of
the 'public mind'. Contrary to the popular
belief that indoctrination is inconsistent
with democracy, Chomsky goes so far as to
argue that 'it's the essence of democracy.'
The point is that in a ... totalitarian state, it
doesn't much matter what people think
because ... you can control what they do.
But when the state loses the bludgeon,
when you can't control people by force and
when the voice of the people can be heard,
... you have to control what people think.
And the standard way to do this is to resort to what in more honest days used to be called propaganda.
Manufacture of consent. Creation of necessary illusions.
Edward Herman's book Beyond Hypocrisy also includes a doublespeak dictionary of commonly
employed media terms and phrases into plain English.
Henceforth, conflict theory demonstrates the dominating ideology of the bourgeoisie and Moran's
theory highlights that doublespeak produces an illusionary effect; both theories having parallels to
Orwell's ideology in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Similarly, Herman's theory of doublespeak having an
inherent nature to be manipulative and Chomsky's theory of 'dichotomization' relates directly to the
practice of doublespeak and how doublespeak is deliberately deceptive in nature.

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