Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Subliminal Seduction by Wilson Bryan Key was constantly in print. I think I bought my paperback copy a good decade after it was first released in 1973. I’ve never really bought the conspiratorial theory; there have been Freudian images in advertising since — well, probably since about five minutes after the good doctor smoked his first cigar. And it does seem like bored airbrush artists have long been inserting funky imagery into the ice cubes in photographs of scotch tumblers. But…do these techniques in and of themselves actually manipulate consumers to buy a particular product?
On the Pajamas homepage, Charlie Martin attempts to ascertain the crowd numbers at Glenn Beck’s rally yesterday, by studying the photos released by the media. But not the first photo the Washington Post had on their Website for much of Saturday.
That photo was the topic of an item by Prof. William A. Jacobson. After he mentioned Key’s venerable book, I thought I’d have a little fun with Photoshop to illustrate the point he made about “Subliminal Deception” on his Legal Insurrection blog:
The image on The Washington Post [see note below] website of the Restoring Honor rally today in Washington, D.C., reminded me of the advertising concept of subliminal seduction, where images are inserted into an advertisement in such a way as to send a message to the viewer without the viewer knowing it.
WaPo’s article about the rally carried a time stamp of 1:38 p.m., but the photo of a near empty crowd in front of the Lincoln Memorial clearly was taken long before the tens or hundreds of thousands of rally participants arrived.
The caption says “Glenn Beck Rally Draws Thousands,” but the photo is not of the rally.
Subliminal deception.
[Note: WaPo has updated the linked article, and as of 9:03 p.m. has a different photo and more photos showing the crowd. The screenshot above was taken at 1:38 p.m., and the same lead photo and image was on the website at least until after 2 p.m. Considering that the rally started at 10:00 a.m., at which time the area was packed, there was no excuse for WaPo using that photo for several hours.]
Update: Here’s what the crowd-shot looked like during the rally (Via):
Meanwhile, as another law professor notes, “A whole lot of people seem to be using the same phrase to describe this event. Must’ve gone out via whatever’s replaced JournoList . . . . .”
When they’re not using scare quotes, of course.
Beck was certainly good-natured about techniques by the WaPo and others to play down the size of the crowd; as he joked to them during his speech,”I have just gotten word from the media that there is over a thousand people here today!” But these sort of techniques, combined with the increasingly hostile tone of the MSM regarding wide swatches of their readers, and coming after the same tactics were employed by the MSM to minimize the similarly massive crowds to Beck’s 9/12 rally last year, are starting to seem less like the epistemic closure of the MSM’s cocoon, and more like an exercise in magical thinking. As was, in retrospect, this:
In late October 2008, New Yorker staff writer George Packer reported “the complete collapse of the four-decade project that brought conservatism to power in America.” Two weeks later, the day after Mr. Obama’s election, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne proclaimed “the end of a conservative era” that had begun with the rise of Ronald Reagan.And in February 2009, New York Times Book Review and Week in Review editor Sam Tanenhaus, writing in The New Republic, declared that “movement conservatism is exhausted and quite possibly dead.” Mr. Tanenhaus even purported to discern in the new president “the emergence of a president who seems more thoroughly steeped in the principles of Burkean conservatism than any significant thinker or political figure on the right.”
Messrs. Packer, Dionne and Tanenhaus underestimated what the conservative tradition rightly emphasizes, which is the high degree of unpredictability in human affairs. They also conflated the flagging fortunes of George W. Bush’s Republican Party with conservatism’s popular appeal. Most importantly, they failed to grasp the imperatives that flow from conservative principles in America, and the full range of tasks connected to preserving freedom.
But then, that’s why the Washington Post and its related publications get the big bucks these days.
Impressive. I still don’t get the part that the Glenn Beck attacks didn’t really start until he left CNN for Fox News. That’s what’s fascinating about his whole storyline, at least, to me.
The spin is interesting – makes one wonder if the Post even had a reporter on sight. I was there and even the over view does not really show the full crowd. Those wooded areas were full to capacity and although those folks could not even see the Jumbotrons, they could hear the program. The HUGE crowd was silent and respectful and it was a solemn but happy day. There were minorities present, not only African Americans, but Latinos, Eastern Indians and we met a couple from Trinidad-Tobago. We have given up on reliable news coverage by the mainstream media, but the blogs will get the word out!
Mr. Driscoll;
“But then, that’s why the Washington Post and its related publications get the big bucks these days.”
Yes, quite.
It would seem that the MSM’s subliminal seduction techniques have mainly only been successful in seducing each other and themselves.
For some reason, “The Human Centipede” comes to mind:
(link is SFW)
http://www.dreadcentral.com/img/news/apr10/cent3a.jpg
…add a few more “segments” and then join the foremost to the hindmost, and I reckon that that’s what is going on intellectually in newsrooms and editorial offices around the country.
Keeps ‘em “relevant”…but only to each other.
“A whole lot of people seem to be using the same phrase to describe this event. Must’ve gone out via whatever’s replaced JournoList . . . . .”
I think the memespeak predates jourolist by at least a dozen or so years. Remember when every mid 90′s TV news critter regardless of the network began each piece on the events in Bosnia with the standard opening line of “War torn Bosnia”? Nowadays every bearded bomb-throwing or bomb-wearing bug-eyed Allahmaniac is now graced with the description of insurgent, implying the dipstick being referenced is actually some form of heroic freedom fighter, a veritable modern day Minuteman.
Calling the murdering terrorist craphead exactly what he is is way too judgemental for the chattering class to wrap themselves around I reckon?
And if you’d bothered to open the photo gallery of which this picture was a part, you would have seen the following caption:
“Tourists check out the action Friday on the Mall. Many are in the District to attend Glenn Beck’s ‘Restoring Honor’ rally Saturday.”
Of course then you couldn’t make this ridiculous post with a straight face.
Straight face? I write all my posts with a mildly bemused grin!
I’m sure that’s how you think of it.