Language Manipulation by the Media
Language in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
By manipulating language, the system prevents certain ideas from being expressed. If you don't have the words to express something, then you cannot communicate it, and if you can't communicate it then the idea will not gain public acceptance. The system uses the mass media to redefine the meaning of specific words as well as the overall mood of our language, making certain key words, phrases and clichés so powerfully rooted in public usage that we become lazy and we rely on these clichés, to the detriment of using language accurately and creatively. An example is the young person's fallback: "This sucks." This lazy language does not require the young person to put any thought or effort into expressing the specific nature of his or her discontent, but rather he relies on this simple cliché phrase, which is so well accepted that it requires no explanation. Such phrases degrade the power of language, for they prevent meaningful conversation from taking place. Which parent has not been frustrated by a teenager who communicates in such dumb phrases as: "Whatever." "Ya Right!" "Not!".
The media is being used to make children and young people - and eventually all of us - subscribe to a new form of degraded, dumbed down language. It is all part of an overall plan to dumb down the thinking level of the middle class, to restrict the thought patterns of the public by limiting the language used to express ideas.
Perhaps the reader will say to me: "You go to far! You claim everything is part of a conspiracy." Yes, I do. Everything is part of a conspiracy. A successful conspiracy relies on having some degree of control over every aspect of our lives. But never forget this one key part of my claims: That it is the media which is the most important element of the conspiracy, because it can be used to influence the way in which we view the world - the way we perceive reality. HH