Mythology in political communication. Myths and the media Myths of the media

18.10.2020

"Izvestia" once again demonstrates its complete incompetence, and the yellowness of the publication is becoming more and more clearly manifested. And almost all other Russian media once again prove that the word "truth" is an empty phrase for them, ratings are more important, albeit at the cost of spreading false information. Almost all the leading media in Russia fell for another roast duck of Izvestia, and spread false information under a catchy, misleading headline.

So, just now Izvestia reported that The head of the Federal Air Transport Agency reported to the government that GLONASS on Russian aircraft turned out to be useless

The Federal Air Transport Agency immediately refuted these statements, which was to be expected, the incompetence of the newspaper's journalists has long been doubted by anyone, especially since competence is not needed in such a matter, because it is very fashionable to poison GLONASS, and it has a good effect on ratings, the menstream is like this, if speak in Western terms.

"This is an incompetent statement of a journalist who does not know how the official correspondence got. The journalist the meaning of the correspondence is completely distorted, in fact, it indicates the measures taken by the Federal Air Transport Agency to introduce the GLONASS system on the entire fleet of aircraft," the agency said.

Perhaps this article should be placed in the "Media Myths" section. in often you can find information that Russia is neighbors in terms of quality of life with the poorest countries in Africa ...

I looked at the World Bank website, the list of countries in the world by GDP

United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) does not have information about the disruption or postponement of the signing of contracts for "Boreas" and "Ash" with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. This was announced today by ITAR-TASS official representative of USC.

"In connection with the real hysteria unleashed by some media around the topic of contracts between the Ministry of Defense and USC, I would like to note that such a position does not contribute to the successful completion of the negotiation process," he said.

"In such situations, when a number of facts related to this topic cannot be made public for reasons of secrecy, an important aspect of media behavior should be the professional responsibility of journalists," the official stressed. "In this regard, it is noteworthy that not for the first time in some media, with reference to USC, information appears on various aspects of concluding contracts within the framework of the State Defense Order-2012, untrue".

There have been a lot of rumors around the airborne troops lately. It is reported that the national guard will allegedly be created on their basis. That winged infantry is thrown to cover Russian military installations abroad. What awaits the "blue berets", what tasks they perform, in an exclusive interview with the correspondent of "RG" said the commander of the Airborne Forces Hero of Russia Vladimir Shamanov.

The article is quite old, but very good and authoritative. I add here so as not to look for it once again, well, I advise those who have not read it

O. Skvortsov, laureate of the State Prize of the USSR,Honored Builder of the Russian Federation,President of the Nonprofit Partnershiproad design organizations "RODOS"

At the end of last year, materials began to appear in the media, which claimed that the cost of building roads in Russia was prohibitively high, significantly higher than in other countries.

For example, in one of its issues, the Vedomsti newspaper claimed that, according to experts, the cost of road construction in Russia, compared with other countries, is overestimated by 3–50 times. Moreover, in all publications where information on this problem was published, the phrase “according to experts” always appeared, but who they were, these experts, was not indicated. As a person who has worked in this industry all my life, I know all the specialists who can competently comment on these issues, and their circle is rather narrow. However, none of them, as far as I was able to establish, made such comments. After doing a search on the Internet, I still managed to find the names of several "experts" from whom the information that appeared in print came from. These are Aghvan Mikaelyan, General Director of FinExpertiza LLC, Marcel Bikbau, General Director of the Moscow Institute of Materials Science and Efficient Technologies (IMET), Academician, Doctor of Chemical Sciences, Vladislav Inozemtsev, Scientific Director of the Center for Post-Industrial Society Studies, and State Duma Deputy Oksana Dmitrieva, Doctor economic sciences.

Most of you have probably seen this video.

After its appearance, similar videos and messages from observant citizens began to appear from other cities. It suddenly turned out that in Russia road work does not stop, but continues almost all year round, and asphalt is laid both in snow and in rain.

Naturally, any of our people, especially if he is a conscientious person, a gay, a free blogger or a journalist, knows how to lay asphalt. Moreover, any Internet user knows this better than any road builder. And it's not surprising, because each of us even knows how to govern the state, and laying asphalt is much easier.

The central mass media, as one of the most powerful tools for the unstructured management of social processes at the state level, can be oriented to the limit in two directions:

or strive to provide the audience with the most objective and relevant information, both necessary for life and ensuring the development of horizons and raising the moral level of society;
or create such an information background that will contribute to the degradation of consumers of information, as well as create a favorable environment for all sorts of deceptions and manipulations in various areas of public life.

In the second case, the managerial essence of the mass media is hidden as much as possible and replaced by the false tasks of self-financing, the pursuit of ratings, mandatory pluralism, and so on.

We invite you to familiarize yourself with the main methods of forming a chaotic (kaleidoscopic) worldview among a mass audience and established information myths, the dominance of which in the information field ensures the use of the central media mainly according to the second scenario.

The myths behind manipulation

The myth of neutrality

To achieve the greatest success, manipulation should remain invisible. This requires a false reality where its presence will not be felt. It is important that people believe in the neutrality of the main social institutions:

Honesty and impartiality of the government and its constituent parts. Corruption and deceit are justified by human weaknesses. The institutions themselves are beyond suspicion.
People need to believe that the media is only reporting events and opinions, not shaping them.
Science (which is closely related to economics) is also ostensibly neutral and objective.
The education system from elementary school to university level, according to the manipulators, is free from directed ideological influence.

All these myths are designed to convince the population that no private views can have a dominant influence on the decision-making processes in the country.

The myth of media pluralism

The illusion of information choice is based on the fact that people are ready to mistake the abundance of media for the variety of content. Information monopolies offer only one version of reality - their own. But when similar opinions come from different sources, the idea of unguided, free and natural information is created. Choice is indeed impossible without variety, but if there are no real choices, then the choice is either meaningless or manipulative (when an illusion is created that it makes sense). We waste our freedom of choice on a lot of pointless decisions (what show to watch, what washing powder to buy - and they are all very similar), but the really important things always remain hidden from our attention.

The myth of the absence of social conflicts

Manipulators, painting a picture of life inside the country, deny the existence of social conflicts. All attention is diverted to other issues - the desire to break through the middle class, the image of an external enemy, etc. The most successful and supported by the media are those films, television programs, books and mass spectacles (Disneyland) that offer a significant dose of violence, but do not involve social conflicts. Authentic, reality-recognizing works are lost in this stream of stampings.

The myth of individualism and personal choice

Choice and freedom are presented as something desirable and purely personal, individual rights are placed above group rights, and the desire for material wealth in an individual family is encouraged. Orientation to an exclusively egocentric worldview, when the problems of ecology and the environment, social differences are ignored, but all attention is directed to increasing the pace of production and consumption. Private property in all areas of life is considered the norm: it is no longer surprising that the healthcare sector, the education system, cultural institutions are commercial and focused primarily on making a profit, and not for the benefit of the whole society.

The myth of the immutable nature of man

Theories are being promoted that point to the inherently aggressive side of human behavior and the immutability of human nature itself. It is argued that existing conflicts are inherent in a person, and not imposed by social conditions. A "scientific" approach is popular, which measures the vicious aspects of society in detail, but ignores important social parameters. Attention shifts to the physical side of life: living conditions, fashion, technical innovations, the possibility of changing sex, etc. If suddenly there are messages about favorable changes, possible ways out of the crisis, then they are criticized or ridiculed, people are quickly helped “correctly” interpret such information.

Myths are created to keep people in line. When they can be quietly implanted in the minds of the masses, myths acquire tremendous power, since most people are unaware of the ongoing manipulation.

Ways of presenting information that form a kaleidoscopic worldview

Fragmentation as a form of communication

In order to effectively and discreetly introduce myths, a special method is used to disseminate information, which can be called fragmentation. News on radio and television is divided into numerous unrelated messages, in newspapers and magazines articles are deliberately broken up by advertising pages. Advertising with the same indifference interferes with all information and entertainment programs, regardless of what it is about, reducing any social phenomena to the level of meaningless incidents. The already low ability of people to critically analyze information is completely turned off. A common feature of most central media is the heterogeneity of the material presented and the denial of the relationship between events.

Even children's programs follow a similar commercial model and are interrupted by commercials. This is explained by the fact that children cannot focus their attention on anything for a long time and need rest. But in practice, the gradual increase in the period of time when children concentrate on one thing is a factor in the development of their mental abilities. Discussion programs reduce the importance of the very subject of controversy and, with the help of fragmentation, shift attention to disparate points of view and minor details, missing the main thing. Even if someone expresses a sound idea, it will be lost in the subsequent stream of advertising, gossip, intimate scenes, flat humor. The frankness of the presentation of information and the flow of various criticisms create the illusion of freedom of opinion and access to information.

The crushing method is used not only by the media. A large part of the cultural-educational system carries out dispersion, specialization and microscopic division. Subjects and disciplines are arbitrarily and forcibly divided into narrower ones, the interdisciplinary relationship is denied: "economics - for economists, politics - for scientists studying political sciences." Although in reality these spheres are inseparable from each other, scientifically this relationship is ignored. As a result, specialists grow up in society who perfectly understand their narrow topic, but do not have the knowledge to cover global processes in their entirety. Streams of unrelated information cause information overload, while the amount of meaningful information does not increase. Fragmentary information is offered as reliable "information", which ultimately leads to misunderstanding, and then apathy and indifference.

Immediate transmission of information

Immediacy is not only associated with the method of crushing, but is also an essential element for its implementation. Speed when transferring information is not always a virtue. The competitive system has made information as much a commodity as anything else. The benefit is to get and quickly sell such a perishable commodity as news. In the event of crises, an unreasonable atmosphere of hysteria is whipped up. Information lightning and reports from the scene create a feeling of extreme importance, which dissipates just as quickly.

Constantly alternating reports of catastrophes, military actions, strikes and natural disasters make it difficult to distinguish between information according to the degree of importance and do not leave time for analysis and balanced judgments. All attention is focused on current events, and the necessary connection with the past is destroyed. At the same time, we are not talking about the technical possibilities for the rapid transmission of information, which can play a positive role, but about the method of manipulation that uses these possibilities to disperse and deprive of meaning. We simply do not have time to comprehend the events taking place, because this takes time.

An important goal of the manipulation scenario of using the media is the passivity of society

When successfully applied, manipulation inevitably leads to the passivity of the individual, to a state of inertia that prevents action. Both the content (myths) and the ways of presenting information have a stupefying effect.

Physical activity decreases: a person is content with watching TV, and no longer wants to be a participant in events. He is satisfied with the role of an observer. There will be no opposition if necessary. Consumers have replaced creators.
An even more dangerous consequence is a decrease in intellectual activity, an increase in passivity. Feelings that can make you take action are lulled. The viewer knows much more about the life of fictional characters from the screen than about the fate of real historical heroes and their parents. Knowledge is lost.

Such an impact resembles lulling, does not irritate you, does not force you to react, frees you from the need to show at least some activity. All means are good: radio, television, cinema, mass spectacles, all kinds of shows. Yes, occasionally there are programs or films that awaken awareness and draw attention to issues of great importance. But there are not so many of them, because the purpose of the manipulators is not to awaken, but to lull anxiety about economic and social reality. All events are told as if people have nothing to do with them, they cannot change anything, but simply should be aware of all kinds of events. The line between news with real events and fictional movie plots is blurring: for a passive viewer, there is no difference.

Efforts are needed to overcome or at least create a counterbalance to this system, which causes passivity and degradation.

1) The primary task is to comprehend the management function of information media in all its manifestations. Development of analytical and critical abilities among a wide audience, the ability to identify the publicized and unpublished goals of the media, to assess the impact in a comprehensive manner.

2) Creativity as a way to awaken awareness. The transition from consumption to creation, the creation and distribution of information content that motivates for worldview and moral development.

The article was prepared on the basis of the materials of the book by G. Schiller "Manipulators of Consciousness" (M., 1980). The book is a little rethought, because 30 years ago there was no what we are facing today. But the prerequisites were already there.

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Recent research has revealed the mythical structures of images and behavior that are used in their impact on society and mass media collectives. This phenomenon is especially typical for the USA. "Comic book" characters are modern versions of mythological or folklore characters. They embody the ideal of a significant part of the general public to such an extent that various vicissitudes of their fate, and even more so death, cause real shocks among readers, they send thousands of telegrams and letters to authors and editors of newspapers and magazines with protests. A fantastic character, the superman has become extremely popular due to the duality of his personality: having been transferred to Earth from a planet that disappeared as a result of the catastrophe, the superman lives under the guise of a modest journalist Clark Kent. He is modest, inconspicuous, his colleague Lois Lane is constantly ahead of him. In this mask of modesty of a hero with truly limitless possibilities, a well-known mythological theme is reproduced. If we talk about the essence, then the myth of the superman satisfies the secret desires of modern man, who, realizing himself destitute and weak, dreams that one day he will become a "hero", an exceptional personality, a "superman".

The same can be said about the police novel; on the one hand, we find ourselves here witnessing the struggle between good and evil, between the hero (detective) and the criminal (the modern incarnation of the demon). On the other hand, the reader is unconsciously involved in the process of identification, he participates in drama and mystery, he has a feeling of personal involvement in the action, which turns out to be both dangerous and "heroic".

It has also been proved how, with the help of the mass media, personalities are mythologized, they are transformed into an image that serves as an example. “Lord Warner tells us in the 1st part of his Life and Death of the origin of this type of character. Biggie Muldoon, a Yankee City cop, becomes a national hero as he turns out to be a vocal opposition to Hill Street aristocrats, so much so that the press and radio make him a demigod. He appears as a crusader from the people who rushed to storm the fortress of wealth. Then, when the public got tired of this image, the media obligingly turned Biggie into a scoundrel, a corrupt cop who exploited the misfortunes of society for his own benefit. Warner shows that the real Biggie is essentially different from one and the other image, but he is forced to change his behavior in accordance with one image and reject the other.

Mythological behavior is also revealed in the obsessive desire to achieve "success", so characteristic of modern society and expressing a dark and unconscious desire to go beyond human capabilities. This finds its expression in the exodus to the "suburbs", which can be interpreted as nostalgia for the "original perfection" and in the extreme predilection for the "cult of the sacred chariot". According to Andrew Greeley, “It is enough to visit the annual car show to understand that this is a real religious ritual. Flowers, lighting, music, reverence for admiring visitors, the presence of temple priestesses (models), splendor and luxury, extravagance, a multitude of people - all this in a different culture could be called a real liturgical service (...). The cult of the sacred car has its followers and its initiates. The Gnostic did not look forward to the revelation of the oracle any more than the car aficionado waits for the first reports of new models. It is during this period of the annual seasonal cycle that the importance and role of clergymen - car sellers, increases, and the restless crowd impatiently awaits a new savior.

Less attention was paid to a kind of elite myths, in particular those associated with artistic creativity and its reflection in culture and society. First of all, let us clarify that myths have become entrenched in a narrow circle of initiates, mainly due to the inferiority complex of the public and official authorities in the field of arts. Aggressive misunderstanding on the part of the public, critics and official representatives in relation to such artists as Rimbaud and Van Gogh, the negative consequences that the inattention to innovative trends from impressionism to cubism and surrealism had for collectors and museums, served as a harsh lesson for critics, the public, booksellers, collectors and museum administrators. At present, they have only one fear: to miss, not to notice a new genius, not to recognize a future masterpiece in a completely incomprehensible work. Never, it seems, has it been so clear that the more boldly and defiantly an artist exposes himself, the more incomprehensible, absurd and inaccessible he is, the more he is recognized, treated kindly, spoiled. In some countries, a kind of inside-out academicism, an avant-garde academicism, has even arisen, so much so that an artist who does not take this new conformism into account runs the risk of remaining unnoticed or being pushed aside by competitors.

The myth of the cursed artist, which prevailed in the 19th century, is now obsolete. In the USA, first of all, but also in Western Europe, impudence, impudence and defiant behavior bring the most benefit to the artist. He is required to be strange, not like anything else and to create only "completely new". The reign of the permanent revolution is taking place in art at the present time. It is not enough to even say that everything is allowed: any innovation is proclaimed in advance and equated to the genius of Van Gogh or Picasso, all the same, we are talking about torn posters or a tin can signed by the artist.

The significance of this cultural phenomenon is all the more obvious because, perhaps for the first time in the history of art, there is no longer any tension between the artist, critics, collectors and the public. Complete and general agreement reigns, even before a new work appears, before an artist unknown to anyone is discovered. Only one thing is important: in no case should such a situation be allowed that one would have to admit someday - they did not understand the new artistic experience, they missed the new genius.

With regard to such a mythology of modern elites, we confine ourselves to only a few remarks. First of all, we note the redemptive function of the concept of "inaccessibility" as it manifests itself in contemporary art. If Finnegans Wake, atonal music, or tachisme are admired by the elite, it is because these works are closed worlds, hermetic universes that can only be penetrated at the cost of great effort, comparable to the trials through which initiates go through in primitive societies. On the one hand, there is a sense of "initiation" that has almost disappeared in modern society. On the other hand, in the eyes of the “others”, in the eyes of the “mass”, belonging to some secret minority is advertised, not to the “aristocracy” (the modern elite gravitates towards leftist parties), but to a gnosis, at the same time eternal, permanent and spiritual, opposed as official values, and the traditional Church. With the help of a cult of extravagant and incomprehensible originality, the elite marked a break with the banal, philistine world of their parents, while simultaneously rebelling against modern philosophies of despair.

In fact, the hypnosis of inaccessibility, incomprehensibility of a work of art betrays a desire to discover a new, secret, previously unknown meaning of the world and human existence. There is a desire for “initiation”, a desire to find the hidden meaning of this destruction of the artistic language, all these “original” experiences that at first glance have nothing to do with art. Torn posters, empty canvases, knife-slashed or burned "objects of art" exploding during a vernissage, impromptu performances where the actors draw lots to decide who to give lines to - all this should matter, as well as some obscure words from "Finnegans Wake" for Initiates take on many meanings and amazing beauty when they are discovered to be descended from words in modern Greek or Swahili, which are enriched with hidden allusions to possible puns when spoken loudly and quickly.

Of course, all genuine revolutionary experiences in contemporary art reflect some aspect of a spiritual crisis, or simply a crisis of knowledge and artistic creation. But for us, first of all, it is of interest that the “elite” sees in the extravagance and incomprehensibility of modern works the possibility of a kind of knowledge of initiation. It is, as it were, a "new world", which is being reconstructed from fragments and mysteries, a world that exists only for a narrow circle of initiates. But the prestige of difficulty in understanding and incomprehensibility is so great that the general public very soon becomes involved in this process and proclaims its full agreement with the discoveries of the elite.

The destruction of artistic language was carried out by Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Dodecaphonism and "concrete music", Joyce, Beckett, Ionesco. Further destruction can be undertaken only by epigones. As we said in the previous chapter, real artists don't want to work on rubble. Everything leads us to the conclusion that the reduction of the "artistic universe" to the original state of materia prima, the primary matter, is only a moment of a more complex process. As in the cyclic concepts of primitive societies, "Chaos", the regression of all forms to the primary forms of the materia prima, is followed by a new creation, similar to cosmogony.

The crisis of the contemporary arts does not interest us in itself. However, it is worth dwelling on the role of literature, especially epic literature associated with mythology and mythological behavior. It is known that the epic and the novel, like other literary genres, continue, in a different plane and with different goals, the mythological narrative. In both cases, it tells about events taking place in a more or less fictional past. This is not the place to recount the long and complex process that transformed the "mythological matter" into the "plot" of the epic narrative. We emphasize, however, that narrative prose and, in particular, the novel in modern societies have taken the place of the mythological story and fairy tales in primitive societies. Moreover, it is legitimate to speak of the "mythical" structure of some modern novels, it can be proved that many significant mythological themes and characters will receive a new life in literary guise (this is especially true with regard to the theme of initiation, the theme of the trials that the hero-redeemer undergoes, his battles with monsters, mythological themes of women and wealth). Considering all this, we can conclude that the modern predilection for the novel expresses a penchant for desacralized or only hidden in secular forms "mythological stories".

Another significant fact: the need for "stories" and stories that could be called paradigmatic, since they unfold according to the traditional model. No matter how serious the crisis of the modern novel may be, the need to plunge into "other" universes and follow the ups and downs of "history" seems to be inherent in man and therefore indestructible and ineradicable. Its essence is difficult to define, here both the desire to communicate with "others", "unknowns", to share their dramas and hopes, and the need to know what could happen are expressed. It is hard to imagine a person who would not succumb to the charm of a “story”, a story about significant events that happened to people who have, as it were, a “double reality” of literary characters who simultaneously reflect the historical and psychological reality of members of modern society and possess the magical power of creative fiction. But the "going beyond the limits of Time", carried out with the help of reading - in particular novels - is what most of all brings together the functions of literature and mythology. Of course, the time that is “lived through” when reading a novel is not the time that is integrated in archaic societies, gathered into one whole when listening to a myth. But both in one and in the other case, there is a “leaving” of historical and personal time and immersion in a fictional, transhistorical time.

The reader enters the realm of imaginary, alien time, the rhythms of which are changeable to infinity, since each story has its own time, specific and exceptional. The novel does not have access to the original, original time of myths, but insofar as it tells a plausible story, the novelist uses time, as it were, historical, but taken in an expanded or contracted form, a time that, therefore, has all the freedom of imaginary worlds. . In literature, more than in other arts, there is a revolt against historical time, a desire to discover and find other temporal rhythms than those within which we are forced to live and work. One can ask the question: will this desire ever disappear from one's own, historical and personal time and plunge into a time "foreign", ecstatic or imaginary. As long as this desire exists, it can be said that modern man retains at least to some extent the rudiments of "mythological behavior." The features of such mythological behavior are also found in the desire to find the intensity with which we experienced or know something for the first time: in the desire to find the distant past, the blissful time of the “originals”.

As expected, this is still the same struggle against time, the same hopes to throw off the burden of "dead time", which crushes and kills.

MECHANISMS OF INFLUENCE OF POLITICAL INFORMATION IN THE MEDIA ON PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS Nadia Chursova

The political life of modern Russia is entirely dependent on the media. The art of forming obsessive images and manipulating public consciousness has reached such a technological level that allows you to shape the views and political preferences of people. The activities of the media are almost completely controlled by the state. In a "democratic society" there are also elements of propaganda. For successful suggestion, a number of methods are used that form the political culture and political consciousness of society. The purpose of the study is to consider the socio-psychological mechanisms of suggestion through the formation of myths, stereotypes, images, rumors. Today, Russian society can hardly be called civil, because it does not respect the principles of a democratic state. The media audience is little involved in the political process, political decisions are made by the state elite and public opinion is often used as a factor in pressure on the masses. Most representatives of society do not consider their opinion decisive and remain passive. Manipulation is carried out using methods of subconscious stimulation, when the attitude of the audience to certain environmental phenomena is formed using standardized simplified representations (stereotypes, images, myths, rumors), which are introduced into the stream of "organized" news, automatically causing negative, or a positive reaction to a particular event. The tasks of the media in the process of persuasion are to create a strong, stable attitude towards this phenomenon, not only the formation of beliefs, but also the motivation for action, the development of habits. Throughout the history of mankind, various examples of suggestion can be distinguished. Due to its biological nature, a person is susceptible to suggestion, imitation and contagion. Some psychologists argue that susceptibility to suggestion is a constant fate of a person. But the mechanisms of suggestion do not always work in the same way. At various stages of its development, a society may be more or less prone to suggestion. There is an opinion that in a society that develops according to the laws of democracy, the mechanisms of logical persuasion are more effective. Under conditions of tyranny, dictatorship, monarchy, a people that is not accustomed to mental activity is most susceptible to suggestion. The attitudes of the younger generation in Nazi Germany were changed within 5-8 years, in the Soviet Union within 10 years (from 1931 to 1941). Various techniques used for manipulation purposes were practiced in Germany during the First World War. For example, in radio broadcasts, sound effects were used to artificially enhance the aggressive feelings of the crowd. All Hitler's speeches were accompanied by music from Wagner's operas. Heavy, complex music had a depressing effect on the listeners, creating the feeling of an impending war machine. The "effect of infection" of people in the crowd with a special emotional state was also used. Radio broadcasts of parades, marches, and rallies were carried out to whip up mass psychosis. According to the mechanism of behavior in the crowd, a person becomes part of the mass, falls under the power of passions. In my work, I consider suggestion by means of forming myths, images, rumors, but there are many other methods of suggestion that are also effective. One example is the mechanism for creating an "enemy image", which is based on the idea of dehumanization. The enemy must be different (of a different nationality), he is aggressive, you need to defend yourself from him. It is necessary to introduce only bad information about the enemy and create barriers for information that carries a positive assessment. For example, this method is described in the book by L. Laydbardzhira "Psychological Warfare". The Germans in the war with the French sent fake letters from different cities, revealing that their (French soldiers) wives committed adultery and that they fell ill with venereal diseases. This technique was also used in propaganda during the Vietnam-American War. The Vietnamese were portrayed in one face (in photographs in the media). In turn, the Vietnamese themselves perceived the Americans as "clumsy thugs." The formation of a myth is the most effective historical mechanism of suggestion. In the modern situation, "myth" represents both the actual Greek term (mythos - legend, legend) and the meaning that was introduced by European scientists from the beginning of the 19th century. Cultural, national and religious institutions form myths, which are "a system that models in the minds of individuals who are part of a group, the surrounding world and its fragments." [cit. by 4] The audience already has their own idea of reality. The myth completes it and directs it in the right direction, either simplifying or transforming reality. The myth must be based on a specific tradition that exists in society. It is impossible to introduce completely new excellent values, opposing them to traditional ones. Myth-making is natural for society. Society does not exist without a myth (the myth of culture, the traditions of one's people). Public consciousness is so inert that correctly presented information in the form of a myth is instantly introduced into its structure. The myth is perceived dogmatically. The created myth about the good of communism still lives in the minds of the older generation. The myth creates a "political fairy tale" in the human mind. People need this fairy tale to believe, to work, to live for the benefit of someone. It is only necessary to compose it correctly, as soon as the Sami people distribute the roles and begin to play according to someone else's rules. Myth-making allows falsifying political events, mythologizing political figures. The commemorative dates carried out by the state, the celebration of anniversaries of historical events, the honoring of outstanding figures of our time, respect for symbols is also a way of mythologizing public consciousness. This method is widely used in the West. In our country, due to changes in the political system, the symbols of statehood are only beginning to penetrate into consciousness. With the help of myths, the idea of the political leaders of the past is distorted. Thanks to myths, in the process of "democratization" of society, ideas about such people as Bukharin, Dzerzhinsky, Kerensky, Kolchak, Nicholas II, Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky changed radically. Sometimes the myth contributes to the refutation of the true facts of events, which are often perceived by people as fiction. This is exactly how the stories of the Afghans that they participated in a real war were perceived, since the myth of a limited contingent of Soviet troops in Afghanistan was “fixed” in the mass consciousness by propaganda. In such communicative situations, the psychological mechanism of biased assimilation of new knowledge operates. Experts argue that the opportunities for the emergence and spread of a mass social myth, as well as its abuse through the media in modern society, have not decreased, but increased. The myth can be introduced into consciousness by means of stereotypes. But the suggestion of information in the form of a stereotype is also a separate mechanism of socio-psychological influence on the audience. Most researchers agree that stereotypes can be "imposed" through the media. They are formed under the influence of two factors: unconscious collective processing and the individual socio-cultural environment, as well as targeted ideological influence with the help of the media. In relation to political power, the older generation has a stereotype of "imposing", "firm hand" politics; the stereotype of "defensive consciousness", that is, the refusal to focus on someone else's experience. The concept of "stereotype" was first introduced into circulation by the famous American journalist Walter Lippman in 1922 in the book "Public Opinion", where he defines a stereotype as a simplified, pre-accepted idea that does not follow from a person's own experience. It arises on the basis of the mediated perception of the object: "We are told about the world before we know it in experience." Stereotypes, according to W. Lippman, initially arise spontaneously, due to "the inevitable need to save attention." They contribute to the formation of traditions and habits among the population. They are the fortress that guards our own traditions, and under their cover we can feel secure in the position we occupy. "Stereotypes have an impact on the formation of new empirical experience:" They fill a fresh vision with old images and are superimposed on the other world. which we perceive in our memory". Although the degree of their adequacy is extremely labile, stereotypes are mostly inadequate images of objective reality, based on the "mistake" of a person who, out of habit, takes a biased vision." "The stereotype is unambiguous; it divides the world into two categories - "familiar" and "unfamiliar." The familiar becomes a synonym for "good", and the unfamiliar - a synonym for "bad". that the stereotype is neutral. The evaluative element acts as an attitude, emotional communication. The stereotype is not just a simplification. It is "highly charged with feelings." The evaluative element of the stereotype (attitude) is always consciously determined, since the stereotype, expressing the feelings of the individual, , is always correlated with group feelings and group actions. From here followed the conclusion about the possible unity of stereotypes in certain social institutions and social systems. The stereotype, W. Lippmann thought further, is not adequate. Stereotypes ("prejudices") effectively control the entire process of perception, being a standard for assessing and, accordingly, protecting a person belonging to this group.Ultimately, stereotypes contribute to the process of interpretation with socio-political unity of the group. At the same time, the formation of a stereotype goes through three stages, as a result of which a complex object is reduced to a scheme and well-known features. In the book "The Remedy for Millions" R. O "Hara calls these three stages: the first is "levelling", the second is "strengthening", the third is "assimilation". First, a complex differentiated object is reduced to several ready-made, well-known forms (features) , and then the selected characteristics of the object are given special significance in comparison with the one they had, being the constituent elements of the whole.Finally, the "aligned" and "reinforced" features of the object are selected to build an image that is close and meaningful to a given individual. situations, reacts automatically. "The intensity of the reaction, - according to O" Hara, - will depend on the intensity of the emotional impact, on the art of manipulating stereotypes. The mechanism of image formation in the process of mass communication is widely used in the election campaign. An external role pattern is created that allows the media reproduce in the mind an image that is radically different from the real person. candidate, but what the audience perceives, which reacts to the image, and not to the person. The audience's impression of the image depends more on the media than on the candidate himself. The British psychologist Lasersfeld developed an image creation technology that is still used by Western image makers today. It lies in the fact that at a certain moment a problematic topic is launched in all the media. For example, the ecological state of the region. Subsequently, a specific candidate with serious and balanced statements, and competitors are not ready to discuss this topic. In particular, this technology was used in the United States during the Reagan-Carter election marathon in 1980. Jimmy Carter's foreign policy suited almost everyone. According to the Gallup agency, the rating of rivals differed by 1.5-2%. When a group of American diplomats were held hostage in Iran, Reagan was highly critical of the administration's foreign policy. Reagan's approval rating has risen markedly. Television is the most effective in creating an image, because visual perception plays a big role in the process of influencing the opinion of the audience. An example of this is the case from the 1906 US election campaign when Kennedy defeated Nixon. Kennedy then took full advantage of the then new television. The climax of the debate came when, in collusion with the Kennedy team, the temperature in the studio was raised. Nixon's makeup was dripping and he looked like a man sweating with questions. According to the results of polls of TV viewers, Nikon lost the TV debate outright. However, it is interesting that those who listened to the debate on the radio believed that it was Nixon who won. The mechanism of suggestion by means of rumors is most often used together with the mechanism of creating an image. Rumors are a type of information that appears spontaneously due to an information vacuum among certain segments of the population, or is specially distributed by someone to influence public consciousness. The conditions for the transformation of ordinary information into rumors are that the information must be meaningful and understandable for the object of influence, the possession of this information should help increase the prestige of the hearer's translator. In the election campaign, political technologists rely on rumors, spreading this or that important information for a politician. Thus, based on the foregoing, we see that the media play an important role in the process of suggesting this or that political information. However, the effectiveness of the mechanisms of suggestion is directly related to the state of society at the time, whether it arrives in a state of stability, or vice versa. The mechanisms of suggestion differ from each other in the quality and time of their impact. The formation of stereotypes is designed for a short period of time. The creation of myths has a lasting impact on the audience. But all the mechanisms are united by the fact that it is thanks to them that the political culture and consciousness of society are formed. The mechanisms of influence by means of forming images and rumors are designed for instant impact (for example, the period of the election campaign). With the help of the media, the myth of nationality and the traditions of the people is introduced into the public consciousness. People believe in the policy of their state, not noticing either the environmental catastrophe or other serious problems. Without a worldview formed by the media, society will no longer be able to exist at the informational stage of its development. The only question is who controls the mechanisms of suggestion and with what intentions. The future of mankind depends on this.