How the Media Manipulates Public Opinion

Good morning, this is Pavluu! Today, I’d like to continue the topic of manipulating public opinion. This time, we’ll break down some of the techniques used by the media. The basis for this article is this article. Since it’s already 12 years old, we’ve updated it with some current examples.

1. The Event That Doesn’t Exist

The simplest thing you can do with an event is not mention it at all. Unfortunately, you won’t hear about many things on state television that would cause a major, ongoing scandal in any other country.

Current examples: The Kemerovo fire, police brutality at protests, and more.

2. Look for the Other Half

Often, we’re told not about the event itself, but only half of it.

• Example 1: Gazprom demanded that Shell sell its stake in Sakhalin-2. When Shell’s terms didn’t suit Gazprom, Oleg Mitvol, deputy head of Rosprirodnadzor, announced environmental violations in the project. The media will talk about the environmental issues, but not that they only arose after failed negotiations.
• Example 2: Senator Igor Izmestyev from Bashkiria owned an estate across from Putin’s residence. His loud parties annoyed the president. Izmestyev was asked to sell the land. When he asked Raiffeisenbank to appraise it, Rosprirodnadzor suddenly found his house was too close to the water. The media will show the fight against the oligarch, but not mention the presidential neighbor.

Half-events are almost worse than non-events. They make up the bulk of our news, imitating a sense of legality. The only advice here: treat news like a crime scene and always ask, “Who benefits?” In half the cases, you won’t be wrong. But remember, logic can’t replace information. Sometimes what seems logical is just coincidence.

As Sir Yates, head of the London Statistical Society, once replied to a correspondent: “All the great Tudor kings named Henry died on a Friday. Does this mean Friday is fatal for Henrys?” Yates answered, “Your hypothesis doesn’t contradict the data. I recommend continued observation.”

It may sound extreme to treat news like a crime, but unfortunately, that’s the reality. The main difference between crime and justice is that justice happens because of something, while crime happens in order to achieve something. Sadly, much of Russian political life is structured like a crime.

3. The Event and the Side Dish

Separate the event from the verbal “side dish.” For example, if you hear about a tragedy where 155 people died in a funicular fire in the Austrian Alps, the first news might be that Putin expressed condolences, and only the second news is about the fire itself. The condolence story might last a minute, the fire story only 40 seconds. Subconsciously, you’re left thinking Putin is more important than the fire. Separate the event from the garnish and judge their importance yourself.

This “side dish” principle is often used in international news. If there’s another Middle East conflict, we’re told what initiative Russia proposed. Pay attention to the words: the key isn’t “proposed” or “discussed,” but “adopted.” Anyone can propose or discuss; the real question is whether the initiative was accepted—which rarely happens with Russian proposals.

A country that always proposes initiatives no one accepts is like an elderly shareholder at a Gazprom meeting who proposes replacing the board chairman. He’ll tell his family about it, but no one else cares.

4. Demand a Follow-Up!

Any real event has a follow-up. PR stunts don’t. So when you hear about a big event, watch closely for what happens next. Sometimes, the lack of follow-up is proof the original event was just for show.

Current example: The recent FSB arrest of “underwear terrorists”—ordinary Tajiks allegedly using Telegram to communicate. There was no follow-up, making it an obvious fake.

5. Analyze the Logic

Lies are often contradictory. Sometimes, just paying attention is enough to ask the right questions.

Example: If you’re shown that in Buynaksk, three militants held off 300 police for 12 hours, and then told a note was found saying they planned to seize a school, ask yourself: “Why would Muslim extremists seize a school in a Muslim city? Buynaksk isn’t Moscow or Ossetia.”

6. The Decoy Principle

If an event becomes public and can’t be denied, state media often start discussing not the event itself, but various decoy versions.

Example: With the Kemerovo fire, state media focused on the “arson” theory, even suggesting terrorism at first. They quickly showed a scapegoat responsible for fire safety who had a chef’s diploma. All to distract from obvious corruption and “successful inspections.”

7. Check the Time

The media loves to report on events that haven’t happened yet. People aren’t used to hearing things in the future tense. There’s no novel about how someone will kill someone else—stories are about what has happened. If you’re not careful, you might mistake a prediction for a fact. Later, when the event doesn’t happen, mentions disappear or are blamed on “enemies.” Sometimes, they just lie outright, saying, for example, that churches have already united, and then the topic is dropped.

Don’t just watch the screen—watch the clock!

8. About Official Events

A significant portion of airtime is spent on official events. Multiply everything said at official events by zero—or, if you prefer, divide by zero. If Khodorkovsky is jailed, Kozlov is killed, and Sakhalin-2 is seized, but there’s an investment forum in Sochi—send the forum to Bobruisk!

If you’re told the Iranian delegation left Russia after a day of talks and that “negotiations will continue,” ignore the words and focus on the fact they left.

9. Quantum Political Science

There’s a part of political life that determines a lot but remains completely hidden: Kremlin reshuffles—the “bulldog fights under the carpet.” Naive viewers, after watching pundits or hearing from friends who “know for sure” because “someone just called from the Kremlin,” may try to draw conclusions about future appointments.

Don’t engage in quantum political science. Predicting who will be prime minister or prosecutor general in three minutes is as impossible as determining a particle’s momentum while knowing its exact position.

Don’t trust “primary sources.” A primary source isn’t a source of reliable information—it’s an interested party. Don’t trust kompromat specialists either; that’s not even a primary source, it’s secondary radiation.

If someone calls from the Kremlin and tells you in secret that two plus two is seventeen, use a calculator. If they say two plus two is four, still check—they have strange ideas about arithmetic in the Kremlin.

Forget the Kremlin. Think of them like quarks in a proton. They exist, but no one’s ever seen them.

10. Changing the Scale

Once, Edgar Allan Poe described a terrifying monster: “The animal’s mouth was at the end of a trunk sixty or seventy feet long, as thick as an elephant’s body. At the base of the trunk was a mass of bristly hair… The body was wedge-shaped, with the point toward the ground.”

He was describing a hawk moth crawling on a thread an inch from his face, but he thought it was crawling up a hillside. If Poe watched certain TV channels, he’d see even stranger things.

Be wary when the opinions of hired fringe figures are presented as public opinion, or when the secondary is highlighted and the main is hidden. Make sure that’s really the case.

11. Renormalization

There’s a thing called renormalization. In quantum electrodynamics, if you calculate the mass and charge of an electron, the first approximation is real, but as you add more terms, you get nonsense and infinity. Renormalization cuts off divergent series—basically, it bans overcomplicating things.

All official Russian analysis ignores renormalization; it’s the same as changing the scale, but in analysis. Obvious, main causes are ignored, while correct but secondary things are emphasized.

For example, you might be told NTV was taken away because Gusinsky blackmailed other oligarchs, used TV for politics, and owed Gazprom. All true, but insignificant compared to the Kremlin’s desire to eliminate independent TV. It’s like asking a robber, “Why did you stab that man and take his wallet?” and he says, “He didn’t pay child support.” Maybe he didn’t. Who knows.

12. Beware of Campaigns

Sometimes, the opposite happens: an important event is just part of a PR campaign. Alexander Koptev, who stabbed Jews in a synagogue, was a major event, but became just part of a campaign about rising nationalism in Russia, from which only Putin could save the country. The defense minister’s son running over a woman was huge news, but it wouldn’t have gotten such attention if all potential successors didn’t have a rival named Sechin. The verdict for Kaloyev, the Ossetian who killed a Swiss air traffic controller, became part of a campaign called “Our People Are Attacked in the West.”

The rule is simple: your attitude toward Ivanov Jr. should be based only on his actions. Don’t worry about who you might be helping. If you start counting, you’ll drown.

If you want to know whether you’re seeing an Event or part of a Campaign, look for this: For example, Kaloyev killed a dispatcher. Has there ever been another case where state media approved of blood revenge? In the Caucasus, those who take revenge aren’t praised. Are Kaloyev’s “statistical peers” really the likes of Adamov and Borodin? They’re defended on a state level, and to confuse the public, Kaloyev is lumped in with them—so it’s not about defending Russian bribe-takers, but “ordinary Russian citizens.”

The problem with PR campaigns is you can’t avoid participating—they become Events themselves. Even normal media, which should be covering other things, are forced to discuss whether Russians are discriminated against abroad instead of whether Adamov stole money.

13. Against Oneself

Remember: the most convincing testimony is when someone testifies against themselves. If a Chechen tells you he rode a BTR alone during the war, don’t believe it—he might be bragging. But if you read in General Troshev’s book “My War” a harrowing story about how “those vile Chechens with hooks in their hands attacked a convoy and slashed gas tanks”—imagine: a heavily armed convoy, a Chechen with nothing but a rod, against machine guns and armored vehicles—if you read that in Troshev’s book, believe it. Troshev didn’t realize what he was saying.

14. The Grammar of News

Look at news like a sentence. Analyze it by grammar rules. See where the subject and object are, what tense the verb is in, and the circumstances of time and place.

In news, the subject and object are often swapped. If you hear, “The Russian Foreign Ministry responded to the fact that a North Korean missile fell on Russian territory,” translate it: The Koreans launched a missile. It fell. We just watched. The Foreign Ministry shouldn’t be responding to a falling missile—the air defense should.

In news, the circumstances of time, place, and manner are often made to seem more important than the action itself. The reactions of the Foreign Ministry, Interior Ministry, Duma, etc., are emphasized.

Remember: a lie repeated on TV doesn’t become the truth. But it does become the foundation of the state.