DUDE! Weird, I just accused edennirvana of brainwashing naught five seconds ago!!!

First: The general populous is brainwashed to an extent by the media, especially commercials (some of which do have harmless subliminal messages in them-- fact, not conspiracy theory). What gets to me? Restaurant ads. I'm not kidding. I'm actually easily hypnotized (there's a simple test you can do that my psych proff did on me) which means I'm also quite susceptible to a certain sort of brainwashing. This does not mean that I am gullible (although I might be that too). All it means is my brain is easily triggered by specific psychological cues. And when I see most restaurant ads, I really have to go eat there. No joke. Especially IHOP, IHOP gets me every time.

As for the context you mean, I think it's more of an issue of society placing too much stock in media, particularly teenagers who depend on it to tell them what the latest trends are. I wouldn't call it "brainwashing" but it is a way of controlling the masses, particularly news stations and press who are told to spin a story a certain way.

Anyways, gotta jet, but interesting topic.

I think it has a lot of influence on a person's mind when they basically reduce everything to generalizations and stereotypes. For someone who does not have any interaction with the type of person they are reporting on, Lets say Black women, they will draw certain ideas about how Black women behave and how they think.

CNN was reporting after the debates yesterday that Black women were facing a tough decision to vote female or black, as if these were the only factors in deciding a president for them. Making claims like "Women want this " "Blacks want this" is ridiculous.

If you grow up with this sort of talk, you'll probably accept that everyone can be categorized into race, gender, or income level and that it determines what they think and how they act.

Also, I am always suprised by how shocked boys are that I share a lot of the same interests as them. I thought about it, and my love of action flicks, video games, and sports is not how the media portrays women at all. Unique and interesting people are regarded as strange because they do not comply with the message we recieve from television everyday about how we should all be.
Personally, I wish everyone watched less TV and went back to spending time with real people.

great points as usual, Zerstoren.

a great example of this is the supposed global warming "debate". the US government utilizes the mainstream media to spread doubt about the validity of the science of climate change, and guess what - it works. if you compare figures between the scientific community and the general populace, it's completely scewed. among scientists, it's something like 90% who agree that a) climate change is happening and b) human action is a significant factor, whereas it's more like 50% among the general population. there's also the issue of how society views women. media is something that constantly comes up among feminists, and in any women's studies class you'll ever take.

really, it's about memes (like genes, except ideas instead of DNA). the media is simply a singularly effective medium for transmitting cultural ideas. "the media" doesn't make decisions about what's popular or acceptable and what's not, it just puts those ideas in front of us over and over again in particularly attractive packages.

still, if i stick with my "media as a cultural tool" metaphor, i think the tool is being used to build unhealthy ideas. it therefore stands to reason that it could be used to build better ones if the minds behind it were so convinced. however, the real problem, i think, lies in changing their (and our) minds. undoing decades of cultural endoctrination is no easy feat.

so, yes i think it definitely qualifies as brainwashing, but i don't think the media is the mastermind, just the method.

Oh heavens yes - especially in the USA