@Smokin Joe
ONLY because the 24/7 media machine of today didn't exist back then. News on the radio tended to be short so they could get more in within the time frame they were allocated,and the entire print media was either a local newspaper,or a monthly magazine.
My family seems to have always made an effort to be informed. So my parents got the Washington Star and the Post, the two county papers, and watched Huntley and Brinkley every night. We were 50 miles out of D.C. but the papers made it out in time for evening delivery. I learned the difference between the Post and the Star, and it wasn't long in my memory before the Post got dropped for the Baltimore Sun. The Sun and the Star were enough to clean fish on after we'd read them, the Post wasn't needed and their lies were noted in the '60s. But, as much as possible, between print, radio, and TV we tried to stay informed. There were opposing viewpoints then not just Partisan shoutdowns.
But now the delay in information transmission has dropped from days to hours to milliseconds, the information is even less reliable, even though all the buzzwords, agitation terms, and spin are applied. It;s almost asif two opposing religions are facing off, with the fervor that evokes. Maybe that's because God got kicked out of the schools, and even saying the Pledge of Allegiance is a memory of us old farts.
Because of the removal of God and a unifying Government from the worldview, the nest biggest thing people see is whatever political affiliation they choose, where heresy is punished severely, departures from the Party line considered apostate.
And while there may have been no 24/7 media machine, there were party line phones and the 'grapevine', networks of information dissemination that often were more accurate than the New York Times of today.
But to warp back toward whatever the topic is, the use of the media has been studied. That Austrian corporal who rose through the ranks rather fast once he got out of jail studied it, the Communists became masters of it, and everyone here from Walt Disney to the NIMH here got involved, too, all in the science of molding opinion. LBJ's handlers used it in the 'Daisy' ad and defeated Goldwater, whom they shaped into a warmonger, using the media to generate fear of a nuclear holocaust.
What passes for journalists today are steeped in propaganda just in the process of getting a degree, and reporting, the Who-What-Where-When-and sometimes Why of telling what's going on has been lost in the mad gyrations of off center spin.
...and yes, the graphics on this thread serve the same purpose of molding opinion through the most effective means--humour.
