The Mainstream Media has always been a Propaganda Tool of the EstablishmentSteven MacMillan The mainstream media has long been used as of tool of a dominant minority who use communication systems to influence and control the masses through techniques which are now perfected today. As George Orwell, the former BBC propagandist during the Second World War and author of the infamous 1984 stated: Propaganda has evolved over centuries to take the form of a more subtle and sophisticated art than in previous ages. In 1965, Konrad Kellen crystallised the nature of modern propaganda in the introduction to a book titled Propaganda: The Formation of Mens Attitudes by French sociologist and philosopher, Jacques Ellul: The media in America has become increasingly centralised in recent years, with 90% of the media in 2012 being controlled by just 6 corporations; News-Corp, Disney, Time Warner, Viacom, CBS and Comcast, compared to 50 companies in 1983. News-Corp and Time Warner are both affiliate corporate members at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) along with the news site Bloomberg. The British sister organisation of the CFR, the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA), also has a concentration of media companies as part of the institute. The majority of the mainstream British press all publicly belong to the RIIA, including; ITN, the BBC, the Guardian, the Economist, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, as well as Reuters and CBS News. Governments have used the mainstream media to control the perceptions of viewers through a technique the US military calls perception management. In 2008, The New York Times published an article titled Behind TV Analysts, Pentagons hidden hand. The article details a Pentagon operation which used a team of former military officers who were briefed by White House, State Department and Justice Department officials to appear as analysts on mainstream radio and TV, in an campaign to inculcate Pentagon talking points and memes in addition to engineering a positive flow of news concerning the US governments actions. The irony is striking considering the New York Times is by no means immune from this practice and has been accused by a former employee of being a propaganda megaphone for those who run the world, but the article still demonstrates the power of the state in influencing public discourse. The Pentagon operates as one arm of the US Ministry of Truth which manipulates and often coordinates mainstream news coverage of politically sensitive issues. Ellul quantifies how a modern state employs technicians of influence to conduct propaganda operations in order to utilise the mass media correctly: Jimmy Carters National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski is a major advisor to the ruling elite and an expert on the techniques which are used to control vast populations. A CFR member along with his daughter Mika Brzezinski who also hosts MSNBCs morning show Z. Brzezinski explains in his 1970 book Between Two Ages how the mass media can be used to court the masses: Brzezinski proceeds in Between Two Ages to discuss the possible emergence of a scientific elite ruling over a highly controlled society through the exploitation of the mass media and by using the latest modern techniques for influencing public behaviour: Sources: Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Mens Attitudes (Introduction by Konrad Kellen) (1965) Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages: Americas Role in the Technetronic Era (1970) Additional Reading: Steven MacMillan is a Scottish researcher and writer who founded The Analyst Report, where this article first appeared. Propaganda is everywhere. Not long ago I saw a person I know, a newly qualified teacher, post on Facebook a rant about one of the British lefts current hate figures, Conservative Education Minister Michael Gove. 