Cognitive Infiltration For The MassesJames F. Tracy Conspiracy theory is not merely a flippant or off-handed water cooler term, but rather a powerful tool of political discourse. Deployed as a pejorative putdown, political scientist Lance deHaven-Smith observes, Along these lines, conspiracy theory and its common variants, assassination buff, crackpot, wacko, and so on, were essentially interpolated into news reports and commentary in the late 1960s by CIA media assets as the agency maneuvered to bolster the Warren Commissions lone assassin explanation of John F. Kennedys assassination. When confronted in 2012, Sunstein does not remember very well co-authoring a 2008 paper, Conspiracy Theories, the namesake of his most recent book. Only in the past forty years or so has the label become an especially salient discursive technique for channeling political dialogue and inquiry. From the late 1800s through the first half of the 1900s the phrase can seldom be found in news discourse. A search of the Historical New York Times database finds that conspiracy theory is used 30 times between 1870 and 1960, often in accounts of criminal court proceedings. Yet from 1960 to 1969 alone there are 46 instances of the terms usage in Times articles. Since 1970, it is invoked in over 1,700 pieces, with a peak between 2000 and 2009 (728).[4] Today the pejorative not only acts as a disciplinary measurejournalists and scholars alike fear such a trenchant smearbut also as a technique to shape information and analysis. It serves as a more-than-subtle way of saying, Look here, not there, thereby guiding readers and viewers to place their reasoning faculties in abeyance and adopt what are often uncritical and even misleading modes of substantiation and conclusion. While this phenomenon is clearly demonstrable in print news media, it is also widespread in US-based cable and broadcast news. A LexisNexis search of news program transcripts for the dates March 1, 2011 to March 1, 2014 reveals 2,469 usages of the conspiracy theory/theories term. Probing the surveyed time span reveals CNN (586 transcripts) and MSNBC (382) as the foremost purveyors of the phrase, with Fox News (182) a distant third. The US governments transcript service, US Federal News, comes in at fourth, suggesting persistent strategic usage of the label at federal government press conferences and similar functions to drive home official positions and dispel challenges to them. Programming on National Public Radio ranks fifth, with 115 instances. The following is a breakdown of the cable or broadcast outlet/program referencing conspiracy theory or conspiracy theories in transcript text within the aforementioned three-year span. CNN Transcripts 586 To be more conclusive, the specific contexts in which the term is mobilized might be more fully examined and delineated. An argument may also be waged that this metric is not exactly proper given the dissimilar breadth of content produced by each outlet. After all, a 24-hour cable news channel such as CNN simply has far more news hole to fill than a daily one-hour broadcast like PBS News Hour or Charlie Rose. Yet even here the variances are telling. For example, when comparing domestic CNN transcripts to those of the channels counterpart, CNN International, the former uses the term over twelve times as frequently. Such findings suggest the execution of a clear-cut editorial policy to fulfill certain propaganda-related endsindeed, not unlike the Central Intelligence Agencys usage of the term to combat alternative interpretations of President Kennedys assassination. Along these lines, further examination of the data sample distinguishes how even news personalities bylines are correlated with frequent employment of the conspiracy theory label. Searching within the same data set, transcripts with CNN Anderson Coopers byline possess the highest incidence of the expression (81), with MSNBCs Rachel Maddow and Al Sharpton tied for second place (77), and Piers Morgan (38) ranking third. CNNs Erin Burnett and MSNBCs Chris Hayes tie for fourth. Ostensibly conservative Fox News personalities Bill OReilly and Sean Hannity use the expression less frequently. Anderson Cooper (CNN) 81 With the exception of ABC (Australia) and CTV (Canada), all of the outlets are US-based, suggesting how the American population, well known for its limited historical comprehension and political sophistication, is expressly targeted with repeated usage of the conspiracy theory phrase. A population relying on sensation, caricature, and hearsay to understand national and world affairs has already forsaken its freedom. It is perhaps ironic that CNN and MSNBC in particular cater to audiences that see themselves as open-minded and liberalindeed, the opposite of cunning technocrats such as Sunstein. At the same time, if these two networks continually depressed ratings are any indication, the public is becoming more and more skeptical of how it is being patronized.[5] A most profound political act any individual can undertake may involve adopting a basic regimen of intellectual self-defense that would include an increased awareness of the conspiracy theory label itself and a resolve to assess the terms utilization vis--vis the context in which it is employed, in an effort to better determine what it seeks to obscure, legitimate, and redirect attention to. Notes: This article first appeared at MemoryHoleBlog.com, the official blog of Dr. James Tracy. 