Methods: Distraction and attentional manipulation.

One deliberately directs attention to irrelevant things, so that the people do not devote attention to more important things which remain therefore unseen.

Scandals and sensationalism: To get the attention of the people sensationalist stories are told. Exaggerated and alarmist stories draw attention. Stories about monstrous enemies and heroic friends. Scandals are also very effective.

Entertainment and distraction: Distract people with entertainment and meaningless details or whatever. Creating a minor scandal can be very effective. As long as people remain unaware of the things that really matter.

Information overload and forgetting: There is always something new happening. Short memories ensure that the news of yesterday is forgotten today. There is no overview of the totality. Attention is given to the latest news fact. Just one fact after another without any connection between them. The focus is always on new facts, never on the historical context or background of the facts. This information overload ensures that people do not understand reality. There is always something new happening, that demands attention. There is no time to reflect on what is happening. Therefore there seems to be no reason or logic behind the sequence of events. This sequence of news facts induces a state of mind that is almost like a form of trance or hypnosis. As far as concerns the news there is no past, there is only the now. The past is forgotten. Ordinary people have no choice except to trust the authorities.

Overstimulation: Propaganda is everywhere. It cannot be avoided. It is continuous. It is like a loudspeaker that makes every other sound unhearable. People become numb and are habituated to propaganda. It is considered normal.

Mass media: Television provides a unique tool to reach the public world wide. The mass media induce conformity. Television prevents people from critical thinking. It makes people passive, almost hypnotised. The mass media avoid personal observations and favor the opinions from approved experts. The mass media drown out any channel of communication that does not conform to the narrow intellectual tunnel vision of society. Sometimes experiential evidence offers better information about reality than models or projections by experts and professionals. Recounting a story depends on access to the actors, i.e. the interested parties. The mainstream narrative of the media depends critically on those interested parties and therefore takes on a propaganda-like feel. Television replaces direct contact with other people, other communities, other sources of knowledge, and the natural world with simulated, re-created or edited versions of events and experiences.

Misdirection: Attention is directed away from serious systemic problems and injustices. Instead minor injustices are enlarged and used to distract ordinary people. The result is a form of reformism and humanitarianism that focuses on small minorities. This provides a facade of legitimacy that misdirects attention away from important issues like class inequality, power inequality and economic exploitation. It focuses on systemically less expensive identity politics. This has the extra bonus of keeping the population divided around minor and irrelevant issues.