Cognition in the Media with Subliminal Food Messages, the Greater Israel Project, Dirct to Consumer Advertising

This article features three examples of ways in which this author proposes that media uses cognitive psychological research for the advantage of the rich and greedy. Attention, limits, inattention, and automatic processing will be discussed as these psychology concepts apply to television, newspaper, and magazine articles. Subliminal food messages in television, war mongering in newspapers, and direct-to-consumer magazine articles will be analyzed in the following paper.
 

Subliminal Food Messages in Television
 

Evidence seems to suggest that cognitive psychological research has found its way into television advertising concerning food commercials. The prevalence of low-nutrient calorie-dense foods has been focused on by health advocates and research was designed to test a hypothesis that states obesity may be partially contributed to automatic triggering of snacking due to food advertising exposure (Harris, et.al., 2010). The research found that children experienced 45% more consumption of food when they were exposed to food advertising, and that when compared to other conditions adults consumed more un-healthy and healthy snack
foods after exposure to snack food advertising (Harris, et.al., 2010). Increased consumption of non-advertised food products which wasn’t related to other conscious influence or hunger occurred during this research (Harris, et.al., 2010). The researchers concluded that food advertising empowers automatic eating habits and influences more than choice of brand preference (Harris, et.al., 2010). It is not surprising that companies who will make food that tastes good while it practically poisons the human body will lack ethics that would prevent advertising that endangers people’s health. In fact, this author has a sneaking suspicion that these companies may also have stock in big pharma because the faster people start getting sick the sooner they will buy “medicines” from these greedy companies. The possibility of
subliminal advertising will be analyzed in the next paragraph.

Work on subliminal messages that was reportedly stopped may have carried on out of the public eye to be used in advertising. Dobson (2013) explains that the psychology profession believes that the ability of subliminal messages to influence us stems from the idea that they find their way around our conscious awareness or attention as well as its critical functions. The route taken by subliminal messages is similar to hypnosis or auto-suggestion in that the "subject" is
induced or encouraged to relax so that suggestions are capable of reaching the deeper part of the mind which is argued to be incapable of refusing subliminal suggestions or hypnosis that would target a person’s area of inattention (Dobson, 2013). The limits of a person’s conscious awareness would allow the automatic processing of subliminal messages to affect consumers. Next, a consideration of cognitive psychological research that may have been employed to create an Islam hating nation will be explored.

War Mongering in Newspapers
 

It is noticeable that the front pages of newspapers can be used to create beliefs in citizens that benefit those who may have greedy intentions. On September 12, 2001 newspapers around the world placed news of the attacks on Washington D.C. and New York on their front pages unanimously (Quilty-Harper, 2011). Headlines stated things like the following: “U.S. ATTACKED”, “A declaration of war”, “BASTARDS”, “TERRORISTS ATTACK NEW YORK AND PENTAGON”, and “WAR ON THE WORLD” (Quilty-Harper, 2011). The resulting wars that America waged on the Islamic world in the Middle East is a horrifying shame that has resulted in mass migration of Muslims with very radical religious beliefs like child marriage, stoning women, and honor killings of their own daughters into America and Europe. 

 

 A perusal of the Greater Israel Project and whom controls the media will aid in comprehension of the manner in which cognitive psychological research seems to be evident in this author’s reasoning.  It is alarmingly interesting that the media is “elite” Jewish owned and The Greater Israel Project benefits certain “elite” Jews. The Greater Israel Project involves “the area of the Jewish State stretches: ‘From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.’ According to Rabbi Fischmann, ‘The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon’”(Shahak, 2013, para.2). The ongoing wars on Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, regime changes in Egypt, as well as the 2006 war on Lebanon and the 2011 war on Libya seem to be constructed in order to weaken and fracture Israel’s Arabic neighbors (Shahak, 2013). Top Jews themselves admit that they control the media “take Joel Stein, for example, columnist for the Los Angeles Times newspaper and regular contributor to Time magazine. In his column in the LA Times (Dec. 19, 2008), Stein says that Americans who think the Jews do not control Hollywood and the media are just plain ‘dumb’” (Mars, n.d., para. 7). It seems only logical for a greedy party to use psychological knowledge in order to get what they want. This author senses embedded-processing in these conditions and it will be discussed next.
 

The embedded process deals with memory manipulation. Cowan coined the embedded process view in which immediate memory becomes momentary as activation of long-term memory’s information merges (Robinson & Robinson, 2012). “Cowan proposes executive processes that are responsible for the movement of information in and out of the attentional focus” (Robinson & Robinson, 2012, p. 152). It seems that the limits of the inattention of the immediate memory is produced by automatic processing that shifts attention to the long term memory of “THE WORLD IS ATTACKED” when people see photos of the horrendous acts of decimation and dead children in Arabic lands and still blindly support Israel. This author has also noted a problem with big pharma and magazine advertising that seems to involve cognitive psychological knowledge.
 

Direct-to-Consumer Magazine Articles
 

With seeming intelligence Doctors’ offices always have magazines with direct-to-consumer advertising by big pharma. New Zealand and America are the only countries in the developed world that permit this type of advertising of pharmaceuticals (Woodard, 2010). The DTC who are opponents of this kind of advertising claim that the FDA has limited resources, that the ads are usually for treatable diseases that are not life-threatening, and that doctors receive promotional products a “reward” from pharmaceutical companies (Woodard, 2010). “A study has shown DTC advertising is likely to increase the request rates of both the drug category and drug brand choices, as well as the likelihood the drugs would be prescribed by physicians” (Woodard, 2010, para.3). It is so clever to make information available to convince consumers to buy unneeded products. A documentary called “Making a Killing” has some important information about the cognitively psychological approach to convince people to buy these products.
 

The doctors and x-pharmaceutical-representatives in the documentary movie “Making a Killing” explain the manner in which psychiatry and direct-to-consumer advertising function. Attention of potential consumers is drawn to a “medicine” by pleasant magazine articles that create automatic processing in the brain in which individuals may believe that product will change their life while possessing inattention that these products have limits and possible very dangerous side effects (Of Interest Now, 2012). For instance, a woman in a doctor’s office may be low on energy due to her diet and see an article for anti-depressants that make her think a magical pill will make her happy and give her energy like the person in the ad. Then the woman will most likely get the prescription from her doctor and end up even worse off than before. Magazine articles make people think a drug will help them when the root of their problem most likely lies in diet, exercise, and venting negative energy.
 

Subliminal food messages in television, war mongering in newspapers, and direct-to-consumer magazine articles have been analyzed in this paper with consideration of attention, limits, inattention, and automatic processing found in the psychological approach to the media. In light of the evidence provided by this author it seems reasonably logical to assume that there are parties in the media and in corporations that purposely use cognitive psychological knowledge to exploit consumers for unethical reasons.

References
 

Dobson, Andrew. (2013). What are Subliminal Messages? Mindfit Hypnosis. Retrieved from
http://www.mindfithypnosis.com/what-are-subliminal-messages/
 

Harris, Jennifer L.; John A. Bargh, John A. ; and Brownell, Kelly D. (1 July, 2010). Priming
Effects of Television Food Advertising on Eating Behavior. US National Library of
Medicine National Institutes of Health. Retrieved from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2743554/
 

Mars, Texe. (n.d.). Meet the Jews Who Own Hollywood and the Media. Power of Prophesy.
Retrieved from http://www.texemarrs.com/062009/jews_own_hollywood.htm
 

Of Interest Now. (23 Dec, 2012). Making a Killing: The Untold Story of Psychotropic Drugging
- Full Movie (Documentary). Of Interest Now. Retrieved from
https://youtu.be/rk-ryvdWPgw
 

Quilty-Harper, Conrad. (7 Sept, 2011). 9/11: Newspaper front pages the day after September 11.
The Telegraph. Retrieved from
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/…/911-Newspaper-front-pages-the-…
 

Robinson-Riegler, B., & Robinson-Riegler, G. (2012). Cognitive psychology: Applying the
science of the mind (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
 

Shahak, israel. (3 March, 2013). “Greater Israel”: The Zionist Plan for the Middle East. Global
Research. Retrieved from http://www.globalresearch.ca/greater-israel-the-zio…/5324815
 

WOODARD, LARRY D. (24 Feb, 2010). Pharmaceutical Ads: Good or Bad for Consumers?
ABC News. Retrieved from\
http://abcnews.go.com/…/pharmaceutical-ads-good-bad-…/story…