Mediacritica

Breton Philippe says in his work “Manipulation of the word” that “Manipulation is to break-in in someone's mind to form an opinion or to cause a behavior, without him/her knowing that the break-in occurred. Unlike physical violence, which establishes an explicit interaction, psychological or cognitive violence that manipulation involves, owes its whole effectiveness to its concealment. And technical mechanisms constituting a manipulating message reveal a double concern: to identify the resistance that would be opposed to them and to mask the endeavor itself”.
In the age of communication, when we face a real inflation in information, it's much easier to use the word in the desired meaning.
Michel Montaigne, a Renaissance essayist, said in the “Essais”: “The word is half of the one who utters it and half of that one who listens to it.”

‘Ethics has always played a “less important role in human history”. It is probably one of the reasons why mankind looks like it looks.’ (Dorin Tudoran)

I was proposed to make a critical analysis of the print media in the Republic of Moldova and to make some recommendations for consumers of print media. Newspapers with their drastically thinned circulations have become a prerogative of some apparent elites, professionals, beneficiaries of advertising, as well as of a small number of subscribers. The print media is also under the press of an ongoing informational occupation, which is absolutely true for the online media, TV and radio. There is a criterion that antagonizes them – the party affiliation.
 
Analysts or political instructors of print media

The media headline is the trigger of the reading act of the following text. In case of good titles, the initiated reading act can lead to good results. A good headline informs, incites and essentialises the text either in a serious, ludic or parodic way.
The headline, if non-functional, seems to suggest an agreement to the reader, by which it claims the “performative value of the promise to inform” [1]. However, the journalist, as a holder of the power to produce headlines, can use it not to inform, but to influence, as he (he or the employer) pleases, the reader’s opinion or action, relying on the language used. While the language can generate confer a huge persuasion potential to the headline.

Since 2009, the media consumer is a Sloshed Citizen*. The new post-communist era brought along pro-European alliances, a wave of new televisions, news portals and other media institutions and the society became significantly more informationalized. At the same time, there are fewer and fewer media institution owners and their interests become increasingly greater. How do we become aware of being manipulated?

How much of what we read is ethical? How many articles and reports comply with the classical rules of journalism and moral minimum? How much manipulation and how much ignorance or malevolence there is?
If a journalist is obliged to get information from multiple sources, audience/reader is also welcome to do the same to have an overview on a subject.
If until a few years ago people could get information just from a single source (and I refer here only to the audience), now, if people want to be informed correctly, they shall consider several press materials covering the same subject.
How we got here?
 

One of the first signs, based on which we can recognize a manipulating article, is the preference for certain terms and synonyms as opposed to other terms. An example is the news article regarding the appointment of the new Prime Minister, Valeriu Strelet. The news portal Realitatea.md announces: “The nominal composition and the Activity Program for the period 2015-2018 of the new Government obtained the Parliament’s vote of confidence.” (Realitatea.md, June 30, 2015).