Media

Media articles feature analysis and commentary about mass media, entertainment, censorship, and propaganda.

All media articles at Brownstone Institute are translated into multiple languages.

Is the Overton Window Real, Imagined, or Constructed?

Is the Overton Window Real, Imagined, or Constructed?

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What to do about it? I would suggest a simple answer. Forget the model, which might be completely misconstrued in any case. Just say what is true, with sincerity, without malice, without convoluted hopes of manipulating others. It’s a time for truth, which earns trust. Only that will blow the window wide open and finally demolish it forever.

Is the Overton Window Real, Imagined, or Constructed? Read Journal Article

How Awesome is the Deep State, Really?

How Awesome is the Deep State, Really?

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Finally, if you agree with me that my cast of Covid characters much more closely represents what we actually mean by that term, what does this tell us about how the Deep State is now encroaching on the lives of the civilian public in the homeland, rather than sticking to its pre-2020 playbook of sucking up resources by destroying and then rebuilding foreign countries?

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Did Lockdowns Set a Global Revolt in Motion?

Did Lockdowns Set a Global Revolt in Motion?

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The slogan became popular about ten years ago: the revolution will be decentralized with the creation of robust parallel institutions. There is no other path. The intellectual parlor game is over. This is a real-life struggle for freedom itself. It’s resist and rebuild or doom.

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Justices' Grave Error in Murthy v. Missouri

Justices’ Grave Error in Murthy v. Missouri

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If the justices want to distinguish between persuasion and coercion in the injunction, they need to appreciate that social media companies operate in a very different relationship with government than traditional print media. These asymmetrical power dynamics create a relationship ripe for unconstitutional government coercion.

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Is Inflation Harmless?

Is Inflation Harmless?

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The New York Times has published a strange article by Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Michigan. The headline is that his economist brain makes him say with regard to inflation: “Don’t worry, be happy.” The article gives the reader as much reason to trust economists as you do epidemiologists, which is to say not at all.

Is Inflation Harmless? Read Journal Article

Fact-Checker, Check Thyself

Fact-Checker, Check Thyself

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Thorsteinn Siglaugsson was wickedly accurate in sketching the typology of fact-checking techniques. Create a straw-man argument that can be easily knocked down. Assert that a claim is not supported by evidence, is questioned by other experts, lacks context, is misleading, or is only partly true, etc. Engage in ad hominem attacks against the person rather than with their evidence and argument.

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The Amateur Who Unraveled Wuhan

The Amateur Who Unraveled Wuhan

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Matthew Tye, an independent documentarian with a chronicled decade of living in (and motorcycling throughout) China, developed a profound understanding of its culture and language. In March 2020, Tye emerged as a singular figure in the scrutiny of the origins of the Covid-19 virus, using primary sources such as job postings and communications between Chinese researchers – putting to shame a New York Times reporter’s top-down approach of channeling Dr. Fauci.

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Plato's Cave Resurrected

Plato’s Cave Resurrected

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Just as, at any given time, there are conventions or ‘shadows’ that have a stranglehold on people’s ability to see beyond what current, tacit agreements allow one to see, today there are unprecedented, deliberately manufactured ‘shadows’ that govern the visible and auditory world. What are some of these? 

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The Fall of Critical Thinking- Brownstone Institute

The Fall of Critical Thinking

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The most alarming aspect of the contemporary scene may actually not be things like the horrific potential of nuclear and biological weapons. Instead, it could be the rejection of objective truth and rational thought as essential guides to sensible conduct. When even the sciences and medicine become unmoored from reason and reality, we are all in serious trouble.

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