Messianic Mad Men, Medicine, and the Media War on Empirical Reality

Discourse Analysis of Mainstream Covid-19 Propaganda

Abstract

This article critically examines the emerging global war on pathogens mimicking the Global War on Terror (GWOT). We draw upon the history of recent wars and the fear-driven narratives aimed at nudging the public toward uncritical acceptance of the new emerging social and economic global order. We adopt Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s ‘Propaganda Model’ to describe how mainstream media perform in manufacturing consent to policies that tighten control over populations and degrade rights, agency, and sovereignty. Here we consider the efforts of globalist political actors who seek to co-opt or influence political institutions around the world and position themselves as unelected rulers of an emerging authoritarian order. We argue that agenda-setting media are predisposed to serve elite interests that shape news coverage, bound public debate, and obscure new forms of warfare behind the smokescreen of a manufactured Global War on Pathogens (GWOP). We introduce critical analysis and alternative perspectives, largely marginalized by the mainstream, on the hidden conflicts of interest involved in the demands for full social compliance.