Message Force Multipliers→

Jodi Dean writing in reference to the recent New York Times piece that details the Bush administration’s manipulation of public opinion on the Iraq War through former senior military officers:

Likewise, the Bush administration knows how to tie together seemingly stable meanings in ways that rely on these meanings, disrupt them, and generate affects from the tension surrounding the combustion of meaning and non-meaning. One of the most noticed early examples of this was the term “axis of evil.” John Stewart mentioned another term last night “non-Iraqi terrorists responsible for 9/11.” At any rate, the idea of multiplying message forces is useful because it fully acknowledges that the message is the carrier of a force, an affective force. The goal isn’t just ‘getting our message out there.’ That’s so old school, as if people read, think, consider, and understand. The goal is spreading and intensifying the message force. The generals were excellent vehicles for this spreading and distributing. Message force genbots.