The Influencing Machine by Brooke Gladstone is a wonderful book!Its one of those rare titles I didn’t know I wanted and now I can’t live without. Whether it’s the “liberal media” or “the lame stream media,” we’ve all heard about “media bias.” Most of us now expect our news to be flavored to suit our taste. Isn’t that why we have Fox, MSNBC, CNN, and NPR? So, everyone can partake of the kind of news they like. Brooke Gladstone, however, turns most of our media expectations wonderfully upside down. She takes us back to ancient times and many different cultures to show how we got to where we are today. She then shows what we’re getting from the media today with a clarity we don’t usually see in the news. She doesn’t just preach ideology, she gives us countless examples with names, faces, quotes, and, most importantly, context.It’s a history book worthy of using as text for a college course on the media, AND it’s a graphic novel that’s genuinely fun to read. The Influencing Machine is original, fascinating, and entertaining.The day I finished reading The Influencing Machine I immediately handed it to my teenage son for him to read, and soon we’ll be passing it further for someone else to enjoy. And, if they’re not careful, they might just learn something before they’re done. Gladstone used graphic non-fiction to deftly communicate the historical, psychological and sociological truths of the media's influence in society. From Caesar's Acta Diurna, the first daily news which pressured the Roman Senators to be accountable (and reminiscent of the Daily Stand-Up Meeting) to the digitally borne diseases stemming from the homophily echo chamber (where people only consume media "facts" that substantiate their entrenched belief systems resulting in polarization), our relationship with information has been as much about our own emotions as about anything objective. This phenomena, as skillfully presented by Gladstone, is about more than media influence. Call it communication skill, knowledge management, data-driven decision making or salesmanship, the bottom line is the cure is in the continued search for clarity - the continued creation and critical consumption of information - be it in a business setting or in our living rooms. There are many great quotes in this book, but perhaps the most important one is from one of our founding fathers, "The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823.
What do You think about La Machine à Influencer (2014)?
Great book --- I could have read about twice more of the history of media.
—Ssmaldon
Fantastic graphic novel, thought provoking for sure...
—fadeinthememory
Pretty much a waste of time partly in comic book form
—owlyjin
