It Is The Media That Is Bolstering Character Assassination, Perception Management In Controlling Minds.

Chuchura; December 2025: The mechanism that gauges the pulse of the mind, that determines the emotional thermometer of societies, the level of anger, the dose of hope, is no longer the arms and ammunitions; but it is the screens. A good mentally healthy naïve often question himself – is he living in his own reality, or is someone designing a new reality for him? The moment one turn on the television, he steps onto a battlefield. A battlefield of psychological warfare and perception management.

The mood of a nation is often shaped more by how events are portrayed than by what actually happens. The ranking of a news story, the popularity of certain images, the level of aggression in a talk show, the tone of the chosen guests. None of them is coincidental. Society’s patience, anger, and polarisation sprout from the screens.

The famous words of an eminent actor of the yesteryears: “For years, we portrayed love and neighbourhood life. Today, we see mafia, guns, betrayal. I cannot be a part of such a world”. This sentence summarises the subtle marks that television screens leave on the soul of society.

Cinema is not just art; sometimes it’s geopolitical, sometimes strategic. Which character is presented as a “hero” and which as a “threat” in a country; which values ​​are glorified; which geographies are portrayed as “dangerous”… all of this draws a new subconscious map. When watching international productions, most viewers simply say, “It’s just a movie”, and move on. However, for years it has been observed: some films are made to prepare a society, some the whole world, for certain emotions. The significant of them is the James Bond series depicting erstwhile USSR to be the horrendous villain of human civilisation.

Today, cultural superiority is established not by armies, but by stories. Whoever tells the story first shapes minds.

Politics is no longer the art of governing, but rather a field of emotional engineering. What a leader makes people feel is more effective than what they say. Voters often react not to the concrete facts themselves, but to how those facts are packaged.

The public’s reaction changes when you change a single word. If it is said “crisis” – panic ensues; if it is said “temporary difficulty” – the same data softens. Even words have become ammunition. Today, the most powerful arsenal in politics is fear, anger, hope, identity, and the feeling of external threat. If perception is managed correctly, it wins; if not, even the truth falls foul.

The author has spent a significant portion of his career in the business world, where it had been clearly observed this shift: Earlier, Companies use to compete based on product quality. Today, they battle on perception. A single rumour about a CEO, a small stain on a brand, can halve a stock price on the stock exchange. The most powerful weapon in commerce now is the “rumour economy”. Information replaces weapons, rumours replace bombs, and reputation replaces battlefields.

Aspiring in taking over a business empire; First, destroy its reputation. Over time, that will naturally lower its market value. In the process; one of the most influential power centres is the media. The media often determines what a nation will rejoice over, what will sadden it, and what will cause division among them. We don’t choose the agenda; we feel as if we are choosing from agendas prepared for us.

Words are carefully chosen. The tone of a news story can raise, lower, or direct social tension. Those who control the media know very well how language shapes emotion.

Now, it doesn’t require to violate a country’s borders to bring it down. It’s enough to target its security, stability, and reputation. A flawed strategy is longer the weapon to bankrupt a company; a well-orchestrated chain of rumours is sufficient. A few manipulative social media posts, a few targeted comments, and a few artificially created agendas are enough to destroy the most educated, coasted powerful individual.

Perception is sometimes more powerful than reality. Today, many careers, organisations, and brands collapse not because of actual mistakes, but because of the perception of those mistakes.

While this whole picture may seem frightening, it is actually a warning, a call to awareness. Today, wars are not fought on battlefields; they are fought in living rooms, but on the phone screens, in the feed which is scrolled through. The real battlefield is now the mind. And in this war, the strongest defence is not tanks, not planes, not the law, it is an awakened consciousness. A mind that questions what it sees, weighs what it hears, and thinks instead of being directed. Today, real power is not in a country’s territory; it is where a person can protect their freedom of thought.

Suvro Sanyal

Team Maverick.