Political Language In Daniel J. Boorstin's Pseudo-Events

“Political Language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.” So states George Orwell; an English novelist famous for his essays and numerous novels such as 1984. Though his essay Language and Politics was written as far back as the mid 1940s, his ideals and perspectives on political language still ring true in many of today’s current events. He discusses the vagueness that political writers use in order to sound better to their audience, as well as basic rules to follow when writing to prevent repetition. Then there’s also Daniel J. Boorstin; an American historian at the University of Chicago, who wrote the essay Pseudo-Events that stressed arranged news articles to gain publicity in certain areas of media. He discussed

In this essay, Boorstin discusses the business tactic of creating faux, or “pseudo”, events and galas that will later be photographed in order to gain recognition in the public eye. This incredibly manipulative tactic allows people to believe that businesses, once in the hole economically, are really a “distinguished institution” in the media. One example of this would be General Motors after they filed for bankruptcy in 2009. Motors then had to be completely reconstructed by the help of the Treasury in order to survive. Following their reconstruction, General Motors carried on as before, turning profits as high as twenty-two billion dollars in 2014. The seemingly never-ending success of Motors proves Boorstin correct in regards to the idea of the faux event. The media coverage of the bailout only lasted until the newly-restructured company turned a standard profit in the billions; at that point, coverage returned to its pre-Bankruptcy standard and the filing was barely acknowledged outside of the auto industry itself. As a result, the average consumer was left unaware of the events which remained ongoing. This sense of security allowed for the bankruptcy case to fade into the background, emphasizing Boorstin’s main point; that faux events will be used and manipulated through the media in order to maintain a positive