Symposium on politics and propaganda

This event might be interesting if you're interested in the state of public debate today -- I hope someone points out the damage that Luntz, Lakoff, and Westen are doing to contemporary discourse:

On Wednesday, November 7, a major public conference will feature philanthropist George Soros; political consultants Frank Luntz, George Lakoff, and Drew Westen; New York Times media critic Alessandra Stanley; journalists Nicholas Lemann and Orville Schell; and FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps, along with other influential commentators in a daylong series of panels and debates titled "There You Go Again: Orwell Comes to America."

Kicking off a hotly contested campaign year, the discussion will address the corrosion of public dialogue and the widening gulf between truth and politics in America, and what can be done about it. Taking inspiration from the work of George Orwell, whose influential essay "Politics and the English Language," appeared some sixty years ago, the panelists will explore the history and present practice of political propaganda and discuss the latest developments in political communication and manipulation. They will also address the role of the media and consider whether it is promoting an honest public debate.

The event will be presented by LIVE at the New York Public Library in collaboration with three leading journalism schools, the University of California, Berkeley, Columbia University, and the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication, with support from the Open Society Institute. Current and former deans of the participating journalism schools will moderate the discussions.

Update 10/31: Per the comment below asking for detail, see my blog posts on Luntz, Lakoff, and Westen as well as the discussion in All the President's Spin of Luntz and Lakoff (search inside the book on Amazon.com).

Comments

[Rob]

Brendan hopes someone points out the damage that Luntz, Lakoff, and Westen are doing to contemporary discourse. I hope someone points out the immeasurably greater damage George Soros is doing to the contemporary political process. Talk about burying the lede!

[some guy]

Brendan, could you be more specific? I'm familiar with Lakoff as a linguist and i've read reviews of his political work, but I don't necessarily see that is all that "damag[ing]"--what's the issue? Is he dumbing down poltical discourse by attempting to craft certain messages rather than address issues? Do you consider his attempts to deconstruct messages "mind-reading"? To an extent I don't think that's avoidable what with the modern mediums we use--TV rather than newspapers, etc.