Manipulation

Abstract

However, Chelcea also mentions certain attempts to establish the scope of the concept. One of these materializes in the study La Manipulation politique, written by Pierre Lenain and published in 1985. Advocating a theory of manipulation, the French political scientist says: “All societies have an important part of manipulation: the relationship ( trust) between government and those governed is necessarily the object of manipulation, no government can be disinterested in controlling opinion, trying to influence it, to shape it, to orient it, to form it; whether manipulation is short-term or long-term, politics involves intervening on the political imaginary of the partisans, using fictions, illusions, special rhetoric, half-truths, concealment, slander, rumor, traps; the political circumstances are woven by thousands of heterogeneous actions, the majority and the opposition each playing a complex game, which deviates perfectly from the right path” (S. Chelcea, 2006, p. 225).