Reousrces for this include anything you can get on Bernays ( the Adam Curtis &quot;Century of the Self&#x27; is a decent survey ) and &quot;The Hidden Persuaders.&quot; Also maybe Marshall MacLuhan.<p>Really, media&#x2F;advertising literacy is pretty important. If you don&#x27;t know who the sucker at the table is...<p>This being said, it may or may not be actively malicious <i>per se</i> but it certainly tries to hack your unconscious thinking to affect your behavior. I&#x27;m just not quite ready to broadly label that &quot;malicious&quot; just yet - although some of the <i>anti</i> smoking propaganda now makes me wonder that I should.