{"id":29272,"date":"2013-07-25T16:50:02","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T16:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alternativejonestown.com\/?page_id=29272"},"modified":"2026-02-25T12:24:52","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T20:24:52","slug":"cromarty2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=29272","title":{"rendered":"Impact of One-Way Communication on Peoples Temple"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Edward Cromarty is a regular contributor to<\/em> the jonestown report. His other article in this edition is <\/em>New Memorial Honors Lives and Works of those at Jonestown<\/a><\/em>. His previous writings are collected here<\/a>. <\/em>He may be reached at edwardcromarty@hotmail.com<\/a>.)<\/span><\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n

For thousands of years, face-to-face communication was the traditional form for learning, news, debate, and opinion among the general population. The personal richness of face-to-face communication included the classroom, public gatherings, town meetings, street corners, churches, friends, and family. The multidimensional nature of these traditional two-way forms of communication provided for public access and discussion of new ideas, but \u2013 by definition \u2013 it was limited to an immediate and ephemeral audience.<\/p>\n

The invention of the printing press in 1439 is considered such a milestone in human development because for the first time, there was a means to make information accessible on a large scale. From posters and public notices, to books, newspapers and magazines, the general public suddenly had much greater access to news, information, and opinion. The power of knowledge that previously had been concentrated in the elite noble classes now resided with the people. It also came with its own inherent disadvantage: while print allowed for public expression of ideas and opinion, it could also be used for mass persuasion and to limit debate.<\/p>\n

A new era of one-way social communication began with the introduction of radio and television. These media are both methods of one-way communication that may be used to persuade mass populations, neither of which allows for response, debate, or contradiction. This type of communication is expensive and concentrates power into the hands of the select few having the resources to afford the required infrastructure. These methods of communication are effective at reaching mass audiences, but their immediacy carries the potential \u2013 often exploited, and sometimes consciously so \u2013 of distorting facts, and creating illusions and threats. Illusory threats may be used to create fear, and fear inhibits the human ability to reason and think critically.<\/p>\n

Radio broadcasting was developed in Italy and corresponded with the growth of fascism in Europe. This was not a coincidence: one-way communication was an effective media for the spread of propaganda that could be used to manipulate the thoughts of mass populations and eliminate the rights of the individual.<\/p>\n

The Roman Catholic Church developed the concept of propaganda during the Inquisition and the Protestant Reformation. Napoleon considered the press to be the \u201cseventh great power,\u201d and Joseph Goebbels, Hitler\u2019s Propaganda Minister, called radio the \u201ceighth great power\u201d (Goebbels, pp. 197-207, 1938). During World War I, Woodrow Wilson established the Committee on Public Information making the USA the first modern government to use propaganda to influence populations on a mass scale. In 1922, Walter Lippman sought to counter the propaganda of Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin by adopting a propaganda policy that specialized in the \u201cmanufacture of consent\u201d (Gore, pp. 93-96, 2007).<\/p>\n

American, Soviet, Chinese, and German experimentation into propaganda, psychological control, and mass persuasion was heightened during both world wars. Following World War II, both the USA and Soviet Union imported Nazi mind scientists to work in universities, hospitals, and government facilities. This was known in the USA as Project Paperclip which eventually evolved into the infamous MK-ULTRA experiments and similar projects. It was an Austrian \u2013 and the nephew of Sigmund Freud \u2013 named Edward Bernays who created the science of mass persuasion, the manipulation of the subconscious to influence social behavior. Before long, American industry began to capitalize on this new science. Using mass persuasion, Bernays\u2019 partner, Paul Mazur sought to shift the mentality of Americans from a needs culture to a desires culture. This was the beginning of modern marketing.<\/p>\n

Joseph Stalin used both radio and television to effectively enhance his \u201ccult of personality\u201d and achieve political objectives. The \u201ccult of personality\u201d surrounding Jim Jones was a concern raised by Soviet Embassy representative Feodor Timofeyev in consideration of the proposed move of Jonestown to the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

Jim Jones understood this well. \u201cEven when he changed his message, he didn\u2019t change his style,\u201d J. Alfred Smith wrote in his essay, \u201cBreaking the Silence.\u201d \u201cPeople responded only to the style of preaching instead of what he had to say.\u201d This is indicative of the change in style of communication that was taking place across America and much of the world. The older multidimensional communication that depended on content and the richness of personal interaction was being replaced by the impersonal mass one-way communication of radio and television. Style had become more important than content, and debate of ideas was no longer a viable option for most.<\/p>\n

Peoples Temple had grown in its early years in Indiana and Ukiah through interpersonal two-way communication between Jim Jones, his congregation, and the community whose needs it served. Through two-way interpersonal communication, Jim Jones and Peoples Temple reached out to the community; through this complexity of human communication, Jones received feedback from the community and responded to serve its needs. While most congregations of the time were only concerned with quantitative growth, Peoples Temple focused on listening to ideas from its congregants, discussing them face-to-face, and learning how to serve the community\u2019s needs and concerns. This could happen only through interpersonal communication. Acceptance of ideas from the community \u2013 especially the poor and minority community it sought to serve \u2013\u00a0was essential to Peoples Temple\u2019s early success.<\/p>\n

As Peoples Temple grew and evolved, so did the social communication techniques used by Jim Jones. He became more concerned with conveying ideas to persuade the Temple population and achieve his objectives \u2013 whether social welfare or, later, political \u2013 in comparison with his early years in which he successfully incorporated feedback from the community. His message of apostolic socialism turned from one that was developed by community discussion to one that was delivered from the pulpit without discussion, much less dissent.<\/p>\n

The one-way communications of the 1960\u2019s and 1970\u2019s also created a fertile breeding ground for the growth of Peoples Temple. Mass communication via radio and television helped to provide the environment that fostered social awareness and the desire to improve the lives of people. While the liberal movement did take advantage of these new modes of communication, by its very nature, liberalism had thrived in the interpersonal human environment that created Peoples Temple.<\/p>\n

At the same time one-way communication also created the hostility that eventually led to the downfall of the Temple. While one-way communication spread awareness of social need and encouraged people to try to improve the world, it was at its foundation a means of communication developed by wealthy conservative interests to preserve the status quo of corporate wealth and power, and to suppress the general population, particularly minority and impoverished segments which were perceived as threats. There are innumerable examples of how conservatives used one-way communication to discourage the ideals and goals sought by the likes of Jim Jones and Peoples Temple, such as the race riots of the mid-60\u2019s in Watts, Newark, and Detroit. Mass communication broadcast via radio and television of these riots created awareness of racial and economic inequality that needed to be addressed by the nation. It also created fear and hostility toward the African-Americans and poor whites who comprised the rioters in these communities. Peoples Temple was able to take advantage of this new awareness, but it also had to face the accompanying hostility. It is interesting to note that the three communities that suffered the most from these riots \u2013 Watts, Newark, and Detroit \u2013 have not fully recovered from the social impact and fear created by slanted mass communications and press misinformation that followed to protect conservative interests and to hide the underlying social reasons for the riots.<\/p>\n

The change in communication that occurred in Jonestown after the move to Guyana was even more radical. Radio towers played constant propaganda in the form of selectively chosen news and speeches by Jim Jones. He also controlled community meetings \u2013 especially the \u201cWhite Nights\u201d \u2013 and dissenting ideas were increasingly discouraged, mocked and even punished. Education in the schools and community was defined as furthering the political objectives of the Jonestown leadership. A contributing factor was that this all took place in the Guyanese jungle which further isolated the community from new ideas. This isolation caused the Jonestown community to lose focus on existing social norms, and resulted in the creation of new social norms to fill the vacuum.<\/p>\n

Multi-dimensional communication allows the development and discussion of ideas from the larger global society. Without such communication, new social norms have a tendency to lose grasp of reality, and the isolated community may develop its own concept of \u201cgood\u201d and \u201cbad.\u201d Creativity of thought may be lost, and new ideas are not generated or critiqued. Whether by design or by consequence, this happened in Jonestown. Placed under the stress of constant indoctrination via one-way communication, the most effective element upon which Peoples Temple had been established \u2013 the ability of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple to communicate with the community in an interpersonal multidimensional way and respond by serving community needs \u2013 was lost forever.<\/p>\n

The end result was that Jonestown became what Jim Jones feared the most. Mass persuasion, in the form of one-way communication, was developed for the establishment of a corporate elite in which the wealthy few indoctrinated the masses to preserve the status quo for their own benefit. One-way communication was developed to preserve corporate power and limit the freedom of the people by making the general population subservient to the profit motives of the corporation. Once Peoples Temple lost its creativity and ability to communicate on a multidimensional human level it had entered the final stages of its organizational life cycle.<\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

Goebbels, J. (1938). \u201cThe Radio as the Eighth Great Power.\u201d German Propaganda Archive. <\/em>Retrieved from https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20130727184740\/http:\/\/www.calvin.edu\/academic\/cas\/gpa\/goeb56.htm<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gore, A. (2007). The Assault on Reason (pp. 93-96). New York, NY: The Penguin Press.<\/p>\n

Smith, J. A. (2004). \u201cBreaking the Silence: Reflections of a Black Pastor.\u201d In Moore, R., Pinn, A. & Sawyer, M. (Ed.), Peoples Temple and Black Religion in America<\/a><\/i> (pp. 137-157). Bloomington and Indianapolis: University of Indiana Press.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Edward Cromarty is a regular contributor to the jonestown report. His other article in this edition is New Memorial Honors Lives and Works of those at Jonestown. His previous writings are collected here. He may be reached at edwardcromarty@hotmail.com.) For thousands of years, face-to-face communication was the traditional form for learning, news, debate, and opinion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":29485,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-29272","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29272"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134041,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29272\/revisions\/134041"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}