Are we being manipulated?

Suzanne Maloney described the Iranian elections as full of "maneouvering", as each of the 686 candidates tries to out-do the others.  The Iranians know their culture and may not think of the tactics as "manipulation", but perhaps people outside their culture would.

That set me thinking - what does manipulation mean?  What consitutes manipulation?  Are we being manipulated in the free world?

Eg. we may think we have the freedom to choose, but how limited is our freedom?

If the public transport infrastructure is weak, then we would feel the need to have our own vehicle more.  Are we manipulated into owning a vehicle to compensate for the fact that our government did not invest well into public transport?  Or, if the government provided plenty of public transport but taxed private vehicles heavily, then, can we say that citizens are manipulated into using public transport?

In democratic countries, the voice of the people is "heard" by their government.  But what avenues does the government give for the voice of the people to reach them?  Does the government have the time to answer our every phone call, email or letter?  I see that some government spends for the resources to hear from the people more compared to others.

Then there is the media that carries our news and entertainment.  The media should stay neutral, but in order to sell papers, etc, it needs to sensationalise and appeal to public interests and fears.  The asylum seeker situation, etc. may not be as bad as what the media makes it out to be.  And in some countries, the government owns the media channels.

Even on the internet, we cannot believe everything we read - as some people tell lies.

Eg. Angelina Jolie announced that she has had a double mastectomy done to reduce her risk of breast cancer.  Many seem to honour her as a hero for doing this, but some think that this is a manipulative move by holders of gene patents to get through some legal decisions.  The news appeals to women to be tested for a gene - although few can afford such testing.  Is this a way for the medical specialists to make money?

Scientists are now saying that there is probably no "gay gene" - contrary to what they have been thinking in the past, and contrary to what some people wanted society to think.  Nevertheless, Kevin Rudd of Australia is now supporting gay marriages.  Is some maneuvering going on here?

What do you think?  Are we manipulated to believe things out of what we hear, and deceived away from knowing the truth?  What is the truth anyway?  What should we believe?  How do we get around the untruths that are masked around the truth in the information that we are fed?

Is God deceived too?