Towards a typology of manipulative processes*

. The interdisciplinary study of manipulation in totalitarian ideologies The theme of the manipulative processes that were instrumental in installing , consolidating and preserving the totalitarian governments of the 20th century is currently attracting particular scientific and cultural interest for various reasons. Firstly the totalitarian regimes in their classical form are generally considered – at least in Western societies – a concluded experience we should absolutely not repeat. The distance which separates us from those situations and those events makes it possible for us to look at them in a more detached way, but, at the same time, such distance is still limited: the continuity of memory is not lost, nor does our examination require an excessive amount of mediation, and, most importantly, the feeling of the dramatic character of this experience is still kept alive. Now, it is of primary importance that this memory is kept alive for the survival itself of our democratic societies. Undoubtedly, it is essential to this purpose to continue and to extend the practice of critical scrutiny by historians and political scientists. Yet an important contribution to this work could come at the present stage of the evolution of scientific research from the enormous development and progressive integration of the disciplinary area of 'commu-nication sciences'. 1 This scientific development provides us with powerful new methodological tools for the analysis and evaluation of communicative interaction. It is quite apparent that totalitarian regimes founded their power not only and not mainly on military and economic constraints: particularly after their installing phase a whole communicative system was devoted to consoli