Does the media use subliminal messaging?

Nowhere near the same thing, but in the course of my job, I really enjoyed some of the training we had regarding body language, the use of words, and so on.
It's just an extension of that kind of thing, really, with much more at stake.

It stands to reason that it is going to be manipulative.

I read the, admittedly polemic, book A State of Fear by Laura Dodsworth recently.

She devoted a whole chapter to the way David Cameron and his department of 'Nudge' has escalated and expanded until every ministry has a department of behavioural psychology, hidden under anodyne titles that are meaningless and they are shaping and developing ways of manipulating our behaviour. Her main point is how during the pandemic fear was manipulated and hyped up in order to control us.

From threads on GN it seems to have been very effective.

absent

If you are aware of the "message", then it's not subliminal.

Precisely!

Subliminal messaging was a big scare story when I was young. It was claimed that people could be influenced by messages which were presented too fast for conscious recognition but, in theory, were nonetheless noted and taken in by the unconscious. I'm not sure it was ever proven that they actually worked.

What the OP described is the time honoured 'if you throw enough mud some sticks' technique

The department of subliminal nudges.

GrannyRose15

We are subjected to far more "nudging" than any of us would imagine. Scary really!

I heard there was going to be an enquiry into the nudge department. Probably gone by the board like many other things.

We are subjected to far more "nudging" than any of us would imagine. Scary really!

If you are aware of the "message", then it's not subliminal.

Yes, I'm sure of it.

I think we are under constant subliminal sway.

Yes.

There's not much point in them doing so in the Conservative leadership campaign, though, because the vast majority of us do not have a vote.
It's not like a GE.

Right! Thank you. And there was me blaming the Daily Mail for being the most manipulative conveyers of news. Although Wikipedia does not classify it as a newspaper as it states that it produces only 30% of actual news whereas other papers offer 60%. Wonder about the peerage said to be
offered to its previous editor in Johnson’s honours list.

In answer to your question they do.

Remember when Newsnight had a picture of Rishi Sunak dressed as superman. How times change.

She is in the lead and it's nothing to do with subliminal messaging. Many people, even those who disliked Boris, think that Rishi's behaviour was underhand which had led to many having no respect for him.

And the Tunny Wells conversation was quite the shocker.

It's not hard to see why Truss is leading

Well I suppose they could lie. She is the favourite.

Front runner seems to have been used a lot too….

I know what you mean. The media seems to have been emphasising Truss all along even when she was trailing Penny Mordaunt. Hmmmm?