ABSTRACT
Karl Kraus had one fundamental insight in common with Hitler - that of the assignment of central importance to media discourse in controlling the mind of the public; but what Kraus set out to purify, Hitler poisoned beyond all previous intoxications. Hitler stated in 1923: 'Propaganda, propaganda, propaganda, all that matters is propaganda' (Curran and Seaton 1991:249). Two years earlier, Kraus wrote: 'In the beginning was the press, and then the world appeared' (Kraus 1967:56) (the opening of his much performed Press Song) expressing in lapidary fashion his knowledge that how we see the world depends on media discourse.
