I think a better choice of words is educating rather than manipulating. It is fairly easy to manipulate people, and that is why liberals do it that way.
Ilbob's statement makes an excellent example of one type of strategy: framing language. When people with opinions we like try to change the public's mind, they are "educating". When people with opinions we dislike try to change the public's mind, they are "manipulating". The methodology may be the same, but framing the language can make the two seem worlds apart. You can see the same thing with terms like "assault weapon" vs. "homeland defense rifle" (or whatever PC term folks have come up with this week).
I think you can start off with some pretty interesting critiques/discussions of the functioning of media in a post-modern world through movies such as
Network,
Natural Born Killers (not for the squeamish), and
Thank You for Smoking. Additionally, a good, current, college-level Theory of Mass Communication Book is a good start.
As far as concrete examples are concerned, I don't particularly feel that books are the way to go. There are a few out there (Alinsky's
Rules for Radicals or Hoffman's
Steal this Book), but these things get outdated very quickly. Instead, I'd recommend a few websites that chronicle some of the activism that people are doing:
www.indymedia.org (and its various subsites)
news.infoshop.org
www.theyesmen.org
Most of you will strongly disagree with what's on the sites, but what's important for you is to understand the tactics. Honestly, you right-wingers got nothing on us lefties
You may have to sift through quite a bit of stuff to start to get an idea of what works and what doesn't, but there are lots of good ideas in there.
Although I'd recommend the above leftist and anarchist sites, I wouldn't bother with the lukewarm liberal stuff like MoveOn.org, A.N.S.W.E.R., or George Soros crap. Their top-down, elitist style of organizing is the type of thing we need to get past. It's like looking to the NRA for activist ideas. They've got their place, but activism ain't it.
We need to become radicals.
I'm
way ahead of you on that one.
You're right, though.