The Century of the Self by Adam Curtis is a great doc on how this took shape in the early 20th century; its primary focus was the double nephew of Sigmund Freud who invented public relations and was a powerful political consultant for many US administrations.
One of his main areas of research was using media as a tool for crowd control... he had a somewhat noble viewpoint about it, believing that large crowds by nature devolved into anarchy: "Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by which they can fight for productive ends and help to bring order out of chaos".
This guy's a big part of the reason America is so deeply screwed. America's eating habits have been artfully manipulated to the point that dietary common sense in the US is likely among the lowest in the Western world.
That the larger the population got, the harder it would be to control, politically or otherwise. That there would be all sorts of competing factions for mindshare and ideology, radicalization, etc, in a fully free society.
He more or less viewed consumerism as a means pacify these tensions, to indirectly exert control... hence the development of closer ties between big business and the government.
Propaganda is such a destructive tool, it's a one way trip. Just being forced to pondering if you have been manipulated in some capacity, for example while working in the offices, is damaging to psyche and undermining someone's sense of the world and even sense of self, but now it's additionally done at literally global scale. We're kicking the ground out from our own feet and adamantly keep searching for a reason everything isn't right.
One of his main areas of research was using media as a tool for crowd control... he had a somewhat noble viewpoint about it, believing that large crowds by nature devolved into anarchy: "Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by which they can fight for productive ends and help to bring order out of chaos".