The article discusses how new technologically mediated communication has transformed the relations between media and ordinary users in terms of public opinion manipulation. It outlines the way various actors - including cognitive linguists, studying sociopolitical discourse - get more and more involved into both exposing and critically assessing media manipulation as well as promoting new methods of mind control. As a result, the boundaries between academic, media and sociopolitical discourse get blurred, and the study interferes with its own object.