How To Brainwash Your Citizens (an excerpt from my WiP)

From the WiP, but something interesting as a standalone observation (and possible explanation for some otherwise inexplicable trends):

They’d prepared for a contagion by getting everyone used to it with a huge propaganda machine. With the basic antibiotic resistant bacteria quickly becoming the *weaklings* on the block, the next step didn’t take a lot of imagination. We would need to quarantine people. Against their will. Prescriptively. 
So: zombies. 
Failure to quarantine is *the* biggest problem faced in those movies and books. Sickness isn’t there to be cured – it’s there to be eradicated by any means necessary. And if it’s not stopped, then society collapses and you die. Mercy dooms you all.
All the government has to do is to boost the sales of one or two titles. They don’t even have to tell anyone – that’s the beautiful part. When something is a bestseller or at the top of the ticket sales, most – enough – people will convince themselves they like it. The publishers and media companies will make more, since the first one did well. And your theme is spread out into the wild, and your people are brainwashed to do what you want of their very own accord.