Doubt Everything!

From Cooter’s Sociology text book:

A democratic country, such as the US, depends on citizens who can make wise decisions both when they cast their votes and when they make their purchases. Thus, it is important for people to be alert to the techniques that propagandists use to sway public opinion. Social scientists have ID’d 7 such techniques:

· Testimonials – use of endorsements by famous people to sell products or secure votes. The goal is to persuade people to transfer their admiration for a celebrity to the products or candidates endorsed.
· Transfer – similar to Testimonial, use national symbols (flag, national monument) to suggest buying the product is patriotic, can also be used negatively (use negative symbols to suggest buying product is bad)
· Bandwagon – appeals to public’s desire to conform, a product or politician may be promoted as the one already most popular with the public, takes advantage of people’s desire to be on the winning side or using products that appear highly desirable
· Name calling – use negative labels or images to make competitors appear in unfavorable light i.e. refer to someone as a reckless spender or uncaring
· Plain-folks appeal – appealing to the average American, or using images of average Americans with whom everyone can identify may be shown endorsing product or candidate
· Glittering generalities – use of words that sound positive but have little real meaning
· Card stacking – presenting facts in a way that places products or candidates in a favorable light, i.e. newspapers may give a lot of attention to politicians they favor and little to those they do not

The Stoopid American’s Thoughts: Learn to see these when they’re being used! You’ll begin to see them everywhere. I spent a lifetime in advertising and became a master at creating effective ads for my clients using these techniques. And 25 years ago we did not learn these in a sociology text book. Advertising was not a “degree” either, you learned these in Newspaper Advertising Bureau workshops and through real life trial and error. My personal specialty was a combo of testimonials and plain-folks appeal – which was the fastest way to gain a consumer’s trust to try a new product or new store or new experience. As a former ad exec, the only thing I see missing from this list is use of color and use of human faces and the frequency barrage (it used to be 7 exposures to get some action). I’ll bet that’s changed now…

What I hope to achieve with this blog entry is to get people to see when they are being manipulated. Doubt everything. But also keep in mind: propaganda can contain TRUTH, PARTIAL TRUTH OR LIES. I just want all Americans to know spin when they see it. Ask yourself “why am I seeing all this coverage of only one candidate or one side of an issue?” And even though you can easily see the “technique,” the content may still be TRUE or NOT. Look for the “fact,” and the “source of the fact.” I for one, also a former professional journalist, have a hard time today finding any believable facts in popular media.

Which brings to mind the discussion of “what is a fact”? Let’s look at an example. Recently a Bricktown business owner complained about participants in a charity event (called Cancer Crawl) urinating off her balcony onto nice family people below in the street. The Cancer Crawl involved people paying money to get to drink a lot in Bricktown establishments which raised money for cancer. The reporter reported the facts: Business owner complained. Bricktown Association will not participate in this event in future. An interesting comment made by a reader: How do we know this urinating-on-people really happened? We only have this so-called business owner’s word! Then he accused the reporter of not reporting facts.

What an idiot, I thought. The fact was not that someone peed on somebody else (who the heck could possibly know, and I’ll get into eye witnesses in a minute). The FACT was the business owner complained. The reporter CAN confirm that. As a reader, you get to decide if what the business owner said was PROBABLY true – why would she otherwise turn down potential business? She did portray shock and outrage, as well. She owned the balcony and was probably physically in a position to witness said pee-ing. People who drink a lot tend to pee a lot. People who have drunken a lot tend to not exercise good judgment about where they pee. I’m gonna vote for yeah, probably true. No one can be everywhere seeing everything…real journalism is about getting as close to a believable source as possible and recording accurately their statements.

And even if you can get eye witnesses, many studies have shown they don’t even get it right most of the time. Why? How is that possible? Well, just look around you – we all look at a painting, a movie, a set of data, a piece of information and put our own perception on it…because we are individuals with our individual biases, experiences, intelligence level, environmental conditions, etc. Imagine a man running toward a woman – some may see him wanting to do harm to her, others see passion and romance, and yet another sees a dramatic rescue in the making.

Regardless, I hope I’ve given you some new tools to use when analyzing the world around us. Dust off your bulls*** meter! And let’s get to work – I refuse to let anyone do my thinking for me anymore.