Propaganda works better than you think, psychologists say

[mogster]

"Propaganda works better than you think, psychologists say

Science seldom interacts with the legal world, more's the pity. But the latest big Supreme Court decision, Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, has some scientists talking about the difference between the legal view of human psychology and what the evidence shows.

"The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves," said Justice Anthony Kennedy, reading the court's 5-4 majority opinion on Thursday, finding that corporations and unions can freely spend money on campaign ads to defeat or elect federal candidates. The decision ends decades-old limits on political spending.

"The spigot is ... wide open," campaign finance specialist Richard Hansen of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles told USA TODAY, after the decision.

So, we might ask, how well does research suggest people "think for themselves" under the potential flood of political ads from that spigot?"

On edit: Ouch, forgot link http://www.greenchange.org/article.php?id=5531

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Smirk" - Rush DraftDodger Limbaugh (R)

"What America needs is more tax cuts for wealthy republicons - Smirk"

- Rush DraftDodger Limbaugh (R)

[Blue Owl]

2. Especially when it's catipulted

by your own fascist-run media-spin machine known as the M$M.

[mogster]

6. It's more than the MSM today

It starts two ways - either in the mainstream media or in the blogs, it depends on the angle.

Here's what we deal with regarding propaganda (aka top down information paid for by commercial interests):

The mainstream media.
More or less bent, although there have been signs of change after Bush went away. They have been bent for so long they may not even know they're bent.

The substream media.
The reporting media on the level below the top notch, major blogs etc. Often picks up on/deliver talking points to the issues of the MSM.

The fake NGO's.
These are like watchdogs, but with a purpose of bending favor in a certain direction.

The fake fact pages, wiki's etc.
They are like fact pages, only not very factual or sifting the facts to bend the favor in a certain direction.
Included in this is of course people that are paid to edit ordinary wiki's in a certain fashion.

The fake graphical imprint on youtue, flickr and other content driven sites.
Upload a video, get the paid-for-movement to spread it, vote it up, make a buzz about it etc.

The fake, or hired, facebookers, twitterers and other social network streams.
People do things for money. Sometimes even not much money, maybe just a buck, but if you're online anyway, so

The fake bloggers, purpose-driven debaters etc.
There have been some examples on bloggers posing as liberals, there are probably more out there. People setting the agenda on the grass root by questioning the flow of information as it goes when a liberal issue hits the fan.

All these will back each other, because they are driven by a common purpose and are not made for fair and balanced questioning of a fact (which we do all the time). It's the Web Waffe - the World Wide Campaign. All these exists already but more money will make it easier to produce more propaganda.

And you know, on top of these, which all are false in some way, pretending to be something they're not, comes the usual commercials, where the corps have all power. Paper-ads, TV-ads, web ads, you name it. How irritating is the anti-hcr campaign Obamacare--with that green bath cap--on any liberal scale?

[Manifestor_of_Light]

3. Please read "How to Lie With Statistics".

One of my techie boyfriends gave it to me in college about 35 years ago.
Excellent book that illustrates falsehoods.

[conscious evolution]

8. Very good book

I read it back in the eighties.I highly recommend it.

Another must see to learn about propoganda and how it works is the BBC documentary The Century of the Self.This documentary details how the nephew of S.Frued,Dr E barneys,took the feild of phsycchology and began to use its findings in the advertising industry.

[Cetacea]

4. I'm convinced.

[omega minimo]

13. lol

[usregimechange]

5. In short, we are screwed.

[EFerrari]

7. Thanks, mogster! Bookmarking to read after coffee.

[mogster]

15. Hi Beth

Thanks

[EFerrari]

16. Propaganda is fascinating to me right now because its use

seems to be much more effective than all the weapons in the Pentagon budget. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the Pentagon has deployed people over the intertubes to sell their position. What a deal they must be getting.

And here we've been worried about nukes for 50 years.

[mogster]

18. Yeah, they don't even need weapons and forced control anymore

They can simply convince enough people with the carrot and scare us all with the stick, and the end result is compliance.
There's a huge information war going on, that's for sure.

[Speck Tater]

9. I'm strongly considering adopting a new political philosophy: Complete Apathy. nt

[seabeyond]

10. propaganda kicks ass. we watch it all over our culture and society as it takes hold

in many areas. the thing. when it is one of our agendas or issues, we fal for it blindly. when it opposes our agenda and issues we see it clearly and say why, how do people fall for it

this isnt just politics either. tis everywhere.... along side of conditioning

[TexasObserver]

11. Most people "think" whatever they hear the most.

Many voters have no knowledge of politics, and believe whatever they are told in the media blitz the last weeks before the election.

[mogster]

17. I agree. It's the big hubbub when a news piece breaks

They blow it up as high as they can. We adapt somewhat, but how can we match this without becoming like them? Without outdoing their game?
And is even that possible, as they've got all the money and so can outmatch anything we do?
In some sense they (meaning corps and repubs, joined) have all the advantage: They have money, knowhow, media and in addition the religious extremists, willing to really work on astroturfing - we have the (supposed) smart people willing to inform themselves and produce truth instead of propaganda. It takes much more effort to do this because that's the nature of truth: it sits deeper. But it also lasts longer.
But no doubt the next election will be something else regarding commercials and propaganda.

[Quantess]

12. Yes, and it's also true that people underestimate their own ability to think critically.

[Cleita]

14. This is what Hitler had to say about propaganda in "Mein Kampf"

Ever since I have been scrutinizing political events, I have taken a tremendous interest in propagandist activity. I saw that the Socialist-Marxist organizations mastered and applied this instrument with astounding skill. And I soon realized that the correct use of propaganda is a true art which has remained practically unknown to the bourgeois parties. Only the Christian-Social movement, especially in Lueger's time achieved a certain virtuosity on this instrument, to which it owed many of its successes.

But in was not until the War that it became evident what immense results could be obtained by a correct application of propaganda. Here again, unfortunately, all our studying had to be done on the enemy side (the allies, American and Great Britain), for the activity on our side was modest, to say the least. The total miscarriage of the German 'enlightenment' service stared every soldier in the face, and this spurred me to take up the question of propaganda even more deeply than before.

and

The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the broad masses. The fact that our bright boys do not understand this merely shows how mentally lazy and conceited they are.

more

The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered. In this way the result is weakened and in the end entirely cancelled out.

Mein Kampf was written before he gained power. It looks like he took his own advice and that Ruppert Murdoch has as well.

[tex-wyo-dem]

20. This quote pretty much sums up RW talking points today...

"effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan."

In other words, keep it simple, and, no matter how outlandish the lies are, repeat them enough times and they become reality.

[Swamp Rat]

19. ***The spigot is wide open***

Hêia mogster!

Not only are the spigots of propaganda wide open, forces from within are shutting down our public educational systems all over the country.

In Louisiana, for example, Gov. Bobby Jindal is dismantling the LSU system as I type this; entire degree programs were closed this semester and dozens of tenured professors were fired. Electricity in buildings on campuses are being shut down during the day and early evening, and a large percentage of classes were cancelled. It will take years to recover some degree programs, while many may never return.... it's as if the public school system was itself hit by a hurricane.

[mogster]

22. Hi there

I'm sorry to hear that, is there no end to the misery? Is it for saving money they close down electricity? How weird is that?

Nice one, btw

[EFerrari]

21. Kick

You know, I think someday someone will write a book about the sustained campaign against Chavez. It's a model, seriously. In fact, I may be that someone because it's just amazing how effective it has been and I have to figure out how reasonable people can be made to believe such unreasonable things and so easily. Forget if one likes the guy or his policies or not, the momentum of the information war against him is unbelievable.