35 thinkers on what Trump says about us

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by (original)late, Nov 20, 2020.

  1. (original)late

    (original)late Banned

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    There's a lot of different perspectives.

    "An extensive MIT study of Twitter posts, published in Science in 2018, found that fake or otherwise misleading news stories are 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than truthful ones. The audience for misinformation is routinely an order of magnitude larger than the audience for accurate reports. “False news spreads farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth,” the researchers concluded."

    You'll agree with some, disagree with others, what I like best is the perspective, which puts Trump in the rear view mirror.

    Buh bye!


    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/11/19/roundup-what-trump-showed-us-about-america-435762
     
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  2. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    so true

    "In the 21st century, propaganda is a bottom-up phenomenon. Falsehoods may be seeded from the White House or the Kremlin, but they circulate through the public’s own posts and tweets. Social media has allowed propaganda to be crowdsourced; it has democratized George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth."
     
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  3. Adfundum

    Adfundum Moderator Staff Member Donor

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    Is that the same study that claimed more of the fake news spread on Facebook and Twitter than on news media?
     
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  4. (original)late

    (original)late Banned

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    It would seem so..

    "New social technologies, which facilitate rapid information sharing and large-scale information cascades, can enable the spread of misinformation (i.e., information that is inaccurate or misleading). But although more and more of our access to information and news is guided by these new technologies (11), we know little about their contribution to the spread of falsity online. Though considerable attention has been paid to anecdotal analyses of the spread of false news by the media (12), there are few large-scale empirical investigations of the diffusion of misinformation or its social origins. Studies of the spread of misinformation are currently limited to analyses of small, ad hoc samples that ignore two of the most important scientific questions: How do truth and falsity diffuse differently, and what factors of human judgment explain these differences?"
    https://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6380/1146

    Looks like good work to me.
     
  5. Adfundum

    Adfundum Moderator Staff Member Donor

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    On one hand it seems pretty obvious that social media spreads it faster, but a lot of those articles come from legit news media sources. And there are the not-so-legitimate sources that craft and pump out a lot of misleading stuff.

    I find it interesting that we can be so easily mislead. What are those "factors of human judgment" that might help to explain the differences? IMO, it's pretty simple. Basic cognitive biases. They are part of the animal we are, and they ain't going away. We need to spend more time understanding just how biased we are, and how much that influences how we interpret the world.

    Using the right words, framing the main ideas, hyperbolizing, establishing an enemy to blame things on--just a few of the tactics used to make people react in such predictable ways. When we find something that appeals to our way of thinking,we tend to accept it rather than question it. Then we pass it along as proof that we're right and others are wrong.
     
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  6. PPark66

    PPark66 Well-Known Member

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    We have a tabloid culture and it’s been that way for quite a while.
     
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  7. (original)late

    (original)late Banned

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    Back in the 80s, a news gal did a piece slamming Reagan on the evening news. Reagan's media guy called her and thanked her for doing the piece. She was confused, and asked if he had heard what she said. The media guy said people don't listen much. But the segment used the meticulously crafted media events the Reagan crowd did regularly, as a backdrop. She showed those, and that was all the media guy cared about. He was right.

    One of my favorite tv shows is Almighty Johnsons. There was this line: "You can't uncrash the train" I've been thinking that a lot lately. Social media seems to have dropped the national IQ, and it wasn't anything to brag about before. A lot of damage was done before Trump, but he's ended the American Century. We have changed, and the world has noticed. A fews days ago there was a massive trade deal in Asia. It illustrates the increased influence of China among what had been our staunchest allies in Asia.

    This is a fundamental reordering of the way the world works. Anyone that tells you they really understand it is kidding themselves. I keep thinking about how the development of the printing press resulted in war after war after war. Something like that is going on now.

    If I were to guess, I'd say we will likely keep trying to act like the world hasn't changed, and that will set us up for a variety of interesting and painful failures. It's one of the reasons I didn't support Biden in the primaries, restorations never work. I've said that before, it occurs to me that I should explain that when a country tries to turn back the clock, to restore things to the way they were, things go wrong.
     
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  8. jhil2020

    jhil2020 Well-Known Member

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    @(original)late @Adfundum

    I think the main problem is the way that consensus is desired above validity or accuracy (or objectivity or neutrality). But also, the norms of traditional journalism have been metabolized to maintain viability in a media environment that must cater to echo-chambers and consumers' selective exposure to news and information. I bring this up because social media rewards consensus above all else. The posts with the most likes, shares etc get pushed up and the rest get lost in the sea of opinions. This cultivates a sort of "collective hivemind" that only works to increase bias, increase the confidence with which people employ their biases, and decrease emotional regulation.

    2017 research conducted by B. Locke Welborn, Benjamin C. Gunter, I. Stephanie Vezich and Matthew D. Lieberman (Neural Correlates of the False-consensus Effect) shows that consensus bias is amplified by consuming confirmatory information prior to judging the beliefs others. Those whose individual attitudes were confirmed prior to estimation of consensus demonstrated greater bias (estimates of consensus along a scale are predicted as being closer to their own attitude than what is true). Also, respondents in this experiment made these evaluations faster and with more confidence than when they were given non-confirmatory information prior to estimating consensus. Furthermore, the regions of the brain associated with the experience of reward (NAcc and VMPFC) were more active during evaluation in those with greater bias, whereas the regions associated with emotional regulation (RVLPFC, LVPFC) were more active in those with a lesser bias.
     
  9. Adfundum

    Adfundum Moderator Staff Member Donor

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    True. One of the standards of propaganda/advertising is to use as few words as possible, and repeat those words often (notice that most of the audience chants at political rallies are limited to 3 syllables). So it makes sense that the imagery and background is used to provoke us on an emotional level. Things like the flag in the background bring out a patriotic response, while a building burning at night generates outrage. It's interesting that Megyn Kelly said that outrage was/is the tool of the trade used by the media because it generates ratings and more clicks. In other words, advertising money that pays the bills.

    As far as the national IQ, I'd say people are smart enough to at least get the impression that all this is happening, but it does seem that our "implicit biases" cause us to see others as victims of the outrage tactic, but we are certain that we are not taking that bait.
    True here also. Can we ever have a neutral or un-biased media? Bias is so deeply embedded in humans that it seems unavoidable. Thinking back about 8-10 years ago, Fox used to post a lot of articles and images of Blacks and Latinos who committed crimes, but rarely posted about White criminals. It was as if Whites never did anything illegal. This is like baiting us along feeding our confirmation biases. If feeds stereotypes and fuels hostility. It makes us say "see how bad those people are?" Keep that dopamine coming...
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2020
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  10. (original)late

    (original)late Banned

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    Hamilton and Jefferson both started newspapers so they could slag each other in the press.

    That's human nature.

    The bad news is you can place limits on discourse, but there's a price to pay. Now that social media has been weaponised, we will eventually have to do a lot more along those lines than we do now. But that does make me worry.
     
  11. jhil2020

    jhil2020 Well-Known Member

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    I think it is possible if we understand neutrality to mean that one's personal views are left aside when providing coverage.

    If Senator Frickenfreak says "I think Policy A is going to help citizens in ways 1, 2 and 3", then:
    • neutral coverage should index that comment and provide little more than facts within scope
    • objective coverage should index that comment along with an opposing viewpoint (not the reporter's)
    I don't like indexed news media, and I'm sure I've said as much here in the past by now. However, my dissatisfaction stems not from a vendetta against traditional journalism, but from a belief that news media at the executive and editorial level is in-fact profit-based and that it is in-fact corporatized and conglomerated. I don't think the journalists on TV, making $$$$$, are there because they're the best in the world, in sum. I don't think their coverage reflects objectivity no matter how many times Fox brings on a lolberal to get clowned by a panel of 4 other conservatives, and so it goes with any writer or host in the world of news media. They can be "objective" and still frame debate to be a trouncing. They can be "neutral" and index nothing other than confirmatory rhetoric from a politician to make their argument from afar.

    I turn to the end of year reports to the shareholders. That lets me know where a news media organization is going and what it's doing (but this is only explanatory if we grant the assumption that news media is, above all else, profit-driven). For example, the NYT has a readership that is 92% self-identified "liberal" and 2% of the global population considers them to be a main news source. Over 70% of its revenue is derived from subscription, meaning that these readers who keep coming back are likely being maintained through confirmatory messaging, thus explaining a portion of the left-lean in cultural coverage.

    As much as I want to believe that the shape of coverage is largely free from business pressures, it is clear to me that this is not the case when I look at audiences and content.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2020
  12. garyd

    garyd Well-Known Member

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    This is silly. One of the oldest saws in the book is that a lie can circumnavigate the planet while the truth is getting it's pants on. People will believe what suits them regardless of any evidence to the contrary. This has been true pretty much since there were people. Complaints about idle gossip are found in the Bible and Sumerian cuneiform Tablets. Ramses the Great seems to have been the first Great liar to lead a country but more likely just the first we have evidence for.
     
  13. HockeyDad

    HockeyDad Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Indeed, that is why we call it fake news:


    This is why I love the alternative media. They have given dozens of examples of the MSM all using the same words/phrases over the past four years. When I see NBC/ABC/CBS/CNN etc... all using the exact same phrase/word, I know I am watching propaganda. A great example was every single one of them using the term "dark" to describe Trump's 4th of July speech. I watched the speech in it's entirety and that the adjective "dark" was not remotely apt. (To prove that I can sense reality, I thought Trump looked like a complete insufferable unpresidential asshat in his 1st debate.)

    The base problem is the MSM is owned by 6 corporations. That is a maximum of 6 perspectives from entitled elite. The alternative media is literally hundreds of different people with different perspectives and NONE of them are part of the entitled elite. It is far more real. The alternative media is a narrative shredding force of nature.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2020
  14. Adfundum

    Adfundum Moderator Staff Member Donor

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    The shared use of words and phrases is certainly one of the more obvious problems. Jon Stewart used that on his show several times, but the media continues doing it.

    Personally, I don't trust any media sources. It's not so much about whether or the information is true or false, but about the way the facts are decorated with "loaded language." Something as simple as using Obama's middle name triggers emotional responses because it makes us think of Muslims, and even the word, Muslim, can trigger a reaction. Using his full name was a media staple for media sources trying to attract an anti-Obama audience. Modifying words like proud and patriot are often tossed in to articles to set the emotional stage. And labels such as conservatives, which is fairly neutral, can be swapped for Right wing, which comes across as more radical.

    Also, what information the article is centered on and what is left out can be a way to sway. Stories can be factual, but still be very misleading because the information is cherry-picked. This is something I see as quite common.

    Anyway, the fact that we can see this happening is encouraging. The only problem with that is when we see it in Us vs. Them terms. We assume we can't be fooled, that we can spot fake news a mile away, and yet those most convinced they know better are the ones studies claim are most often victims of their own biases.

    This is in no way a one-sided problem with alternative media on one side and main stream on the other. It's universal. All media needs revenue.

    We really should be skeptical of all information.
     
  15. Adfundum

    Adfundum Moderator Staff Member Donor

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    Don't forget Franklin:
     

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