When I saw this video of the rat's lack of fear of the cat, I couldn't help but think of this thread about toxoplasmosis, rats, and extremism:...1/
...2/...
….2/….
But more importantly, @LuluLemew’s embedded thread about psychological manipulation through the media reminded me of a 2012 study that measured people’s knowledge of domestic/international events against their chosen source of “news”. 3/ publicmind.fdu.edu/2012/confirmed…
It’s important to keep in mind that the study was conducted in 2012, when the presidency was just a “twinkle” in Trump’s narcissistic eye (so to speak), and BEFORE the Cambridge Analytica (2013)/Russian disinformation campaign really kicked into gear…..4/
…..and yet the study found that people who watched FOX News exclusively were not only less informed (able to answer less questions correctly) about both domestic and international events than people who watched other sources of news…..5/
…..but Fox News viewers actually KNEW LESS about domestic/international events THAN PEOPLE WHO DIDN'T WATCH ANY NEWS. 6/
This implicitly highlights the difference between being uninformed, and being disinformed…..both of which make up two of the three categories that most of Trump’s remaining supporters fit into: 7/
It’s also important to keep in mind that while a source of news is may correlate to being less knowledgeable, it does prove causation, because there are many other factors that play into this including education, age, gender, and ideology. 8/
However, these demographical characteristics are also what is used not just by Fox’s advertisers to target potential product consumers,...but these demographical characteristics are used in a consumer-driven, “demand-and-supply” disinformation campaign because….9/
….similar to the glut of mind-numbing celebrity gossip and fictionalized “news” publications (National Enquirer, etc.) that flood the checkout line at the grocery store,....when demand and consumption is high, supply will usually follow. 10/
FOX News, the GOP, and foreign countries (Putin) are well aware that emotion is one major factor…..11/
….and FOX, the GOP, and foreign countries (Putin) are also aware that the perception of morality (culture war issues) is clearly another factor that, in many cases, incites conservatives to act against their own self-interests…..12/
….As a result, a perpetual propaganda machine exploits this emotion and perception of morality in order to not only demonize others….13/
…..but also to demonize the disagreement of thought….14/
......As we have most recently witnessed with Nikki Haley…..15/
…. and Doug Collins….16a/
....and even Franklin Graham.....16b/
Cambridge Analytica, Putin, Haley/Collins/GOP, and the Right Wing media are not only well versed in this emotion/morality vulnerability to disinformation…….but they have and continue to exploit it. 17/
In 2017, I wrote something where I used “Behaviorism” (a theory/branch of psychology) as a lens through which to analyze the manipulation of the political climate, and I quoted this passage: 18/
“By leveraging automated emotional manipulation alongside swarms of bots, Facebook dark posts, A/B testing, and fake news networks,…19/
….a company called Cambridge Analytica has activated an invisible machine that preys on the personalities of individual voters to create large shifts in public opinion……... 20/
…..with a mere ten ‘likes’ as input his model could appraise a person’s character better than an average coworker. With seventy, it could ‘know’ a subject better than a friend; with 150 likes, better than their parents. 21/
With 300 likes, Kosinski’s machine could predict a subject’s behavior better than their partner. With even more likes it could exceed what a person thinks they know about themselves.” (end quote) 22/
Steve Bannon was a board member of Cambridge Analytica. Paul Manafort shared "polling data" with the Russians. Millions of micro-targeted propaganda ads were sent to vulnerable areas of Pennsylvania/Wisconsin/Michigan.....which Trump won by a cumulative total of 77,000 votes. 23/
