Four ways to tell: Is it news or advocacy?

I wrote this originally in 2016, but in the Trump era, it became even more important to know how to judge what is actually journalistic "news" and what is political advocacy.

When people, politicians, journalists, and others talk about "the media", everybody seems to mean something different.

For decades, "the media" referred to established mainstream news sources that pursued ethical and meticulous journalism. Today, social media has flattened the playing field and given everyone a voice, at little or no cost.  But this new "everyone" dynamic is largely made up of people who are not trained in journalism, not committed to telling all sides of a story, or are actively promoting a one-sided agenda.

How do you tell if what you come across is news or advocacy? Here are four ways:

1.  Value judgments are not attributed.

Real journalists do not tell you what they think as part of their stories.

Any time a headline or story body makes a statement about something being good or bad, admirable or not, or any other opinion, it needs to st somebody other than the journalist saying.  that means we have to attribute it as a quote or paraphrase.

If the story contains a value judgment without indicating the source, it is advocacy, not journalism.

2.  Loaded words have hidden meaning.

Journalists are trained to use descriptive language, but to avoid words that have social connotations, stereotypes, or other hidden meaning attached to them.

3. Doesn't really tell both sides of a controversy.

Advocacy thrives on giving you loaded information that is weighted to a particular agenda.  If a supposed news story brushes off an opposing point of view or only gives it lip service, it is likely not journalism.

4.   Contains ad hominem criticism, not attributed.

If the writer criticizes a person or group of people, as opposed to the person's/group's position on issues, it is a logical fallacy and it is advocacy, not journalism. Such "ad hominem" might appear in a quote and still be journalism, but when it is not attributed and this is a contention of the writer, it is not journalism.

Conclusion?

These four rules of thumb are just the beginning.  You have to scrutinize and evaluate the source of information.  Check Snopes or Politifact.  Ask yourself "is the writer promoting an agenda"?  The more you do this, the more it will become clear what is news and what is advocacy pretending to be news.

Social Media Activism 2.0

From "The Political Blogosphere and the 2004 U.S. Election: 

Divided they blog" by Ladal Adamic and Natalie Glance.  By extension, 

it is an excellent representation of the current understanding of the 

"Echo Chamber" in which people online mainly interact 

with people of similar thoughts and orientations.

Political observers have noted recently that people on social media inhabit an "echo chamber" in which they only talk to themselves. As a result, no matter how much they post, they don't really change people's minds.

Yet, social media is huge in terms of selling stuff and corporations spend a fortune to influence people via social media.

How do we resolve these apparent conflicts into a paradigm for political activism via social media post-2016?

What is social media?

The idea of social networks long predates computers and smartphones.  It is "a social structure made up of people or organizations with one or more specific connection, such as friendship, family, common interests or dislikes, financial exchange, sexual relationships, and relations of belief, knowledge or prestige."

Social media is a technology-mediated social network, i.e. one pursued via electronic communications technology.

The key is that it is a network of relationships, not just information exchange.

What is persuasion?

Persuasion is "communication that is intentionally devised to influence attitudes, beliefs, or actions."  Persuasion, then, is about getting people to behave in ways you desire by appealing to their beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and motivations.

There are MANY ways to persuade (I have taught an entire semester course about persuasion). One of the most powerful, in the context of politics, is appealing to the threat/fear response. This works most effectively when the threat is personal.

How did social media fail in 2016?

To succeed, social media cannot be seen as persuading people directly to do something.  Social media needs to be seen as building relationships that will influence people to engage in a certain behavior.

In practical terms, we need to get people to do something because it is an expectation of the their reference group(s), or to support their group. Therefore, we use social media to forge and strengthen this group identify, and to present actions that align with the group.

when someone already agrees with you, this is not too hard.  When someone disagrees with you, it is much harder, and where you need to draw on psychology and established persuasion techniques.

The decision of which presidential candidate to vote for is a big, high-stakes decision.  Not many people change their minds easily about high-stakes decisions, and people HATE to change their minds, which means admitting that they were wrong.

So, how do we proceed?

We use sequential persuasion, that is, we accomplish our big goal via gaining compliance in a series of smaller persuasive steps.

We start by getting our target audience to agree to a small point that is so easy to accept and so logical that they cannot really object to it. Then we build, getting them to agree to another, and another, and another, each a logical step based on their previous agreement.

Businesses do this all the time in ways that are grounded in consumer psychology. Some typical tactics are:

• Pre-giving – Giving "free" return address labels, meals, etc, to get you in a more receptive frame of mind.
• Foot in the door, or a free consultation.  "We're not here to sell you anything.  We just want to understand your situation more" but in reality we are assembling evidence to use to sell you later.
• "But wait, there’s more” – Adding allegedly free stuff that is really hidden in the price you pay.  You see this in infomercials all the time.
• Lowball – Start with the basic version, but extol the benefits of upgrading.
• Incremental – Provide little bits of additional information at a time.  The dozens of little revelations about governmental surveillance of citizens accomplished this. People accept it now who would not if it all came out at once.

How do we apply this in social media?

We need to apply it top-down. Hundreds of thousands of people trying in uncoordinated ways to gain compliance isn't going to work as well as centralization of the message.  The centralization needs to be based on VERY careful analysis of the mindset and world views of the people who are NOT YET part of the group.

We need to find little points that are relevant to the big issues, and frame them in ways favorable to ourselves, but also that are hard for anybody to disagree with.  Then ask readers who agree to take some easy logical action, like sharing to their friends.

When we can show that it is particularly important based on THEIR frame of reference, we can to ask them to do something bigger, like send an email or make a phone call.

What we are asking may be straightforward and obvious our in-group people, but it may be more challenging for the folks we really want to reach, who are not yet in the group.  This is because they think differently from how we think.

How do I figure out the way the other guys think?

Number one, we listen to them.  Eavesdrop on their own talk and see how they present their logic.

But as I have posted before, there is also research that can help a lot.  It shows:

• Liberals make decisions based on data and analysis.  They are less emotional and more adaptable.  They are more likely to respond to complex information, considering multiple possibilities before making a choice.
• Conservatives make decisions based on fear-driven emotions, emotional attachment to an idea, and group identity.  They want stability, i.e. they resist change. When faced with ambiguity, they have a strong emotional response and are more protective of assets and loved ones.  For them, stability equals predictability, equals more expected outcomes, equals less fear.  They go with the choice that seems least threatening.
• The more conservative you are, the more group loyalty, authority, and purity/sanctity are important to you. The more liberal you are, the more harm/care and fairness are important.

To rally your base, use tactics that appeal to your own way of thinking.  To reach across party lines, you need to employ the kinds of arguments and communication styles that resonate with the other party.  This cross-party thinking can be hard to do, because it is alien to how WE think for ourselves.

If the liberals failed in their use of the "echo chamber" in 2016, it was through NOT framing the issues in ways that would appeal to undecideds (and conservatives) and in NOT employing organized, strategized calls to action.

I haven't seem much post-election change in their strategies, but maybe it is still a work in progress.

How to Talk to the Other Side of the Asile

This Slideshare PPT, from 2015, contains a nice analysis of how Conservatives and Liberals think.

Your brain on politics the cognitive neuroscience of liberals and conservatives

Therefore, it contains ideas to keep in mind when we are communicating with people who think differently than we do.

Distorted News

There has been a lot of talk recently about fake news in social media.  There is some, deliberately intended to deceive, but the much bigger problem is advocacy cloaked as journalism, that distorts the story in order to advocate a particular political or social agenda.

Here are some examples of recent headlines that are probably NOT news:

       It's worse than you think

       The electoral system was rigged — for Donald Trump

       Trump releases seven-point health care reform plan . . . and it's excellent

The secret is understanding whether the source has an editorial bias.  MUCH of what we see coming down our news feeds is actually advocacy for one side or the other.

How do you tell?  It's really not hard.  If the headline or story contains a value judgement or opinion that is NOT attributed to someone, it is advocacy, not journalism (even if it resembles a news story).

The only things that do not need to be attributed in journalistic writing are facts that are "widely known or easily verifiable."  But in promotional writing using journalistic style can stretch this "widely known" criteria to the breaking point, making for the subtle implication that "everybody else knows this but you."

The complicating factor is that you can't just base your evaluation on the publication or website.   Many legitimate news sources also carry editorials, guest columns, and other opinion pieces.

You have to make an article-by-article evaluation!

Social Media is not about Advocacy

I've seen all kinds of chatter this week, second guessing the presidential election and blaming whoever they can think of for the outcome, including a hefty dose of blaming social media.  But most of this social media blaming is from people who do not understand social media.

Social media is about relationships, not about persuasion.

Social media is about relationships, not about advocacy.

Let me say it again -- social media is about relationships, which is why you are much more likely to see posts that agree with your social, political, and religious orientation.

Not quite seeing the difference?  Let's take a step back.

In the 1990s, visionaries were learning that the Internet was not simply about moving data from place to place.  It was about social relationships. Look at these two Prodigy commercials:  In 1990, it was all about stuff, but by 1995, it was about people.

Facebook and Twitter were created for the express purpose of connecting together people who already knew each other, and people who shared common interests.

When social media evolved to also be about marketing and selling you things, it drew on the fundamental principals of marketing communications, which are giving people information to which they are most likely to be receptive, and minimizing content to which people will react negatively.

This is why the Facebook newsfeed algorithm sends you news about things it believes are your interests.  In politics, this means content (news and advertising) that aligns with your political views.  Note that such advertising usually has a line at the top listing a couple of your friends who also supposedly "like" this content.

See?  Facebook is not only sending you content it thinks you favor, but it is emphasizing your relationships, in effect using your friends to make endorsements.  If you are not sure about a product or service, you are more likely to consider the product or service because people you know appear to like and endorse it.

It is your social relationships that they depend on to persuade you to consider the advertising.

Jack Wagner has pointed out that, because of the way social media works, many people who favored Trump did not really even see the opposition to him.  Many who favored Clinton never saw the opposition to her.

But even more important, they probably saw it, but did not feel any social connection to people espousing it, so discounted it.

Jim Wright observed that neither party is good at reaching out to the other side.

If progressives want to counter all of their feared Trump policy initiatives, they need to find new ways to communicate -- new ways of making contact with people who do not think the way they do, and new ways of explaining their positions in ways people who think differently can relate to.

But the real lesson here is that memes and fake news stories do not persuade people. Peer groups persuade people.  In real life and in social media.

Jobs & China

China isn't somehow stealing jobs.

The government isn't somehow sending jobs to China.

American business people are deciding that they can make more money to having products made in China and shipped tot he US than making theme here.

The only way to change that formula is to tax or penalize businesses that contract for overseas manufacturing (and call centers).  Make it too expensive for them.

So, bringing all those jobs back to America means reducing the profit margin for American businesses.

How is reduced profits for business a Republican thing to do?

What do the election polls REALLY say?

If you are not watching this site:

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com

........you probably should be.

The editor in chief, statistician Nate Silver, successfully called the outcomes in 49 of the 50 states in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election and in 2012, correctly predicted the winner of all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Words that Persuade, and Words that Don't

I see very few words in my social media feeds that support Donald Trump. Some of this just reflects who my friends are, but I also think that many people planning to vote for Trump are reluctant to have it be known they will vote for him.

I have been a registered independent (not affiliated with a party) for almost all of my adult life.  My choice of candidates is based on who I think is best able to perform critical thinking, which is one of my own skills.  I find that candidates who are critical thinkers are likely to share my views on individual policies.

But there are a lot of political words out there that do not come from critical thinking. They are based on rampant logical fallacies or convenience.  "Doctrine", which people in a given party are told they must support, almost always has big logical gaps.

So right now, almost all am seeing are words of ridicule against Trump, which he well deserves.  I am also seeing quite a bit of negativity aimed at Clinton.  In her case, much of it is based on decades of attacks by conservatives, drawing on faulty logic.  In Trump's case, the liberal attacks are mostly based on facts.

So why aren't people planning to vote for Trump coming out and saying they support him?

Some have "drunk the Kool-aid" and insist on voting against Clinton.

But I have concluded that in many cases it is it is because every day, they are experiencing a sort of anonymous criticism because how they plan to vote contradicts the overwhelming majority of factual stories floating around about the candidates.

When we are bluntly criticized, we tend to clam up and get defensive.  We tend to insulate ourselves against such criticism, in this case by simply not talking about it.

Do you have someone in particular you want to persuade?  Do it in person, not via distance technology.  Avoid criticizing the current views of the person.  Begin with areas in which you know you agree and gently move into the grey policy areas between you.  Words have power, but they must be the right words, at the right time, delivered in the right way.