Crowd-sourcing Political Persuasion in Social Media

Update: Although this post was written a while back, people are still finding it and reading it. I have updated it here and there to reflect the post-Trump realities.

Right after the 2016 US election, we heard a lot about the "echo chamber" that saw a lot of people talking about issues in social media, but mostly to people of similar beliefs.

Why did neither side have much success persuading people of conflicting beliefs and what should we do differently for the futute?

Maybe we needed Trump for a while

With the election of Joe Biden as president, we are about to see an abrupt change in direction in the policies of the US leadership in Washington.  

It is one of the benefits of American democracy that the public has the power to pull the country back when they perceive it has gone too far in one direction or another.

I created this graphic at the beginning of Donald Trump's term to show that over multiple presidential administrations, our course first tacks one direction and then another, but generally speaking, the long-term course remains in the middle, toward the better.

History is likely to conclude that the last four years pulled us toward white supremacy, isolationism, limiting rights, and general divisiveness.  The next four years will likely lead us in different directions.  It may well be that historians 50-100 years from now will see the Trump Administration as revealing a deep darkness in American society that had mostly been hidden.  Maybe we needed Trump's authoritarian tendencies, chaos, and bluster in order to learn important lessons and "reimagine" who we are as a society, what kind of country we were meant to be.

For example, the Obama Administration was pretty dramatic in terms of the liberal/progressive agenda.  The electorate decided it was time to take a break (not counting questions of election meddling). 

Now that we have experienced the opposite direction for a while, the electorate has decided it's time to take the next steps in addressing importing things like climate change, health care, the tax code, and meaningful immigration reform.

American democracy often doesn't "get it right." Bad decisions get made and sometimes it takes a long time to correct them.  But elections allow the electorate to correct the heading and preserve the long-term course.

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.

Why I Voted Against Trump in 2020

Note: I wrote this in October 2020, well before the January 6, 2021 riot and so-called insurrection in the US Capitol building. Trump's role in that fiasco is not reflected in my analysis.
     -----
I have returned my completed absentee ballots for the 2020 elections and I did not vote to reelect the president.

Conservatives like to characterize opposition to the president as "they hate Trump."

The truth is that people who are committed to voting against reelection have generally made well-thought-through decisions based on solid moral and ethical frameworks.  In addition, they're tired of the chaos, bluster, and incompetence.

For the record, I am not a member of any political party and have not been for 40+ years. I, however, have a well-developed framework of what I expect from a politician in terms of critical thinking, ethics, and public policy. My years in journalism led me to decide what I think about politicians in complex terms, judging their ethics, their words, their actions, and their behavior holistically. 

So, according to my evaluation, here are the fundamental reasons I voted against Trump.

1. Policy - I disagree with virtually every major policy position of the Trump Administration.

• Rejection of evidence-based decisionmaking and well-established science in favor of wishful thinking or profit motive
• Woefully mismanaging the US coronavirus response 
• Out-of-control spending and skyrocketing deficit
• Diverting Congressionally-allocated money to unrelated pet projects
• Unprecedented interference with private businesses that goes way beyond OSHA, FTC and FDA norms
• Withdrawing from the world climate agreement and WHO for petty reasons
• Fostering fear and intimidation among legitimate refugees, a massive violation of Christian teaching
• Trying to scale back the social safety net, as if the poor were not worthy of receiving help
• Abandoning allies and tacitly supporting enemies of the US, in violation of all recommendations from the military and intelligence agencies
• Encroaching on national parks and other anti-environmental decisions, in most cases to boost profits of corporate campaign contributors
• Regressive attitudes about health care policy, as if the poor were not worthy of receiving health care
• Interfering with military justice processes 
• Pardoning friends who are convicted of serious crimes
• Politicization of federal agencies that are not supposed to be political, particularly the Justice Department
• The high-pressure rush to seat a new supreme court justice less than a month before the election, so that the justice can vote on cases he brings before the court
• Even going to the Moon and Mars, which I like, is being forced at such a break-neck pace that safety may be compromised 

2. Management practices - No management class teaches doing things anywhere near the way Trump does, much less the prestigious Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania where he has a bachelor's degree (but no evidence of the MBA he claims)

• Continued bungling of COVID-19 crisis communication
• Appointing key people who have no relevant experience, or who were lobbyists for the industry they are now supposed to regulate 
• Reliance on unqualified ACTING leadership in important positions to avoid the Congressional confirmation process; never nominating permanent replacements
• Failure to give clear policy directives to subordinate agencies so that they misunderstand or are not properly prepared for implementation (this started almost from day one with his travel ban)
• Undercutting coordinated policy he previously approved
• Firing people by public tweet
• Non-disclosure agreements for public employees
• Failure to comply with legitimate subpoenas (which even Nixon did)

3. Morality and Ethics - We cannot tell what ethics are in the president's heart, but we can evaluate his morality (judgment of right and wrong) based on his public behavior.

• Suppressing vital information that has led to over 200,000 COVID-19 deaths
• Constant threats, bullying, intimidation, name-calling, insults, and general lack of civility
• Amplifying debunked conspiracy theories
• Constant false claims and superlatives that fail fact-checking
• Frequent appeals to racism; encouraging hate against minority groups
• General lack of respect toward anybody outside his inner circle
• Using HLS (or other unidentified federal personnel) as a secret police force
• Vindictive reprisals against political opponents
• Profiting from his government position 
• Intentional Hatch Act violations 
• Anti-democratic, authoritarian tendencies (compromise is the moral foundation of democracy, not strong-man tactics)
• Ordering violent assaults on peaceful protestors
• Misunderstanding or deliberately disregarding the law and Constitution
• Consuming focus on self-aggrandizement
• Highest criminal indictment rate of political appointees in a century
• His personal tax returns show huge ethical problems and national security vulnerabilities

4. Aptitude - Certainly, Trump came into office with no experience, but he hasn't gotten any better while in office.  The "give him a chance" argument didn't result in improvement.

• Lack of insightful leadership on critical issues like pandemic relief and climate change
• Little evidence of critical thinking and an apparent lack of ability to comprehend complex issues
• Mercurial, unstable temperament 
• Inability to stay on topic
• Inability to articulate his ideas and policies clearly when "live" on camera
• Inability to admit error
• Inability to be "presidential" i.e. injecting inappropriate partisanism in situations that should be nonpartisan
• Reliance on right-wing pundits for policy guidance
• Wasting hours each day on "rage tweeting"
• Almost daily conduct unbecoming a president

To be honest, I saw these things coming and did not vote for Trump the first time.  He has given me no reason to change my mind, and in fact, revalidates my original 2016 decision almost daily.

Crisis Communication in the COVID Era

The president violated every lesson in crisis communication when he downplayed the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this year.

His claimed intent was to prevent panic, which is a worthy goal, but how he did it is NOT what ANYBODY with experience in crisis communication would do.  What should he have done?

Fake News and the "Marketplace of Ideas"

The term "fake news" has been thrown 

around constantly in recent years.

But legally and constitutionally, people have the right to publish what they want, and accuracy is not a legal requirement.

What does this mean to our present-day journalistic and political environment?

The 3Ws of Political Messaging

The lines are drawn for the November election propaganda blitz.  Both campaigns have their messaging in full swing. 

But much of the political communication we receive will not be directly from the campaigns or political action committees.  It will come from "friends" on social media. So how do we, as individual citizens, share our thoughts in a way that might actually persuade others?

Policies, not people

All over the place right now we hear name-calling and ad hominem attacks (attacks on who the people are, as opposed to the policies they support). 

But arguments like that are a great way to alienate voters "in the middle" who have not yet made up their minds, because you are not just insulting the top-of-the-ticket candidates.  You are insulting the undecided voters, themselves.

When you say things like:

You are un-American for supporting _______,

If you support that candidate, unfriend me.

You are gullible if you believe those lies. 

If you do/don't wear a mask, you are stupid and maybe evil. 

 

Who raised you? 

Do you think you will shame people into changing their minds?  It's not likely to happen.

If I tell you that you are stupid, does that open you up to new avenues of understanding?  No, it makes you stubborn and it makes you close down and avoid different ways of seeing things.

Name-calling is satisfying because it allows you to express anger or fear, but it is not good persuasion. Attacking the candidates for their personality or background does nothing more than add further polarization in the minds of the people you are trying to persuade.

If you want to get people to change their minds, you need to engage with them and use evidence.  People (such as voters) will use every tactic they can to AVOID admitting that they were wrong.  Good persuasion opens the door to greater understanding, and greater understanding opens the door to changing ideas.  Insults and attacks close down pathways that might change ideas.

If you want to change the ideas of people you know, don't insult them (or the candidates they may be considering). Engage with them and introduce them to persuasive evidence.  Ask questions so you know what their actual perceptions and concerns are and focus your evidence toward these things. 

Of course, phrase your questions so as to challenge their assumptions and point in the direction you want to go.  More about that in another upcoming blog post.  

 

Facebook and Twitter probably CAN legally censor your posts

A recent Supreme Court ruling may put the damper on efforts by the president and his defenders to stop social media giants from censoring and blocking accounts of people who make abusive, bullying, fascist, or other extreme posts, political and non-political. 

Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, was actually about cable TV public access channels, but the court's ruling sheds light on the right of media companies to censor user-generated content.

Remember that the First Amendment does NOT guarantee free speech in all situations.  What it does is prohibit the Government from taking actions that limit free speech (including all levels of government).

The cable company in this case censured and eventually banned the plaintiffs from providing content for the company's community access channel, as the result of a program they produced that was critical of the cable company itself. The plaintiffs claimed that because the community access channel was set up as a public forum, their rights were violated.

The Supreme Court majority noted that although the cable company had a contract with the city, it was essentially operating as a private company, and not as an agent of the city.  Therefore, the court ruled, the cable company is not bound by the First Amendment.  It returned the case to the federal district court for review, taking into account this guidance.

It seems to me that this is VERY relevant to the question of social media companies removing content or banning users.  Facebook and Twitter are not in any way agents of the government. They are clearly private companies.  Thus they have the right to set rules and boundaries about allowable content, known as the Terms of Service. 

Of course, there are complications, like the false positives resulting from the use of algorithms to try to identify violating content, which implies that the companies need functional appeal processes. 

But when people post in social media, they need to remember that they are still really playing in somebody else's sandbox, and nastiness CAN have consequences.

Facts vs. Truth

Screen capture from Meet the Press, NBC

Rudy Giulaini claiming that "truth isn't truth" is so strange, but WHY it's strange has been missed by the people reacting to his comments. 

It is a tenet of conservationism that there IS an absolute truth, outside of human experience and perception, that it is fixed, and relatively easy to understand. That is where literal reading of the Bible comes from. 

Conservatives, in the meantime, are skeptical about "new" knowledge, particularly when it contradicts the established narrative. This is where climate change denial comes from. I can easily understand a conservative saying that "facts are not the same thing as truth because facts are always suspect." 

The trouble for Giulaini is that this idea goes both ways. An administration that thrives on ignoring evidence, "alternative facts", and innuendo cannot be assumed to be telling the truth. But the way that Giulaini said "truth is not truth" smacks of propaganda and "if I say it enough times, they'll believe it IS the truth." And if the truth is not the truth, it leads to a mindset that lies are not lies. 

It seems to me that we see this "truth is what we persuade people it is" mindset all the time in the bogus and easily debunked claims that float thought the advocacy media. 

That is why we NEED professional, trained journalists, whose job it is to question claims, and fearlessly seek the actual truth, among the jumble of facts and opinions. The advocacy media can't do that for us, which is why we need the professional journalistic media.

Trump: Masterful Control of the Narrative

More than ever before, political operatives struggle to influence what people talk about, and thus influence what they believe.  More than ever, it's done by making assertions that are, at face value, false.

Why do they do this and how does it work?

Many years ago, I watched an election campaign in which a member of Congress was seeking reelection.  His opponent had been active in local causes but was not well-known statewide.  The incumbent's campaign staff thoroughly researched the opponent for past public statements, such as letters to the editor.  For the last 45 days of the campaign, the incumbent blasted the challenger about every three days for some past public comment. The result was that the opponent was always defending himself, and never got to go on the offensive.  He lost the election in no small part because what people believed about him was defined by his opponent, not himself.

In all manner of public relations, practitioners want to maximize the positive and minimize the negative.  That's why negative news is often released after 3 pm on Fridays - because fewer people will see it Friday evening and Saturday, so any reaction will be smaller, and less intense.

Years ago, when Donald Trump became a celebrity, he learned that when he said outrageous things, they would be reported by journalists. He learned about the news cycle, in which his statements would be reported for a day or so, and then any reaction would be reported over another day or so. He learned to influence what the media talked about.

When he became a political candidate, reporters were guaranteed to report what he said in campaign rallies/interviews, particularly when it was something other than a standard stump speech.  It was the same pattern - inflammatory statements reported for a day or so, and reaction for another day or so, always repeating the original claim and thus validating it.

And on top of that, the more inflammatory the Trump statement, the more it, and reaction to it, would dominate the news for a couple of days, often marginalizing other stories having less controversial content.

Lesley Stahl's report that Trump has admitted attacking the news media so that negative stories about him won't be believed is just another way of using the news cycle to control the narrative.  It's not really a new tactic.  Vice President Spiro Agnew was famous for attacking the press (before pleading guilty to tax evasion, resigning from office, and serving felony probation).

Singling out of people and media employees for personal attacks uses the ad hominem logical fallacy, and while all of our teachers tell us that we should avoid logical fallacies, they can be highly effective in persuasion, because most people do not detect that the logic is flawed.

So here is the pattern:

1. A claim is made, with either no evidence or faulty evidence, but is reported by many media outlets because of who said it.
2. Other people react, repeating the original assertion, denying it or supporting the assertion, so the original claim is reinforced from many directions, creating doubt about the truth in the minds of the public.
3. When there has been enough talk, allies then say "we need a formal investigation into whether this is true."
4. The investigation repeats the claim endlessly, making it seem more and more plausible, or disappears into the background static of the news, and gets little attention when conclusions are finally released (if ever), because they are not as inflammatory as the original claim, thus leaving the original claim as the strongest thing most people remember. 

You can criticize this strategy of controlling the media.  You can make an excellent case that the use of falsehoods and exaggeration makes it unethical (along with a lot of other things in politics).

BUT...

It is a sly, crafty, and highly strategic way of manipulating the media and controlling the narrative, making sophisticated use of the fundamental ways in which journalists work, public psychology, and ways in which people consume news content.

Facebook

There has been a lot of angst recently about how Facebook uses data from user profiles. But pretty much every organization that uses advertising does essentially what Facebook does, i.e. collecting information about customers and using it to target advertising messages to them.  So how do we make sense out of current events in social media?

Yes, Everybody does it

It is a standard postulate of advertising and marketing that we respond most favorably when the messages we receive are relevant to our interests. So ALL advertising companies do research to find out where their preferred customers (and prospects) hang out in the media, and they advertise in those locations.

They also do various kinds of research to understand us better.  For example, the bar code scanning in our favorite supermarket.  Everything goes into a database, and if we pay by credit card for check, they know a lot about us, personally.  Have you ever noticed that the coupons that print out while we're checking out are usually for something we already buy (or a competitor)?

Data collection about customers is not new, by any means.

• For centuries, newspapers and later radio and TV created interesting content in order to get people to also see advertisements.
• Starting in the 1970s there was an explosion of specialty magazines, allowing advertisers to reach audiences they knew was already interested in the specialty products the advertiser sells. 
• The hundreds of cable channels now provide this same pre-selection of specialty interests for advertisers.
• When businesses started using the WEB, the same thing happened -- specialty websites sprang up allowing advertisers to find the audience interested in their particular specialty products.

Modern mobile technology has certainly taken this way of doing business to new heights, like knowing your exact location so they can text you discount coupons when you are near a certain store. But it is more of the same and NOT something unprecedented.


How does Facebook Advertising work?

When you make a post on a Facebook business page, some people see the post "organically" because they already follow the page, or they see a friend comment or like the post.

But as page administrator, you also have the opportunity to pay money to extend the post so more people see it.  You can select friends of your current followers, or use a variety of other criteria, such as geographic area, age, and gender.  Facebook also watches what members post, like, and share, so you can select people based on a variety of interests which Facebook has identified, resulting from your history of posting.

In doing this, Facebook does NOT actually share your data.  The advertiser provides the criteria, and Facebook does the match internally in its system, and "serves" the post (advertisement) to the people who match the criteria.


So how did Cambridge Analytica get the data?

According to this article, the researcher, Dr. Kogan, made an agreement with Facebook which allowed collection of data for research purposes, but forbade transferring the data to third parties.

At face value, this is reasonable.  Academic researchers collect personal data all the time, but ethical research does not allow the identities of the participants to be known by anyone outside the study. Institutions have mechanisms in place to ensure this, called "Human Subjects Institutional Review Boards."  I have served on HSIRB at my school and have written proposals seeking approval for my research plans.

In keeping with this, Facebook prohibits collected data from being sold or transferred “to any ad network, data broker or other advertising or monetization-related service.” Dr. Kogan apparently collected the data, then violated the agreement with Facebook and transferred the data anyway.


What was the real failure here?

One can certainly argue that Facebook needs a stronger way of enforcing it's terms of service policy than simply trusting people to comply.

One can argue that websites and apps on which we post personal data should not be allowed to use that data, but this has been happening for 20 years or more on almost every commercial online platform you visit.  It is the REASON they exist, i.e. to make money (not to "serve the public.")

One can argue that users need more warnings about "the information you are about to post may be used for advertising, and delivered back to you in individually-targeted messages."  Most people will still ignore the messages, as they do the terms of service and other warnings.

One can argue that the people in Congress who are charged with regulating this stuff have no clue about what they are trying to regulate (a fact made clear by the questions from members of Congress to Mark Zuckerberg).

I wish I could boil this all down to a single failure with corresponding solution, but the social media environment is too complex.

The vast majority of these web and app systems are for-profit undertakings, meaning that they either need to charge fees, or depend on advertising.  The tried and true business model is to attract an audience with interesting content, and then expose them to advertising, ideally focused to the interests of the audience because what is advertised aligns with the content.

But most consumers conceptualize these content sources as "services" and do not understand that they, themselves, are an audience being sold to advertisers.  This makes them gullible and prone to impulse when they encounter memes, quizzes, and other means of data collection.

There is no simply way to change this paradigm, but public education is part of it.  Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware) is critical.  Stop and think what information you are entering into the app or website.

If you don't want the entire world to know something, don't put it on the Internet (including ANY communication transmitted via technology).

What can we learn about the 2nd Amendment from 1st Amendment court rulings?

I am not a gun enthusiast, but I have taught Communication Law.  So every time I hear 2nd Amendment arguments, I think in terms of the 1st Amendment, which says:

Congress shall make NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

In the 1st amendment case law, "no law" clearly does NOT mean "NO law."

If it meant NO law, there would be no laws about slander or libel, no local ordinances requiring parade permits, and no laws about lots of other behaviors that come under the legal definition of "speech."

The courts have ruled that the "no law" 1st Amendment protections are very important, except in narrowly-defined circumstances in which there is a "clear and present danger" resulting from the speech or behavior (Schenck v. the United States).  The most common example is shouting "fire" in a crowded theater when there is no real fire," but the courts have also ruled that "speech" such as child pornography, inciting people to commit crimes, and slander/libel is NOT protected under the 1st Amendment.

In each case, it is because the lawmakers have voted, and the courts confirmed, that such "speech" represents a "clear and present danger" of harm to others.

So how do we apply this same logic to the 2nd Amendment issue of gun ownership, and particularly of assault weapons?

First, the 2nd Amendment does not mention guns, but rather covers "arms" a collective term for weapons of all types.

Second, the 2nd Amendment does not use the phrase "shall make no law." It refers to the right of the people "keep and bear arms" and says that this right "shall not be infringed."  (Note that this is written in "passive voice" and it does not identify who might be doing the infringing.)

Still, the wording of the two amendments seems to have similar intent, so my original question about what we can learn about the 2nd Amendment from 1st Amendment case law remains valid.

The reality is that there are lots of national, state, and local laws and regulations limiting the ownership of a wide range of weapons. In Chicago, for example, it is illegal to carry concealed a knife with a blade longer than 2.5 inches. In New York, it is illegal to carry a dirk, dagger, or stiletto with the intent to use it as a weapon against another. You can't own your own nuclear weapon because of risk of radioactive contamination, not to mention the actual explosions (arguably a "clear and present danger").

These rules would appear to violate the absolute "shall not be infringed" requirement.  But when we look at the 2nd Amendment and 1st Amendment together, it only makes sense that the same legal theories apply.

Thus, it only makes sense that arms CAN be regulated, based on the same criteria as the 1st Amendment protections:

1. Is the law well-constructed, i.e. specific enough, but also not so narrow that it doesn't make sense?
2. Is there a "clear and present danger" resulting from lack of regulation, making it in the best interests of society for the government to make an exception to the constitutional protection?

It is this "clear and present danger" test that is the focal point of the gun regulation issue.

We regulate child pornography because children may be harmed in the making of it, even though we cannot predict which children, where, are at risk. 

How does this logic translate to regulation of weapons which COULD be used in mass shooting, but there is no way to predict when and where these shootings may occur?  Is this enough of a "clear and present danger" that an exception to the right to "bear" certain categories of weapons is compelling?

Regardless of what you think about the subject, the final decisions will be made via court review of legislation, based on meticulous legal arguments derived from principles such as those above.

Whatever the legislation says, the courts will not affirm, overturn, or otherwise take action based on emotions.

No More "Like and Share" - Maybe

Facebook's new policy about keeping "Engagement Bait" out of the newsfeed is intended to eliminate posts with "like and share this post" calls to action.  But liking and sharing is part of the engagement that marketers really want.

So what do they do?

First, let's take a step back and analyze why "like and share this post" has been so common.  There are three things to consider:

1.  Some marketers do superficial planning and all they want is good numbers.  Liking and sharing does cause more people to see a post, although they may not be the best people, i.e. the ideal prospective customers or key stakeholders of the business/organization making the original post. 

2.  Facebook has also been downgrading the ability of a post to spread via organic sharing and liking.  Facebook is a business and they are incentivizing marketers to spend money to deliver their posts (which are really advertising messages) to constituents who are selected by various categories and interests. 

3.  Persuasion theory says that we get people to do big things by first getting them to do little things that build towards the big thing.  Liking and sharing our posts demonstrates support, and repeated small demonstrations of such support set the stage for larger acts of support, like buying our product or voting for our candidate.  So, getting people to like and share has a strategic role.

So how do we respond to the new Facebook rules?

Marketing communications is about brand persuasion, and brand persuasion requires engagement -- a two-way interactive relationship between our business/organization and our customers/constituents.

So, we still want people to like and share, but we'll have to use more creative language.  Language like "pass this along" and "tell us what you think" are likely to become more common.  And marketers will need to monitor their insights (statistical reports from Facebook) about performance of messages containing various calls to action, to see which work best.

But the reality is that as social media matures, it is going to cost more money to use it for marketing.

Up to now, the costs have been relatively hidden -- the staff time for people to create posts and maintain the page, and the costs to develop customized content, like graphics, photography, and video.

More and more, organizations are going to need to use paid reach to get their messages to the people they want to reach. A small business may be able to do this with only $15 or $20 a post, a handful of times a month, reaching a few thousand people. Bigger businesses, of course, will need more money to reach the hundreds of thousands or millions of people they need.

So, strategic planning, including budgeting, is a new reality of Social Media Marketing.

Why go to the Moon?

Going back to the Moon will be great -- if it's a means to an end and not an end in itself.

The Trump administration announced an initiative today to partner with private industry to return Americans to the Moon, and continue on to Mars.

I like the idea...if it's done right. But it could easily be done wrong.

First a confession

The starry-eyed idealist in me believes that we MUST establish a population of humans off the Earth, because there are SO many things that could destroy the Earth, or at least destroy civilization. I have thought this since I was old enough to understand the ramifications of the Cold War, and my ideas have been strengthened by the credible threats of climate change, big rocks from space, and even things like the Yellowstone super-volcano, not to mention epidemics, political stupidity, and other threats.

For the human race to insure that it will survive for the very long term, we have to distribute ourselves, in a way that is sustainable, on many different worlds, and eventually many different star systems.

Now back to today

Based on my logic above, having a significant human presence on the Moon, and eventually getting it to the point where it does not need resupply from Earth, would be a good thing. 

Having a significant human presence on MARS, and eventually getting it to the point where it does not need resupply from Earth, would also be a good thing, and possibly easier to sustain, in the long run, than the Moon.

There are other worlds in our solar system with lots of water and the possibility of sustainable colonies, as well.

Why return to the Moon now?

The biggest reason to go to the Moon now is to begin developing the technology we need to do the rest of this stuff.

A lander that can set down on Mars would also likely be able to set down on the Moon, which would be a good way to test it. The deep space outpost around the Moon, previously announced, can be the precursor of the orbit-to-orbit "mother ship" that takes people and landers to Mars, and maybe farther out.  We need to develop these things, step by step.

But we also need to start thinking not just in terms of reusable space vehicles, but also vehicles that can do lots of stuff.  Like the space opera fiction of the 1950s, our next generation of craft needs to be flexible enough to go many different places and land on many different worlds.

That's expensive, isn't it?

Yes, but the reusability brings the cost down a lot.  Partnering with private industry brings the cost down a lot.  Stable goals that do not get changed every time there is a new president would make a BIG difference. 

And remember -- every dollar spent on space is spent ON EARTH.  All the R&D and construction contracts go to companies and institutions on Earth which employ people, and have payrolls.  It would require a big push for STEM education, which would benefit lots of other technology programs and companies, also.  Face it, without the Apollo Program, you probably wouldn't have smartphones.

Is there a down side?

There is some concern that the Trump administration is pushing NASA to the Moon and Mars as a way of deemphasizing Earth resources programs and climate research.  It may be, and those programs will need protection in Congress. 

But going to the Moon, Mars, and beyond is still a wise investment in the future of the human species.

Understanding Weather and Climate via Chaos Theory

I am not a mathematician, but I have published in the academic press on the subject of Complex Dynamic Systems, aka Chaos Theory, which certainly applies to weather and climate. But many Americans still don't understand how interconnected everything is when it comes to weather and climate. That makes it harder for some to accept human-caused climate change.

In Chaos Theory, tiny variations can grow to have huge effects in a dynamic system.  Weather and climate are such a dynamic system.

This article from Bloomberg shows how the LACK of warmer-than-average water in the Pacific Ocean (El Niño) results in worst-than-normal hurricanes in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. Dry air blowing dust off of Africa’s Sahara Desert also plays a role in making bad hurricanes.

We know that warmer temperatures in the Arctic can mean colder North American winters, even though it seems counter-intuitive.

But logial falacies still persist:

"It's cold today, so there can't be global warning." 

"It snowed lot today, so there can't be global warming."

"There's no way to know what the temperature was before thermometers were invented, or before they were brought to such-and-such a location."

Each of these statements shows lack of critical thinking, yet each is common. And this makes it EASY for deniers to reinforce these wrong ideas.

The motivation of the big businesses that lobby against addressing climate change is short-term profits.  Big business is SO geared to quarterly profits reports that it has trouble seeing the long-term big picture.

Sooner or later, big business will conclude that climate change is bad for business. Insurance companies are getting a reminder in the wake of the huge hurricanes in the last several days, with billions of dollars of damages the insurance companies will need to pay out.  There is only so much they can get the government to pay for.

What I have never understood is that big companies DO make long term plans to improve profits, such as building new facilities that will take years to come online. Why can't they take the same approach to reducing carbon dioxide pollution NOW to leverage for greater profits in the future.  

We know that warming of the ocean and atmosphere is resulting in a higher rate of "extreme weather events."  What we used to call "extreme" is getting closer and closer to the new normal, unless we do something about it.

The Psychology of Colors

I tell my marketing communication students that every detail of the communication between a business or organization and its constituents must reinforce the fundamental positioning and brand promise of the organization. This includes the colors used in visual communication.

My friend and former student Rhea tweeted a link to the infographic at the bottom of this page, reminding me of a design course I previously taught in which we addressed the meaning conveyed by colors.  It shows why businesses select the colors used in their logos and marketing materials VERY carefully.

Take oil company logos, for example.  Many of them make strong use of red to signalled power, energy, and boldness. Blue represents trust and loyalty, and the white stands for cleanliness and purity.  Gulf's orange represents nature, confidence, and innovation. These colors support the image the company want to project, or at least did in years past, when the logos were created.



But British Petroleum uses green, signalling health, nature, and prosperity, with shades of yellow for optimism and happiness, and white for cleanliness and purity.

See also how the symbolism of these colors reflects how BP wants to be seen today? NOT as polluting and reaping windfall profits but rather as safe, clean, and worthwhile?

Colors are a powerful tool for conveying meaning in visual communications.  They are "subtext," or meaning below the surface, and connotations.  But the meaning is still there, serving the desired brand image of the company.

(The colors and meanings in the infographic are for Western culture.  In Eastern, culture, there are some differences.)

Next time you look at a favorite company's logo, check to see what meaning the color(s) convey.

The original post is at: 

https://iconicfox.com.au/2017/07/27/colour-in-branding-infographic/

Tax cuts do not create new jobs

Federal tax reform is on the agenda for Congress again, and that means another round of the tried and true Republican goal of tax cuts for the rich (which never really works to help the economy).

The problem is that jobs are created when the current workforce of a company can't keep up with sales and operation of the business. Tax cuts are not what creates jobs.

Hiring employees you don't need is bad business. A smart manager wouldn't do this, because it increases expenses while not increasing profits.

Tax cuts mean more dividends or direct income for the investors, meaning more money for their lifestyles, and/or to invest in the stock of still more businesses.

If you really want to stimulate the economy, the way to do it is to increase middle and lower class consumer spending. Stimulating local spending percolates money up to the top of the economy as increased sales, in turn making more money for the rich AND requiring more jobs to fulfill demand. How do you do this?

• Increase minimum wage
• Reduce student loan debt
• Control against inflation
• Don't do stupid stuff that reduces consumer confidence
• There are plenty of other things, too.

(Let me note, by the way, that once a business HAS decided to expand, tax INCENTIVES are a great way to recruit new business to YOUR community, such as tax increment districts in which the company pays reduced taxes for a certain number of years, while their facility ramps up productivity. But that is different from "tax cuts for the rich.")

We have known for weeks that corporate tax cuts were on the conservative agenda for this winter, seeking more profits for owners and investors. It's certain rich people who push this through large campaign contributions and lobbying, like the Koch brothers, because it means more money in THEIR pockets.

Don't believe the rhetoric that if you are a conservative/Republican/patriot you MUST support tax cuts for the rich.  It doesn't stand up to critical thinking and doesn't benefit the economy much.

It's not really about statues and flags

Charlottesville, and all of the other hot buttons about white supremacy, is about the symbolism, not about statues and flags.

It is all about the symbolism, and this means that it is not a stark "one or the other" of whether we can or cannot have statues and flags commemorating the confederacy.

It is highly complex and nuanced, and it is all about injustice and discrimination, committed to preserve social and political power.

Flying the confederate flag over state capitol buildings (and other places) has a symbolism of glorifying and endorsing the confederate cause of continuing slavery, which was highly unjust. This is true, even when that glorification is not the intent.

Does that mean we forget what the flag looked like? Of course not. But we have to understand the complexities that go with the pro-slavery cause it represented.

We remember Robert E. Lee as an effective general. There are positive and negative things about him. In giving loyalty to the state of Virginia over his vows to the national government, he exhibited a form of patriotism, but also supported the unjust political and social regime that was grounded in slavery. Is it appropriate to honor him on public property, without recognition of this complexity, and things that were NOT honorable about him?

I know people in the South today who feel that states should have the right to nullify all federal laws and regulations they do not like. For them, the confederacy is an uncompleted project that they would be happy to get back to, not in terms of another war, and not to return slavery, but in terms of transforming the federal government to eliminate the ability to impose rules on states and local government.  Remember that the emancipation was an imposed rule that the local whites mostly did not like.

The current national debate is about a movement that strategically uses intimidation, fear, and also politics to repress people who are not like themselves. It is deeply motivated by fear of becoming a minority and having to abide by the majority rule of others, not like themselves. There is nothing admirable about this movement.

But the debate also resides in today's hyper-sophisticated techniques of persuasion and brand marketing. The "brand" is what our target audience thinks about our company, product, or cause, based on all of the messages they have received about us.

So what is the brand of white supremacy?  What do they promise followers? How do they "tell their story"?

Their promise is to preserve white privilege.  And they personalize it.  All of these other non-white groups are harming you and you will be better off without them, they tell followers.

To a huge majority of the people, this brand is unethical, unjust, and confederate flags and statues symbolize this injustice.  But the white supremacy brand appeals powerfully to a certain small minority, based on their backgrounds and world-views.  To them, the symbolism of removing flags and statues is the growing threat of losing their power and provilege.

Counter-protests may change laws and official policies, but they are not likely to change the minds of those who have bought in to the white supremacist cause. Removing statues and flags that commemorate and glorify the unjust confederate cause also will not change their minds, and in fact will like make these guys even madder.

So what do we do about the statues and flags?

I think that this mission of remembering the complexities and nuances of history, particularly the negative parts of our history, is the role for museums, not for public property displays that lack explanation and context. So, move these things to museums, or put companion interpretive displays in the parks, or maybe even companion statues that tell the other side of the story.

Do a better job of teaching the underlying pro-slavery social and economic dynamics of 19th century American slavery in our history classes.

Our society has long-neglected addressing the underlying white supremacy driving many political agendas.  Just like a politician works to define the "brand" of the opposing candidate, the overwhelming majority needs to continually define the negatives of the brand of white supremacy.

Hate

Causing or advocating injustice is hate.

Opposing injustice is not hate.

We need to be prefectly clear about this.