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?

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.  

 

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.

Judging Ethics and Morality based on Behavior

All of the news about separating children from their parents keeps bringing me back to questions of ethics and morality, and the ACTIONS of the current administration, which many are judging to be immoral.

Behavior stems from ethical principles and moral judgments about right and wrong.  Thus we can evaluate a person's (or government's) ethics and morality by observing their behavior and actions.

I teach ethics in most of my media classes, so here are some definitions:  Ethics are general principles, morality is the ethical judgment of good and bad, and values are actions based on ethics and morality.

I don't like being partisan. I am registered without any party affiliation and I have said for years that I base my election choices on my perception of the ability of the candidate to perform critical thinking, as well as stance on specific issues of importance to me. Critical thinking, applied to ethical principles, is where morality and behaviors come from.

The morality of separating children from their parents is not defensible, particularly since they apparently have no plan for how to reunite the parents and children.  Adults who have been released still can't find out where their kids are.

The attempts at rationalization do not hold up and are often logical fallacies:

• "They broke the law."  Sorry, but many of them did not, because they stopped at the border and requested asylum. And even if they did, first-time violations are no more than misdemeanors. Separating children from parents in a way that they may not be able to find each other again is cruel and unusual punishment, particularly when it is done before conviction. Even felony convicts can have family visitation.
• "Obama (or somebody else) did it too."  Sorry, but alleged past infractions are irrelevant to current unethical behavior. Morality must stand on its own, not through "whatabout" logical fallacies about the past. 
• "The Democrats made me do it." Sorry, but the Trump administration's policy changed in April 2-18, through a directive from the Republican administration.  Nobody MADE them do anything. You have to take personal responsibility for your actions.
• "The Bible made me do it."  Sorry, but narrow out-of-context Bible verses, particularly verses that have been used to justify immoral actions in the past, cannot be a basis for ethical policy today. Holistic reading of the Bible makes clear that you do not mistreat foreigners or children.
• "We need the WALL, wah, wah, wah..." Sorry, but this is a policy question that is unrelated to tearing families apart. Republicans have not been motivated to pass funding for The Wall, so the Trump administration tried blackmail (although the GOP is trying). 

The list of rationalizations and logical fallacies goes on and on, but the point is that immoral behavior cannot be lessened by weasel words. Actions tell the tale about ethics and morality.  We judge a person's (or government's) ethics by ethical or unethical actions.

This is exactly why we need organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).   We need organizations that are willing to TEST the morality of the "groupthink" that can lead policymakers astray. The causes ACLU champions are often not popular, but the way to push back against immoral governmental behavior is to challenge it in the courts, and that's what ACLU does well.

By the way, I wonder if it has occurred to Trump supporters that if they LIKE the separation policy as a deterrent, they should be thanking Democrats, who they feel are responsible for the wording of the law.

So, if you, or politicians you support, make immoral decisions, and act accordingly, don't be surprised if YOUR ethics and morality are found to be lacking.

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).

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.

Formula Scripts in TV and Movies

The growth of original series on streaming video services and cable has resulted in an explosion in the demand for scripts and "pitches" for series, not to mention movies, many of which never end up getting produced.

Nevertheless, many of these scripts, as diverse as they are, follow the same basic formulas.  One could argue that a "formula script" lacks creativity...but creativity actually resides in how new it feels, i.e. what is different, as opposed to what is similar to other uses of the formula.

Here are three storytelling formulas that we see over and over, including one that I consider to be particularly troubling:

1.  The Hero's Journey.  

In the 1940s, Joseph Campbell studied myths from many cultures (mostly Western) and found common elements.  A young reluctant hero is called to a journey that takes him out of his ordinary experience and discovers a villain or threat to which he has a hidden connection.  He has fellow travelers who help him as he is tested, and an older mentor.  The older mentor is taken away, and the young hero most stand up to the villain alone, eventually triumphing and returning to his ordinary life.

Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings are all basically this same "Hero's Journey" story.  Even the original Die Hard movie used a lot of elements from this formula.

Because this formula is so familiar, writers use it all the time, or at least elements from it. The familiarity allows readers/listeners/viewers to easily engage in the story.

2.  Save the Cat

Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder
was published in 2005 and rapidly became the "bible" for many movie writers.  Save the Cat software is even available to help writers structure their story to Snyder's sequence of "beats."  If you know what to look for, you can find these "beats" in many movies and even TV shows.

At one level, Save the Cat is an interpretation of how to translate Joseph Campbell into visual storytelling terms.  At another level, it allows writers to make use of the psychology of the audience in terms of primary and secondary (A & B) stories, major milestones in the plot, and pacing.

Follow those links and you may be surprised.

3. Dystopia

Dystopia is the opposite of Utopia.  In dystopian stories, times are dark, there is little hope, and people are generally bad.  Such stories are often set in the future, with totalitarian governments, dehumanized citizenry, rampant crime, and environmental disaster.  Brave New World, 1984, and Lord of the Flies were dystopian, but in the last decade, we have been deluged by dystioian settings for movies, books, and TV shows.  Sometimes the heroes are admirable, but sometimes not.

Science Fiction writer and futurist David Brin has call dystopian stories lazy, cliched, and cookie cutter.  They are easy stories to tell, resonate with conspiracy theory and suspicion of authority, and they often do not require nuanced characters, which makes it a lot easier for the writers to create.

What does it mean?

The main goal of the movie, television, and publishing industries is to make money.  To make money, they need to produce content that audiences will buy.

That is why so many stories today follow the Hero's Journey, Save the Cat and Dystopian structures.  They resonate with people and gain acceptance more easily than some unusual storytelling approach, but to their foundation of familiarity.

The question media critics and even psychologists must ask is how these stories affect our psyches. The media has incredible power to influence people's perceptions and actions.  Heroes, like Luke, Harry, and Frodo, may well subtly influence people to do what is right in the real world, not just what is easy.

But how about the modern dystopian orientation of story after story? Does it subtly influence people to see conspiracies everywhere, distrust authority, accept thoughtless ideology, and expect people to conform to the dictates of the perceived majority?

Waves of dystopian fiction usually come during times of social unrest and war.  Brave New World, 1984, Fahrenheit 459, and Animal Farm all stemmed from the Cold War and deep concerns about communism. Today's stories are written against a background of seemingly endless war, unstoppable terrorism, and fake news.

This recent New Yorker article suggests that for every present-day dilemma, there is a dystopian novel to match it, and that the resulting "radical pessimism" has resulted in the unravelling of trust in science and the weakening of a commitment to political pluralism.

I think that dystopian story after dystopian DOES affect our national mood and makes "the ends justify the means" more and more acceptable, when it shouldn't be. So if the "heroes" are unlikable and do unethical things to each other, don't expect me to watch.

Why you SHOULDN'T watch your favorite shows on-the-air (or cable)

If you REALLY want to help a TV show you love, don't watch on the networks (including cable). Watch a (legal) streaming feed or DVR.  Why?

TV series live and die by the ratings, but many people do not realize that weekly ratings that lead to cancellation or renewal are only collected from the top 50 markets (cities) in the country.

On top of that, only a random sample of homes with "people meters" actually get counted, and then are project statistically.

So, if you live in a big city, but do NOT have a people meter, you don't get counted.  If you live anywhere else you do not get counted...if you watch your show over-the-air or on cable, that is.

On the other hand, ratings today take into account how many people streamed or DVRed the show in the seven days after the network/cable broadcast.  When you stream or DVR the show you DO get counted.

(Of course, this means streamed legally, or DVRed with a system that can "phone home" to report your viewing.  Bootleg copyright infringed streams, downloads, and old-style home video recorders don't get counted.)

The reality is, there are some shows that get twice or more as many views via legal streaming/DVRing than they do in the network/cable feeds. This is particularly true when you look at certain desirable demographics, like 18-49-year-olds. A three-times increase is not unheard of.

Because these streaming/DVR viewers still get commercials, the networks make money from every commercial you see, and profitability and return on investment is what gets a series renewed, or canceled if the return is too low. 

So the "broadcast plus seven" ratings are influential, and streaming/DVRing allows you to contribute to the ratings of the shows you like.  Or, if you still like the context of gathering for the broadcast at a specific time, watch the live feed but make sure you also stream it again, at least once, before seven days are up.

(Of course, this does not address original series from Netflix, etc, that are never on the broadcast and cable channels.  They are not counted in any ratings, other than the company's internal tracking of hits, downloads, and streams, which they rarely reveal.)

So again, of you REALLY want to help your favorite shows, make sure you stream them at least once in the seven days following the original network/cable feed and add your ratings into the renewal calculations.

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.

What is a reporter's job, really?

Many people today misunderstand what a reporter does, and how the reporter is supposed to do the job. The reason is that there are so many people out there writing things that seem like they are journalism, but are not.

The pictured tweet is a reminder to reporters to be persistent, but for those of you who have never BEEN a reporter, let's try to understand more about the job really is.

News Judgment

The definition of what is, or is not, news is complex, because it can vary from day to day.  When a hurricane hits Texas or Florida, most other things are not news.  The same stories might get a lot of attention on another day, when the weather is fine.

But my working definition of news is things that are out of the ordinary.  Another way of saying that is things that are "new, different, or changing."  Same-old-same-old is not news.  "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead" is not news.

Reporter's Opinion

The reporter is not supposed to be part of the story.  In particular, the reporter's opinion is not supposed to be stated, or even allowed creep in.

Any opinion or value judgment in a professionally-writtten news story must be attributed to someone.  If no source for a value judgment is stated, then the "story" is not news.

The only things that do not need to be attributed in journalistic writing are facts that are "widely known or easily verifiable." We don't need to quote a source as saying that a hurricane hit Texas, but we DO need to quote sources concerning details of damage, etc.

Furthermore, if there are multiple legitimate sides to the story, they must all be told, and in a way that each side perceives the story as fairly representing their position. But note the word "legitimate."  We do not need to place the Flat Earth Society on an equal footing with astronomers in our eclipse stories.

Be persistent

As the Overheard in the Newsroom quote suggests, a reporter must be persistent. A reporter cannot be helpless, just because some official does not call back.  A reporter must try again and again.  Email, phone, go to the person's office, camp out on their home front steps (if it is an important enough story).

If it is a story worth covering, it MUST be covered, whether that one person calls back or not.  There are other people who you can find to interview and quote, even if they are not the ideal person, who has failed to call back.

Follow the story

Once a reporter has reported on a story, developments in the story must also be reported.

If we report that someone is arrested for something, we need to report on what happens when the person gets to court.

When President Gerald Ford tripped a couple of times on camera, it then became an expectation that future klutz moments must also be reported.

When President Trump was found to be tweeting inaccurate information, future inaccurate tweets also had to be reported.

Sometimes journalism is a "one and done" story, but more often, it is following a developing story, even if the developments come weeks apart.

Get details right

I tell my news writing students to quadruple check facts.  Reporters cannot make assumptions, misquote, or allow other inaccuracies into their stories.  Accuracy is one of the things that separates journalism from advocacy using journalistic formats.

Avoid anonymous sources

Yes, that's right, "avoid."

Journalistic standards say we can ONLY cite anonymous sources when the source could be threatened with punishment or could otherwise come to harm from having the source's name known publicly.

There is some wiggle room here.  Often we hear about a "White House staff member familiar with the issue" and we know that it is actually a coordinated intentional release, but they just don't want a particular name associated with the information.

So what?

There's a lot more to a reporter's job, of course, like complying with AP style, strong leads, use of effective quotes...

But in today's environment of persuasion cloaked in trappings of journalism, it can be hard for the general public to understand why journalists do what they do, even when there are strong ethical and professional reasons.  It is even more complicated when politicians criticize journalists for doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing.

We need to remember "Caveat Emptor," or "let the buyer beware" and bring our critical thinking to bear.  Much of what you initially think is "news" is really propaganda and persuasion.  Just because you may agree with the conclusions of some article you read does not mean it properly tells all sides of a story, or is even true.

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.