The Science Is In, Fox News Is A Security Blanket

[Asclepias]

I think the liberals pay more attention to Fox News than most people i know. In fact i would even bet they watch it more than i do.

If it's not Fox News, where do right wingers get their cockamamie ideas? It sure as hell isn't from reality.

We are all liberals when we are children. Some of us grow up, others remain liberal.

Conservatism is a fear based ideology.

Liar. That's the other hallmark of the left.

See look? You just got emotional.

 

[paulitician]

My God, so many fat dumb Americans still actually believe their Government/Corporate Media is credible. Whether it's Fox News or other, they're all owned by just a few large Corporations.

And those Corporations are in bed with Government. The American Media is a sham. I'm shocked so many Americans haven't figured that out yet.

I'm afraid the problem has morphed beyond just tradition media my friend.

Air Force research: How to use social media to control people like drones
"Containment control" model looks at how groups of influencers can manipulate people.
Air Force research: How to use social media to control people like drones

Soft Info-warfare

Military social network research has been ongoing over the past decade as part of the DOD’s efforts to leverage “open source intelligence” and use social network analysis (using mobile phone records, other electronic relationships, and physical-world relationships) to target manufacturers of improvised explosive devices and leaders of insurgent cells. Along the way, the research has shifted more toward “hearts and minds” goals than “search and destroy” ones.


DARPA launched its SMISC program in 2011 to examine ways social networks could be used for propaganda and what broadly falls under the euphemistic title of Military Information Support Operations (MISO), formerly known as psychological operations. Early in July, DARPA published a list of research projects funded by the SMISC program. They included studies that analyzed the Twitter followings of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber among others; investigations into the spread of Internet memes; a study by the Georgia Tech Research Institute into automatically identifying deceptive content in social media with linguistic cues; and "Modeling User Attitude toward Controversial Topics in Online Social Media”—an IBM Research study that tapped into Twitter feeds to track responses to topics like “fracking” for natural gas.


The AFRL-sponsored research by Dixon, Zhen Kan, and Justin Klotz of University of Florida NCR group and Eduardo L. Pasiliao of AFRL’s Munitions Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base was prompted by a meeting Dixon attended while preparing a “think piece” for the Defense Science Study Group. “I heard a presentation by a computer scientist about examining behaviors of people based on social data. The language that was being used to mathematically describe the interactions [between people and products] was the same language we use in controlling groups of autonomous vehicles.”

Facebook Can Control Your Mind
Facebook has been experimenting with mind manipulation and emotion signal wave theory for over a decade.
Facebook Can Control Your Mind

"No, Facebook," most sane people responded, "that’s actually terrifying." It’s almost as if tech companies believe that if they produce enough cheery, fizzy spin it will never occur to anyone to think of the massive potential for abuse.

Facebook is feeling more and more like an online course in how to live under totalitarianism. We’ve known the thing is eating our privacy, poring over the so-called “digital exhaust” we leave each day as we navigate the web, shopping, communicating, and exploring.

Now they tell us that their algorithms are sophisticated enough to puzzle out the emotional tone of our messages. The emotional contagion study claimed that, by flooding a user’s feed with “positive” posts, researchers were able to produce an overall lift in the users’ online mood. Bombarded with cheerful messages about their friends and family, the test subjects began to fill their own feeds with glowing, positive posts.

Can we therefore assume that Facebook’s algorithms can also select for despair? Paranoia? Racism? Class resentment? Imagine what the George W. Bush administration could have sold to a frightened world post-9/11 with this power. Would Facebook have allowed it? What if it was a matter of “national security?”

Major Social Media is owned by those few large Corporations. And of course they're in bed with Government. So it's no surprise they're feeding the Sheeple Bullshite.

Sadly, most Americans really are fat and dumb. They're way too busy stuffing their fat faces, obsessing over their porn, sports, reality tv, and shopping till they drop, to know any better. It is very sad.

 

[NightFox]

I'm sure the cons on this forum will disagree, disregard and disavow.

LOL, the article cites the author of a book that started out trying to prove premise that "Republicans reject reality" and then goes on to complain about confirmation bias, talk about some thick, delicious irony sprinkled with a heaping, helping of JUNK SCIENCE.

Here's the best critical review of the book. It's not glowing but even while critical it's generally positive.

Chris Mooney wrote The Republican Brain from a liberal perspective, geared toward other liberal readers. The majority of the book confirms opinions that many scientifically-minded liberals hold about conservative bias and adds the latest in psychological research to explain why the dissemination of facts has become highly polarized in this country. To summarize:

1. Republicans distort facts for their benefit far more often than Democrats--global warming and history are cited most in this book, although Mooney uses a wide variety of examples.

2. There are known psychological reasons for these differences including development and use of different parts of the brain. These differences go on to influence personality, friends, career path, and even which states people move to. The most interesting study is the "smart idiot" effect, which means that politically knowledgeable conservatives are often more biased and less persuadable than ignorant conservatives or liberals (i.e., conservatives engage in motivated reasoning).

3. The liberal/conservative divide has widened over the past few decades not only because of the conservative revolution of the 1970s-80s, but also because of the growth of cable news and the Internet. The new sources allow conservatives to have easy access to like-minded thinkers and a wide array of "experts" to back up their erroneous claims and create a new reality that conforms to their worldview.

Overall, Mooney does an good job addressing the above points, and the book is well worth the read for anyone interested in the partisan divide. However, the book still left me disappointed and I found myself rushing through the detailed study with Dr. Everett Young, which should have contained less statistics and more analysis. As Mooney explains in the prelude, his previous book, The Republican War on Science, was highly popular among liberals but did nothing to change conservative opinions. The reason of course is the inherent propensity in conservatives to predispose of any information that contradicts their deeply held beliefs. But any liberal who has attempted to debate a conservative already knows this: facts, logic, and scientific reasoning always fail in such discussions. Mooney's writing style is geared toward liberals and he admits that conservatives will not buy his arguments--although at least now he knows why!

I was hoping for more advice on how liberals should address and debate conservatives considering the advances in psychology. Mooney offers a few tidbits, mostly in the conclusion. To address the problems with rewriting history, liberals need to leave the debunking to the experts and instead tell their own stories about historical figures that are accurate, interesting, and emphasize liberal values. He also elaborates on a political point that has been discussed among liberals in recent years--it is pointless to try and compromise with conservatives (especially Obama vs Congress). Liberals need to "be more conservative" not in their political views, but by acquiring some of the positive traits of conservatives such as unity, loyalty, and shared purpose. This theme is similar to the "pep talk" that Mooney has given to scientists in the past and it applies to any advocacy group looking for influence.

Based on the recent advances in liberal vs. conservative psychology, there is a book to be written about how liberals should address and debate conservatives. From the Republican Brain, we now know why conservatives refuse to accept certain facts, but what is now needed it a detailed guide for how liberals should go about changing conservative falsehoods and winning arguments.

I hesitate to give this book only 3/5 stars, but this book has some repetition, loses focus at times in the second half, and has some undeveloped ideas. Other authors such as Malcolm Gladwell and recently Charles Duhigg are better at grasping the applications of psychological studies. But considering that Mooney only worked on this book for a year, he is well on his way to becoming an expert on the liberal vs. conservative divide.

Uh-huh, doesn't change the fact that by all appearances the author started out with his own definition of "reality" and had already concluded that Republicans "reject reality" then set about conducting "research" to prove his highly biased conclusion, in other words, it's completely JUNK SCIENCE because the author was engaging in the same confirmation bias that he accuses "conservatives" of needing.

The conclusions should follow the research not the other way around.

His theory was that Conservatives reject reality - no doubt formulated from experience with them. The research showed this to be true.

Again... HE decided what reality is and HE decided that "conservatives" rejected what he decided "reality" is THEN went on to conduct "research" to confirm his already formed conclusions, you don't see the problem with his methodology? Even discounting the fact that the guy happens to have an opposing ideology to the subjects of his "research" his methods are ass-backwards.

 

[Pogo]

The science has long been in. As I've been writing on these pages as long as I've been here, and other sites before, Fox Noise isn't there for information but to establish an emotional connection.

Yeah so do large swaths of what people call the "news media" (primarily 24 hour cable based "news" outlets), it's become mostly infotainment with a heavy emphasis on the "tainment" portion and much of it is heavily biased one way or the other and has programming that caters to the propensity toward confirmation bias of it's target audience.

Fox isn't any better or any worse than it's 24 hour "news" cable based rivals, it just happens to target a different audience with most of the junk it airs.

True, to their discredit, the CNNs and MSNBCs have gone down the same hole. Just for the record it was FNC that created that hole, and in effect pied-pipered the others down it. When Fox began in 1996 CNN was a straight news outlet, and the news outlet that was always available. That had been CNN's innovation

But news is an expensive thing to do. Sending reporters and camera crews hither and yon and running news bureaus around the world does not come without a considerable budget. FNC cut corners by making its mark a different way --- instead of reporters in the field garnering the news it plunked down talking heads in a stationary studio talking about the news.

And to drive the emotional nail home, they gussied up the studio in garish colors, infused a lot of graphics that go WHOOOOSHH and maybe most revealingly, kept running suggestive chyrons, usually planting seeds of suggestion -- this is probably the most blatant dead giveaway of the emotional manipulation game. Then to top it off of course they supplement angry white guys pounding on desks with comely models in short skirts, fully aware that their audience skews to old men.

That was a new model when Fox brought it to cable, and for the actual purpose (profit) -- it worked. The key phrase here is "actual purpose", which is not to sell a political product but to sell the channel itself. Which way that paranoia might slant politically is simply a function of which way paranoia sells. If Rupert Murdoch thought feeding paranoia to the left would work better than feeding it to the right, you'd see Fox Noise do a 180 so fast it would make your head spin.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

My God, so many fat dumb Americans still actually believe their Government/Corporate Media is credible. Whether it's Fox News or other, they're all owned by just a few large Corporations.

And those Corporations are in bed with Government. The American Media is a sham. I'm shocked so many Americans haven't figured that out yet.

I'm afraid the problem has morphed beyond just tradition media my friend.

Air Force research: How to use social media to control people like drones
"Containment control" model looks at how groups of influencers can manipulate people.
Air Force research: How to use social media to control people like drones

Soft Info-warfare

Military social network research has been ongoing over the past decade as part of the DOD’s efforts to leverage “open source intelligence” and use social network analysis (using mobile phone records, other electronic relationships, and physical-world relationships) to target manufacturers of improvised explosive devices and leaders of insurgent cells. Along the way, the research has shifted more toward “hearts and minds” goals than “search and destroy” ones.


DARPA launched its SMISC program in 2011 to examine ways social networks could be used for propaganda and what broadly falls under the euphemistic title of Military Information Support Operations (MISO), formerly known as psychological operations. Early in July, DARPA published a list of research projects funded by the SMISC program. They included studies that analyzed the Twitter followings of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber among others; investigations into the spread of Internet memes; a study by the Georgia Tech Research Institute into automatically identifying deceptive content in social media with linguistic cues; and "Modeling User Attitude toward Controversial Topics in Online Social Media”—an IBM Research study that tapped into Twitter feeds to track responses to topics like “fracking” for natural gas.


The AFRL-sponsored research by Dixon, Zhen Kan, and Justin Klotz of University of Florida NCR group and Eduardo L. Pasiliao of AFRL’s Munitions Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base was prompted by a meeting Dixon attended while preparing a “think piece” for the Defense Science Study Group. “I heard a presentation by a computer scientist about examining behaviors of people based on social data. The language that was being used to mathematically describe the interactions [between people and products] was the same language we use in controlling groups of autonomous vehicles.”

Facebook Can Control Your Mind
Facebook has been experimenting with mind manipulation and emotion signal wave theory for over a decade.
Facebook Can Control Your Mind

"No, Facebook," most sane people responded, "that’s actually terrifying." It’s almost as if tech companies believe that if they produce enough cheery, fizzy spin it will never occur to anyone to think of the massive potential for abuse.

Facebook is feeling more and more like an online course in how to live under totalitarianism. We’ve known the thing is eating our privacy, poring over the so-called “digital exhaust” we leave each day as we navigate the web, shopping, communicating, and exploring.

Now they tell us that their algorithms are sophisticated enough to puzzle out the emotional tone of our messages. The emotional contagion study claimed that, by flooding a user’s feed with “positive” posts, researchers were able to produce an overall lift in the users’ online mood. Bombarded with cheerful messages about their friends and family, the test subjects began to fill their own feeds with glowing, positive posts.

Can we therefore assume that Facebook’s algorithms can also select for despair? Paranoia? Racism? Class resentment? Imagine what the George W. Bush administration could have sold to a frightened world post-9/11 with this power. Would Facebook have allowed it? What if it was a matter of “national security?”

Major Social Media is owned by those few large Corporations. And of course they're in bed with Government. So it's no surprise they're feeding the Sheeple Bullshite.

Sadly, most Americans really are fat and dumb. They're way too busy stuffing their fat faces, obsessing over their porn, sports, reality tv, and shopping till they drop, to know any better. It is very sad.

There is so much ridiculousness in this post i don't even know what to say...

This obsession some of you have with the media is just as bad as "stuffing your face"
Get a grip on yourselves. It's just tv, if Americans want to eat it up so be it. Take your tinfiol and put it to use elsewhere. I hear it works better in the kitchen than it does on your head.

 

[JoeNormal]

I'm sure the cons on this forum will disagree, disregard and disavow.

LOL, the article cites the author of a book that started out trying to prove premise that "Republicans reject reality" and then goes on to complain about confirmation bias, talk about some thick, delicious irony sprinkled with a heaping, helping of JUNK SCIENCE.

Here's the best critical review of the book. It's not glowing but even while critical it's generally positive.

Chris Mooney wrote The Republican Brain from a liberal perspective, geared toward other liberal readers. The majority of the book confirms opinions that many scientifically-minded liberals hold about conservative bias and adds the latest in psychological research to explain why the dissemination of facts has become highly polarized in this country. To summarize:

1. Republicans distort facts for their benefit far more often than Democrats--global warming and history are cited most in this book, although Mooney uses a wide variety of examples.

2. There are known psychological reasons for these differences including development and use of different parts of the brain. These differences go on to influence personality, friends, career path, and even which states people move to. The most interesting study is the "smart idiot" effect, which means that politically knowledgeable conservatives are often more biased and less persuadable than ignorant conservatives or liberals (i.e., conservatives engage in motivated reasoning).

3. The liberal/conservative divide has widened over the past few decades not only because of the conservative revolution of the 1970s-80s, but also because of the growth of cable news and the Internet. The new sources allow conservatives to have easy access to like-minded thinkers and a wide array of "experts" to back up their erroneous claims and create a new reality that conforms to their worldview.

Overall, Mooney does an good job addressing the above points, and the book is well worth the read for anyone interested in the partisan divide. However, the book still left me disappointed and I found myself rushing through the detailed study with Dr. Everett Young, which should have contained less statistics and more analysis. As Mooney explains in the prelude, his previous book, The Republican War on Science, was highly popular among liberals but did nothing to change conservative opinions. The reason of course is the inherent propensity in conservatives to predispose of any information that contradicts their deeply held beliefs. But any liberal who has attempted to debate a conservative already knows this: facts, logic, and scientific reasoning always fail in such discussions. Mooney's writing style is geared toward liberals and he admits that conservatives will not buy his arguments--although at least now he knows why!

I was hoping for more advice on how liberals should address and debate conservatives considering the advances in psychology. Mooney offers a few tidbits, mostly in the conclusion. To address the problems with rewriting history, liberals need to leave the debunking to the experts and instead tell their own stories about historical figures that are accurate, interesting, and emphasize liberal values. He also elaborates on a political point that has been discussed among liberals in recent years--it is pointless to try and compromise with conservatives (especially Obama vs Congress). Liberals need to "be more conservative" not in their political views, but by acquiring some of the positive traits of conservatives such as unity, loyalty, and shared purpose. This theme is similar to the "pep talk" that Mooney has given to scientists in the past and it applies to any advocacy group looking for influence.

Based on the recent advances in liberal vs. conservative psychology, there is a book to be written about how liberals should address and debate conservatives. From the Republican Brain, we now know why conservatives refuse to accept certain facts, but what is now needed it a detailed guide for how liberals should go about changing conservative falsehoods and winning arguments.

I hesitate to give this book only 3/5 stars, but this book has some repetition, loses focus at times in the second half, and has some undeveloped ideas. Other authors such as Malcolm Gladwell and recently Charles Duhigg are better at grasping the applications of psychological studies. But considering that Mooney only worked on this book for a year, he is well on his way to becoming an expert on the liberal vs. conservative divide.

Uh-huh, doesn't change the fact that by all appearances the author started out with his own definition of "reality" and had already concluded that Republicans "reject reality" then set about conducting "research" to prove his highly biased conclusion, in other words, it's completely JUNK SCIENCE because the author was engaging in the same confirmation bias that he accuses "conservatives" of needing.

The conclusions should follow the research not the other way around.

His theory was that Conservatives reject reality - no doubt formulated from experience with them. The research showed this to be true.

Again... HE decided what reality is and HE decided that "conservatives" rejected what he decided "reality" is THEN went on to conduct "research" to confirm his already formed conclusions, you don't see the problem with his methodology? Even discounting the fact that the guy happens to have an opposing ideology to the subjects of his "research" his methods are ass-backwards.

Some reality has been established beyond the shadow of a doubt yet some conservatives deny it. Evolution is one of these areas. That is not a 'his' reality versus 'their' reality issue. You seem to think that reality is mutable depending upon individual ideology.

 

[paulitician]

My God, so many fat dumb Americans still actually believe their Government/Corporate Media is credible. Whether it's Fox News or other, they're all owned by just a few large Corporations.

And those Corporations are in bed with Government. The American Media is a sham. I'm shocked so many Americans haven't figured that out yet.

I'm afraid the problem has morphed beyond just tradition media my friend.

Air Force research: How to use social media to control people like drones
"Containment control" model looks at how groups of influencers can manipulate people.
Air Force research: How to use social media to control people like drones

Soft Info-warfare

Military social network research has been ongoing over the past decade as part of the DOD’s efforts to leverage “open source intelligence” and use social network analysis (using mobile phone records, other electronic relationships, and physical-world relationships) to target manufacturers of improvised explosive devices and leaders of insurgent cells. Along the way, the research has shifted more toward “hearts and minds” goals than “search and destroy” ones.


DARPA launched its SMISC program in 2011 to examine ways social networks could be used for propaganda and what broadly falls under the euphemistic title of Military Information Support Operations (MISO), formerly known as psychological operations. Early in July, DARPA published a list of research projects funded by the SMISC program. They included studies that analyzed the Twitter followings of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber among others; investigations into the spread of Internet memes; a study by the Georgia Tech Research Institute into automatically identifying deceptive content in social media with linguistic cues; and "Modeling User Attitude toward Controversial Topics in Online Social Media”—an IBM Research study that tapped into Twitter feeds to track responses to topics like “fracking” for natural gas.


The AFRL-sponsored research by Dixon, Zhen Kan, and Justin Klotz of University of Florida NCR group and Eduardo L. Pasiliao of AFRL’s Munitions Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base was prompted by a meeting Dixon attended while preparing a “think piece” for the Defense Science Study Group. “I heard a presentation by a computer scientist about examining behaviors of people based on social data. The language that was being used to mathematically describe the interactions [between people and products] was the same language we use in controlling groups of autonomous vehicles.”

Facebook Can Control Your Mind
Facebook has been experimenting with mind manipulation and emotion signal wave theory for over a decade.
Facebook Can Control Your Mind

"No, Facebook," most sane people responded, "that’s actually terrifying." It’s almost as if tech companies believe that if they produce enough cheery, fizzy spin it will never occur to anyone to think of the massive potential for abuse.

Facebook is feeling more and more like an online course in how to live under totalitarianism. We’ve known the thing is eating our privacy, poring over the so-called “digital exhaust” we leave each day as we navigate the web, shopping, communicating, and exploring.

Now they tell us that their algorithms are sophisticated enough to puzzle out the emotional tone of our messages. The emotional contagion study claimed that, by flooding a user’s feed with “positive” posts, researchers were able to produce an overall lift in the users’ online mood. Bombarded with cheerful messages about their friends and family, the test subjects began to fill their own feeds with glowing, positive posts.

Can we therefore assume that Facebook’s algorithms can also select for despair? Paranoia? Racism? Class resentment? Imagine what the George W. Bush administration could have sold to a frightened world post-9/11 with this power. Would Facebook have allowed it? What if it was a matter of “national security?”

Major Social Media is owned by those few large Corporations. And of course they're in bed with Government. So it's no surprise they're feeding the Sheeple Bullshite.

Sadly, most Americans really are fat and dumb. They're way too busy stuffing their fat faces, obsessing over their porn, sports, reality tv, and shopping till they drop, to know any better. It is very sad.

There is so much ridiculousness in this post i don't even know what to say...

This obsession some of you have with the media is just as bad as "stuffing your face"
Get a grip on yourselves. It's just tv, if Americans want to eat it up so be it. Take your tinfiol and put it to use elsewhere. I hear it works better in the kitchen than it does on your head.

You're still not getting it. But that's cool, most Americans aren't either. So, have another Freedum Fry and enjoy your Government/Corporate Media Bullshite. It's all good.

 

[bendog]

now listen up and listen up good. My mother's people settled in the e. Colorado and wounded knee area in the 1850s, so I prolly have Sioux or Arapahoe blood and aint no dirty stinking heritage loving immigrant

 

[MisterBeale]

My God, so many fat dumb Americans still actually believe their Government/Corporate Media is credible. Whether it's Fox News or other, they're all owned by just a few large Corporations.

And those Corporations are in bed with Government. The American Media is a sham. I'm shocked so many Americans haven't figured that out yet.

I'm afraid the problem has morphed beyond just tradition media my friend.

Air Force research: How to use social media to control people like drones
"Containment control" model looks at how groups of influencers can manipulate people.
Air Force research: How to use social media to control people like drones

Soft Info-warfare

Military social network research has been ongoing over the past decade as part of the DOD’s efforts to leverage “open source intelligence” and use social network analysis (using mobile phone records, other electronic relationships, and physical-world relationships) to target manufacturers of improvised explosive devices and leaders of insurgent cells. Along the way, the research has shifted more toward “hearts and minds” goals than “search and destroy” ones.


DARPA launched its SMISC program in 2011 to examine ways social networks could be used for propaganda and what broadly falls under the euphemistic title of Military Information Support Operations (MISO), formerly known as psychological operations. Early in July, DARPA published a list of research projects funded by the SMISC program. They included studies that analyzed the Twitter followings of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber among others; investigations into the spread of Internet memes; a study by the Georgia Tech Research Institute into automatically identifying deceptive content in social media with linguistic cues; and "Modeling User Attitude toward Controversial Topics in Online Social Media”—an IBM Research study that tapped into Twitter feeds to track responses to topics like “fracking” for natural gas.


The AFRL-sponsored research by Dixon, Zhen Kan, and Justin Klotz of University of Florida NCR group and Eduardo L. Pasiliao of AFRL’s Munitions Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base was prompted by a meeting Dixon attended while preparing a “think piece” for the Defense Science Study Group. “I heard a presentation by a computer scientist about examining behaviors of people based on social data. The language that was being used to mathematically describe the interactions [between people and products] was the same language we use in controlling groups of autonomous vehicles.”

Facebook Can Control Your Mind
Facebook has been experimenting with mind manipulation and emotion signal wave theory for over a decade.
Facebook Can Control Your Mind

"No, Facebook," most sane people responded, "that’s actually terrifying." It’s almost as if tech companies believe that if they produce enough cheery, fizzy spin it will never occur to anyone to think of the massive potential for abuse.

Facebook is feeling more and more like an online course in how to live under totalitarianism. We’ve known the thing is eating our privacy, poring over the so-called “digital exhaust” we leave each day as we navigate the web, shopping, communicating, and exploring.

Now they tell us that their algorithms are sophisticated enough to puzzle out the emotional tone of our messages. The emotional contagion study claimed that, by flooding a user’s feed with “positive” posts, researchers were able to produce an overall lift in the users’ online mood. Bombarded with cheerful messages about their friends and family, the test subjects began to fill their own feeds with glowing, positive posts.

Can we therefore assume that Facebook’s algorithms can also select for despair? Paranoia? Racism? Class resentment? Imagine what the George W. Bush administration could have sold to a frightened world post-9/11 with this power. Would Facebook have allowed it? What if it was a matter of “national security?”

Major Social Media is owned by those few large Corporations. And of course they're in bed with Government. So it's no surprise they're feeding the Sheeple Bullshite.

Sadly, most Americans really are fat and dumb. They're way too busy stuffing their fat faces, obsessing over their porn, sports, reality tv, and shopping till they drop, to know any better. It is very sad.

There is so much ridiculousness in this post i don't even know what to say...

This obsession some of you have with the media is just as bad as "stuffing your face"
Get a grip on yourselves. It's just tv, if Americans want to eat it up so be it. Take your tinfiol and put it to use elsewhere. I hear it works better in the kitchen than it does on your head.

 

[paulitician]

My God, so many fat dumb Americans still actually believe their Government/Corporate Media is credible. Whether it's Fox News or other, they're all owned by just a few large Corporations.

And those Corporations are in bed with Government. The American Media is a sham. I'm shocked so many Americans haven't figured that out yet.

I'm afraid the problem has morphed beyond just tradition media my friend.

Air Force research: How to use social media to control people like drones
"Containment control" model looks at how groups of influencers can manipulate people.
Air Force research: How to use social media to control people like drones

Soft Info-warfare

Military social network research has been ongoing over the past decade as part of the DOD’s efforts to leverage “open source intelligence” and use social network analysis (using mobile phone records, other electronic relationships, and physical-world relationships) to target manufacturers of improvised explosive devices and leaders of insurgent cells. Along the way, the research has shifted more toward “hearts and minds” goals than “search and destroy” ones.


DARPA launched its SMISC program in 2011 to examine ways social networks could be used for propaganda and what broadly falls under the euphemistic title of Military Information Support Operations (MISO), formerly known as psychological operations. Early in July, DARPA published a list of research projects funded by the SMISC program. They included studies that analyzed the Twitter followings of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber among others; investigations into the spread of Internet memes; a study by the Georgia Tech Research Institute into automatically identifying deceptive content in social media with linguistic cues; and "Modeling User Attitude toward Controversial Topics in Online Social Media”—an IBM Research study that tapped into Twitter feeds to track responses to topics like “fracking” for natural gas.


The AFRL-sponsored research by Dixon, Zhen Kan, and Justin Klotz of University of Florida NCR group and Eduardo L. Pasiliao of AFRL’s Munitions Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base was prompted by a meeting Dixon attended while preparing a “think piece” for the Defense Science Study Group. “I heard a presentation by a computer scientist about examining behaviors of people based on social data. The language that was being used to mathematically describe the interactions [between people and products] was the same language we use in controlling groups of autonomous vehicles.”

Facebook Can Control Your Mind
Facebook has been experimenting with mind manipulation and emotion signal wave theory for over a decade.
Facebook Can Control Your Mind

"No, Facebook," most sane people responded, "that’s actually terrifying." It’s almost as if tech companies believe that if they produce enough cheery, fizzy spin it will never occur to anyone to think of the massive potential for abuse.

Facebook is feeling more and more like an online course in how to live under totalitarianism. We’ve known the thing is eating our privacy, poring over the so-called “digital exhaust” we leave each day as we navigate the web, shopping, communicating, and exploring.

Now they tell us that their algorithms are sophisticated enough to puzzle out the emotional tone of our messages. The emotional contagion study claimed that, by flooding a user’s feed with “positive” posts, researchers were able to produce an overall lift in the users’ online mood. Bombarded with cheerful messages about their friends and family, the test subjects began to fill their own feeds with glowing, positive posts.

Can we therefore assume that Facebook’s algorithms can also select for despair? Paranoia? Racism? Class resentment? Imagine what the George W. Bush administration could have sold to a frightened world post-9/11 with this power. Would Facebook have allowed it? What if it was a matter of “national security?”

Major Social Media is owned by those few large Corporations. And of course they're in bed with Government. So it's no surprise they're feeding the Sheeple Bullshite.

Sadly, most Americans really are fat and dumb. They're way too busy stuffing their fat faces, obsessing over their porn, sports, reality tv, and shopping till they drop, to know any better. It is very sad.

There is so much ridiculousness in this post i don't even know what to say...

This obsession some of you have with the media is just as bad as "stuffing your face"
Get a grip on yourselves. It's just tv, if Americans want to eat it up so be it. Take your tinfiol and put it to use elsewhere. I hear it works better in the kitchen than it does on your head.

Yup.

 

[NightFox]

If Rupert Murdoch thought feeding paranoia to the left would work better than feeding it to the right, you'd see Fox Noise do a 180 so fast it would make your head spin.

I agree with your assertions EXCEPT for this one, Murdoch isn't concerned about whether it works "better" or not (the left is just as susceptible to confirmation bias "journalism" as the right is IMHO), the whole opportunity was that he saw a large niche that was being under-served (conservative bias) and jumped on it, I applaud his entrepreneurial acumen even though I personally think his product is mostly infotainment garbage and don't choose to partake of it.

 

[Iceweasel]

I think the liberals pay more attention to Fox News than most people i know. In fact i would even bet they watch it more than i do.

If it's not Fox News, where do right wingers get their cockamamie ideas? It sure as hell isn't from reality.

We are all liberals when we are children. Some of us grow up, others remain liberal.

Conservatism is a fear based ideology.

Liar. That's the other hallmark of the left.

There is physiological evidence showing this to be the case. Do a search on 'amygdala'.

There's no evidence that you are an adult.

 

[Pogo]

If Rupert Murdoch thought feeding paranoia to the left would work better than feeding it to the right, you'd see Fox Noise do a 180 so fast it would make your head spin.

I agree with your assertions EXCEPT for this one, Murdoch isn't concerned about whether it works "better" or not (the left is just as susceptible to confirmation bias "journalism" as the right is IMHO), the whole opportunity was that he saw a large niche that was being under-served (conservative bias) and jumped on it, I applaud his entrepreneurial acumen even though I personally think his product is mostly infotainment garbage and don't choose to partake of it.

You basically just said the same thing I did.

Except for the end part --- there's not a thing to be admired in "entrepreneurial acumen" when it reaps its fruits though unethical or dishonest practices. You don't "admire" a card shark or a snake oil salesman just because he's "successful" at deceit, any more than you "admire" a car thief because he's got a new car.

 

[Iceweasel]

The science has long been in. As I've been writing on these pages as long as I've been here, and other sites before, Fox Noise isn't there for information but to establish an emotional connection. The "us vs. them" mentality pervades everything because this just in, CONFLICT SELLS. Because conflict is drama, and if there's one thing passive sloths sitting in front of a TV master feeding them every sensory input, its drama. So Fox supplies it, whether it's "you against the scary black man" or "you against the scary Muslim" or "you against the scary Democrat" or "you against the scary environmentalist" it's a never-ending Association Fallacy soap opera starring You versus The Monster, and right after these words for pickup trucks and Viagra to plant a seed of fake hope into your hopeless lack of self-esteem, we'll be right back to scare you some more.

They go for the emotional jugular because that's what sells, and they go for the personal connection, telling you what the paranoia (that they just fed you) wants to hear, because that keeps the viewer coming back. And that means loyalty, and that means ratings that go up and stay up. It's the electronic media equivalent of the boys' tree house with "NO GURLS" painted on the side. Us and Them in a constant inane soap opera.

Rupert Murdoch made his fortune doing the same thing, selling tabloid rags. Fox Noise is simply a gossip channel using Washington politicians in place of Hollywood celebrities. Notice, not only is the audience thrust personal, so is the content --- it's always long on politicians...... short on actual policy. It's a grand plan of audience manipulation for the objective of profit, and whatever factualities are lost in that shuffle, well they consider that simply the cost of doing business, and the business is profit.

Nah, lefties are run by their emotions, like children. Your lies won't cut it.

That you "read" that in one minute, let alone responded in the same minute, tells me how deeply you did it.

Like it was worth reading? My turds make more sense.

 

[JoeNormal]

If it's not Fox News, where do right wingers get their cockamamie ideas? It sure as hell isn't from reality.

We are all liberals when we are children. Some of us grow up, others remain liberal.

Conservatism is a fear based ideology.

Liar. That's the other hallmark of the left.

There is physiological evidence showing this to be the case. Do a search on 'amygdala'.

There's no evidence that you are an adult.

You know a lot of kids who have any idea what an amygdala is? Did you do your search?

 

[NightFox]

If Rupert Murdoch thought feeding paranoia to the left would work better than feeding it to the right, you'd see Fox Noise do a 180 so fast it would make your head spin.

I agree with your assertions EXCEPT for this one, Murdoch isn't concerned about whether it works "better" or not (the left is just as susceptible to confirmation bias "journalism" as the right is IMHO), the whole opportunity was that he saw a large niche that was being under-served (conservative bias) and jumped on it, I applaud his entrepreneurial acumen even though I personally think his product is mostly infotainment garbage and don't choose to partake of it.

You basically just said the same thing I did.

Ummm..I was just pointing out that the market Murdoch targeted was an unsaturated market (versus the left side of the spectrum which was already saturated) as opposed to implying that the right was more susceptible to this kind of "journalism" than the left is (which is what I assumed you meant by "work better")

Except for the end part --- there's not a thing to be admired in "entrepreneurial acumen" when it reaps its fruits though unethical or dishonest practices. You don't "admire" a card shark or a snake oil salesman just because he's "successful" at deceit, any more than you "admire" a car thief because he's got a new car.

He's servicing his customers by giving them what they want at a price they're willing to pay, nothing unethical in that, he's not a holding a gun to their heads and making them buy what he has to sell nor is he misrepresenting what he's selling, the people that pay him (his advertisers) know EXACTLY what they're getting for their money.

... and last time I checked Fox News isn't the only channel available on television so the Fox viewers are VOLUNTARILY choosing to avail themselves of Fox News offerings even though there is a mountain of documentation available pointing out that the "journalism" there is highly suspect.

 

[Iceweasel]

We are all liberals when we are children. Some of us grow up, others remain liberal.

Conservatism is a fear based ideology.

Liar. That's the other hallmark of the left.

There is physiological evidence showing this to be the case. Do a search on 'amygdala'.

There's no evidence that you are an adult.

You know a lot of kids who have any idea what an amygdala is? Did you do your search?

See above.

 

[chikenwing]

Another one of those inclusive , tolerant posters,willing to live and let live.t respecting other people ideas and opinions.

 

[IsaacNewton]

The article is from a review of a new book. Not a review of a 'Daily Kos' penned opinion.

It points out that Faux News misinforms people with outright lies, and that the people that watch it NEED to hear these lies as it makes them feel good. In other words, they believe in a mythical world that doesn't exist, and Faux News tells them this fantasy world is real on a daily basis.

Not really new news here, but having research to shine a direct light on it is always welcome. Faux is propaganda meant to instill in and uphold false beliefs held by it's audience for political purposes. That is the essence of propaganda.

 

[Hutch Starskey]

The source being Daily Kos ended the legitimacy of the story right there.

How so?

Leftwing hack site.

I've seen a lot of articles on there critical of Obama, Clinton and Sanders. Maybe it's not as left wing as you assume.

Well, once in a while they have to throw something out there. That way some people can be fooled into thinking they're neutral. Sorry, but Kos is a hack site.

^A perfect example of the misinformation the article spoke about.

Study: Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump, gets the most negative media coverage