OT: Summer reading title arrived today, "Trust Me, I'm Lying....

[Victor E. Bell]

Confessions of a Media Manipulator" by Ryan Holiday. Fist meet windshield. From the first chapter, (and for purposes of the book the author defines a "blog" collectively as all online publishing, he includes Twitter accounts, major newspaper websites, vids, etc.) I present the following:

"The economies of the internet created a twisted set of incentives that make traffic more important-and more profitable- than truth. With the mass media, and today-mass culture-relying on the web for the next big thing, it is a set of incentives with massive implications.

Blogs need traffic, being first drives traffic and so entire stories are created out of whole cloth to make that happen. This is just one facet of the economics of blogging but it's a critical one. When we understand the logic that drives these business choices, the choices become predictable."

 

[mn78psu83]

Confessions of a Media Manipulator" by Ryan Holiday. Fist meet windshield. From the first chapter, (and for purposes of the book the author defines a "blog" collectively as all online publishing, he includes Twitter accounts, major newspaper websites, vids, etc.) I present the following:

"The economies of the internet created a twisted set of incentives that make traffic more important-and more profitable- than truth. With the mass media, and today-mass culture-relying on the web for the next big thing, it is a set of incentives with massive implications.

Blogs need traffic, being first drives traffic and so entire stories are created out of whole cloth to make that happen. This is just one facet of the economics of blogging but it's a critical one. When we understand the logic that drives these business choices, the choices become predictable."

Edward Bernays is somewhere smiling.

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ... We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ... In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons ... who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind."

Edward Bernays - excerpt from Propaganda