As I mentioned, he collects a lot of research in the book. My comment wasn't that it was revolutionary--I think that's the point. What's widely known by people who study the issue hasn't really filtered to the general public. Persuasion generally happens at the personal level, dumber people are harder to persuade, and it's easier to persuade people to believe true things than false things. All of those statements are pretty uncontroversial, but in spaces like this, a contradictory view--that "the media and academia" are brainwashing everyone who disagrees with you ("you" meaning whoever is speaking)--is very common.
Well, exactly. Their doctors were trying to persuade them, and it wasn't working. How would someone like Fox explain anti-vaxism? If your explanation is that people are being "propagandized" by rightist media, why does it only work on rightists? The theory that people believe what they want to believe and then look for support explains the facts much better (and Mercier specifically addresses anti-vax beliefs in the book, though it was pre-COVID--he talks about how anti-vax celebrities aren't really causing anti-vaxism; it's not like people who are inclined to be reasonable were dissuaded from it because they trust Jenny McCarthy so much).
Subliminal messaging is also junk science. And ads work, to the extent they do, not by persuading but mainly by informing (e.g., this product exists, this is a trusted provider of it).
Yeah, he was a huge self-promoter, and people are already inclined to believe in the idea that their enemies are pliable fools ready to be conned by a guy like him.
I think you misunderstand what's going on with something like QAnon. There's an element of bullshit in it. I think people really feel disconnected from society and that their political opponents are evil, and it's just a kind of manifestation of it. I don't think anyone is really convinced by the factual claims.
Dude I've worked in media, much of it is persuasion driven, and hysteria-driven. I was recently ON local news being asked about the subject of housing and the reporter kept nudging me to comment on the NAR lawsuit in a negative light. I hadn't looked as deeply into it as I have since then but I had reservations about doing that. When she aired the piece there was a small statement from me about how bleak the housing market looks (personal experience) to average citizens and then two realtors crying about the changes in Commissions. Had I not had media training myself I might have regurgitated what she wanted.
The anti-vaxx sentiment didnt ONLY work on rightists. That was part of my point, and if I insinuated that it did then I didnt mean to. It worked on people generally distrusting of either institutionalized medicine or the giant pharmaceutical industry, both of which have valid criticisms, and that this distrust was exacerbated to override the assurance of their Doctors. They were CONVINCED they knew better than their Doctors. Plenty of people who were moderate on vaccines, over all, went full batsh*t over the COVID vaccine. Confirmation bias plays a part, but suggesting that that's THE core of it is an oversimplification that seems to always conveniently pop up when it's time it's time absolve corporate America of any impact on society. Suggesting that people were either all for vaccines or all against vaccines before the politicization on them hit and that's all that's responsible for current trends of people not getting vaccinated is not only wrong, but medically irresponsible. Why do you think anti-vaxx pundits wanted to debate even vaccine scientists publicly over it? Because making a vaccine scientist look inept with rhetoric is not difficult. This why since the advent of mass media, charisma can go much further than political or diplomatic skill when it comes to candidates. Trump is a living embodiment of this, so was Reagan, neither were skilled politicians, and they managed to capture the most powerful position in the World by convincing people they would be, and even after their cataclysmic failures, people who bought into it (even those who were NOT right wingers before), have a hard time admitting they were deceived into believing it even if that revelation comes FROM someone they trust.
Subliminal messaging is most certainly not entirely "junk science." If it was mentalists around the world would be cataclysmic failures at their jobs. It doesnt always work on highly skeptical people, or people who are paying close attention to what's happening, but the idea is that no one is always vigilant enough to ward it off entirely.
Bernays didn't con my enemies. Bernays conned my people, my own grandparents to the degree that they had a healthy disdain for my Central American and Caribbean immigrant family members without knowing a single thing about them. And I never assume that the opposition are completely gullible idiots, just that there are gullible idiots they target with their rhetoric. And of they thought they could ONLY capture those who already believe as they do, then organizations like TPUSA, and campaigns like Crowder's College debates would be an act of futility. They're not, because even in the "socialist epicenters" that are University Canvases, they can sell their Culture War snake oil.
Q-Anon worked because it had so many of the hallmarks of how cults form. The social isolation was baked in easily because of the pandemic, but it had the covert hero tentatively sacrificing their career to be a savior, it had the nefarious unseeable "they" (Deep State), and it had a mythology surrounding the preferred outcome (Trump was sent by God to liberate us from "them"). People were so convinced of the factual claims that Trump himself picked up on the sentiment and ran with it, then plenty of them stormed the f*cking Capital. Not to mention those who waited in Texas for the resurrection of JFK Jr. Lol Hell RFK is still playing on that hysteria just by having his name in the hat, and his anti-vaxx crap, and he sometimes has over 10% of poll voters.
reasons.
