I am reminded of the DoD funded paper out of UCLA on using MRIs to aide in the production of Middle Eastern focused, Pentagon directed social media propaganda u

I am reminded of the DoD funded paper out of UCLA on using MRIs to aide in the production of Middle Eastern focused, Pentagon directed social media propaganda using "pre-suasion" [1]. The paper states that three general categories of tactic are used to "pre-suade" civilians that may be otherwise on the lookout because they think someone may be trying to influence them (in which case cognitive defense mechanisms come into play). The paper summarizes that a few techniques can be used in an attempt to circumvent active and alert defenses: 1. "affirmation" - attaching your message to something that the target wants to affirm or reaffirm and including your new information along with old information. 2. "resource depletion" - providing so much information or stimulation or messaging that the target is 'exhausted' of trying to resist the message and relaxes into coping with it. 3. "narrative persuasion" - masking the message or information in a story with which the target self-identifies, therein allowing the message to seem like legitimate material to the target. [1] http://minerva.dtic.mil/doc/samplewp-Lieberman.pdf http://minerva.dtic.mil/doc/samplewp-Lieberman.pdf