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Noam called it manufacturing consent and it's been a thing for quite a while[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.o

• zzzcpan 10y ago
  Interesting that his propaganda model [1] actually breaks a bit with the age of internet. Social media, news aggregators, small independent bloggers and small independent news outlets don't have the described biases. Algorithmic filters are somehow unbiased. Independent person/outlet can question the government, capitalism, doesn't have to trust government's spokesmen, doesn't have to publish them, doesn't even have to make money. In a way all those "news bubbles" and "fake news" are actually anti-bubbles and make "democracy" more "democratic". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model
  • intended 10y ago
    No it doesn't work that way. It's a nice theory, but I've been a mod on a national sub for a while, and I've been on forums since around/before slashdot. You can very easily overwhelm the signal with noise. The plethora of independents means nothing if only a few of them get heard. Matter of fact, with some pushing, you can have one "independent" dominate a large portion of the channel. At some juncture the network effect takes over and the process becomes self sustaining, you just need to play on people's/your target markets biases well. This is a people problem, and people are getting way too good and understanding and manipulating the biases of other people.