I think is it. You saying off your own bat that policy X is great because that happens to be what you believe, is not in my view necessarily propaganda.
You as a paid up member/intern/whatever of the Policy X group stating that policy X is great on twitter or facebook as part of the group’s communications plan = propaganda.
Lying about/providing misleading info about policy X as part of that plan, propaganda by any reasonable definition.
You saying that policy X is great because you have been persuaded by the propaganda statements of members of the policy X communications team - are you now part of the propaganda or not?
I think this is also relevant. It ‘seems’ absurd because it is intended to. ‘Our’ political speech is just sensible and totally ok campaigning. ‘Theirs’ is propaganda.
Fine - I apologize for boring you. But how do you know how bored I am. Perhaps you just think you do? Once again, country with an economy the size of Portugal, and that’s why we have right wing popularism in the UK. Downplay the scale of their promotion of it? Well maybe.
Now you are stretching my understanding of English regardless of your excellent understanding of mass marketing and segmentation. 126mn is well over a third of the US population. What definition of “highly targeted” is consistent with that?
Didnt mean to. What I meant to do was just pour derision on a view which seems incredibly popular in the US but which I have absolutely no respect for. I apologize for giving the impression.
Because you said you were bored. I didn’t comment on the degree.
The definition that takes into account segmentation, demographics, psychographics, affinity groups, etc. The definition that makes Facebook its billions in revenue.
Here’s’ an article that shows how that business model was implemented last year.
I assumed that on your first try. I was doubtful on the second. Your apology is accepted, but only if it includes a promise not to do it a third time.
If I’m quoting propaganda, you might say that “I’m just repeating their propaganda.” I am clearly part of the propaganda, I am a tool in the propaganda, but I don’t think I am engaging in propaganda myself, since I’m not being systematic. But that’s splitting hairs. You as the listener are hearing the propaganda as I am speaking my (influenced) opinions.
As for the “ours isn’t propaganda but theirs is” sentiment, I have heard people use it neutrally about their own stuff, but never in public.
I think we all like to think we are immune from the influence of all the methods in which people try to influence us, whether it is product ads, political propaganda, or pharmaceutical perks to doctors. I kind of wish advertisements wold get the same negative connotation as propaganda, since it is the same thing, without the political element. “You want a Product X ? You sure you haven’t just bought into their ads?”
I think they are starting to - a bit at least. See stuff like this which is now very mainstream:
If you’re not familiar with it, they basically take a family’s grocery shopping and swap out most of the products with cheaper and/or healthier alternatives, pop everything in neutral packaging and make them live off it for a week (as well as suggesting cheaper meals that people could cook rather than buying ready meals or takeaways).
Not surprisingly, most of the entertainment of the show is the people claiming that they could only eat/drink $BRAND and would unerringly be able to tell any lesser product stating at the end of the show either:
that the product they were given was much worse than their usual brand when it actually hadn’t been swapped; or
that it was their brand when in fact it was some supermarket own brand.
There’s also a similar Tricks of the Restaurant Trade which amongst other things points out that a lot of chain restaurants all sell the same products because they buy them from the same caterer and just heat them up/finish them off on the premises.
My opinion was that it was reasonable to assume a Russian operation to help Trump and hurt Clinton would would try to hurt Clinton not just by promoting one challenger, Trump, but by also promoting her other main challenger, Sanders.
The articles I found, when you asked me to provide evidence that such a thing had happened, provide evidence that in fact, according to people in the Sanders campaign and others, it happened.
That is the type of article you requested. If I had posted articles that weren’t about Russia’s support of the Sanders campaign, that would have been irrelevant (and a little odd).
I don’t think you want to introduce a standard of “indictments or it didn’t happen.” A lot of bad stuff happens that everyone knows about, that never results in arrests.
But, as you implied a couple of posts up, this is getting stupid. If you want the last word, it’s yours.
No, I said the content was equally divisive, which it is. Some of it’s literally identical apart from the origin of the author, and that has no impact on the divisiveness of the message.
I don’t think it should be illegal to post bullshit on Facebook, political or otherwise. It’s the precisely calibrated bullshit, optimized for the particular quirks of each individual user and seamlessly inserted into the stream of mundane bullshit from friends and family which concerns me.
I’ve wondered if they get everything in portion-sized plastic bags and then just “sous-vide” each one to order. This would explain “no, we can’t hold the shrimp, it’s already in the pasta” (though the other explanation is that they simply made a huge batch of it).
To use a phrase from rightpondian kickball, it really is a shot at an open goal. And it’s made possible by the generally hysterical coverage all this has been getting. Thinking about it, Trump actually started the current wave of hyperbolic moronising of political discourse with Birtherism. McCarthy is the spiritual father of Trump, and their mother is the SCOTUS interpretation of the First Amendment.
