Americans are the test bed for modern media and political manipulation strategies. What you guys invented are being exported around the world.
Stop putting your political compatriots down, and please read your political history with some empathy.
Post the cold war, the triumph of rationalism seemed to be entirely in reach. "religion is the opiate of the masses" was a common enough refrain, and we seemed to be on the verge of beating out all sorts of old superstitions and ideologies.
And then came the combination of mass media, evangelicism, and politics.
Over time people saw that the media allowed religious folk to reach out to target markets which were hitherto blocked from their reach, by the structural systems, checks and balances imposed by the strictures inherited from the Enlightenment.
With the revelations pouring in from psychology, and the significant improvements in advertising and marketing techniques, it became possible to target, poll, and build markets.
Startups use these tools today, and all the time. Theres no reason that the psychology for marketing an app should somehow prevent the marketing of a regressive, progressive, or authoritarian idea.
Details aside - the creation of that system worked as a proof of concept.
Now people around the world realized that with a tv station, and the right kind of messaging, you too could beat back science and facts. You just needed to work on the right message.
Of course there were road blocks, but eventually America was able to create a strong conservative movement, and finally Fox news. "a place for the persecuted majority".
You can trace all your problems to this arrow, this realization that you could mass produce emotional agreement, curtail information, using TV and now social media.
Americans are the test bed for modern media and political manipulation strategies. What you guys invented are being exported around the world.
Stop putting your political compatriots down, and please read your political history with some empathy.
Post the cold war, the triumph of rationalism seemed to be entirely in reach. "religion is the opiate of the masses" was a common enough refrain, and we seemed to be on the verge of beating out all sorts of old superstitions and ideologies.
And then came the combination of mass media, evangelicism, and politics.
Over time people saw that the media allowed religious folk to reach out to target markets which were hitherto blocked from their reach, by the structural systems, checks and balances imposed by the strictures inherited from the Enlightenment.
With the revelations pouring in from psychology, and the significant improvements in advertising and marketing techniques, it became possible to target, poll, and build markets.
Startups use these tools today, and all the time. Theres no reason that the psychology for marketing an app should somehow prevent the marketing of a regressive, progressive, or authoritarian idea.
Details aside - the creation of that system worked as a proof of concept.
Now people around the world realized that with a tv station, and the right kind of messaging, you too could beat back science and facts. You just needed to work on the right message.
Of course there were road blocks, but eventually America was able to create a strong conservative movement, and finally Fox news. "a place for the persecuted majority".
You can trace all your problems to this arrow, this realization that you could mass produce emotional agreement, curtail information, using TV and now social media.