Media Tactics that Manufacture "Truth"

[MedusaX]

THE war of the bots is one of the wilder and weirder aspects of the elections of 2016. At the Oxford Internet Institute’s Unit for Computational Propaganda, its director, Phil Howard, and director of research, Sam Woolley, show me all the ways public opinion can be massaged and manipulated. But is there a smoking gun, I ask them, evidence of who is doing this? “There’s not a smoking gun,” says Howard. “There are smoking machine guns. There are multiple pieces of evidence.”

“Look at this,” he says and shows me how, before the US election, hundreds upon hundreds of websites were set up to blast out just a few links, articles that were all pro-Trump. “This is being done by people who understand information structure, who are bulk buying domain names and then using automation to blast out a certain message. To make Trump look like he’s a consensus.”
And that requires money?
“That requires organisation and money. And if you use enough of them, of bots and people, and cleverly link them together, you are what’s legitimate. You are creating truth.”

You can take an existing trending topic, such as fake news, and then weaponise it. You can turn it against the very media that uncovered it. Viewed in a certain light, fake news is a suicide bomb at the heart of our information system. Strapped to the live body of us – the mainstream media.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage

This is just a small snippet of an extremely long article......
However, it is well worth the time --
As it addresses How Bannon & Mercer successfully utilized technology to create the propaganda that put 45 in the Oval Office...

This appears to be the new standard in campaign communication strategy....
The only way to beat it is to fully understand it &/or learn how to use it.....

[lapucelle]

1. We're at the unfortunate point where even generally reliable

news outlets are more interested in short term ratings gains (and the concomitant revenue) than actual journalism.

I actually heard someone on MSNBC say today that the Comey hearing on Monday is going to be important...for ratings.

[ProudLib72]

2. Who in the WH understands information structure?

Answer: NO ONE!

All this came from Russia.

[KittyWampus]

3. Democrats need to utilize data mining/social media. It's way more targeted as opposed to tv ad buys

which are scatter shot and very expensive.