Reddit mentions: The best communication & media studies

Having done opponent research and fundraising for state democrats in Chicago, I can tell you that without a doubt, the smaller the election, the better it is for the majority party. In non presidential elections or any local elections, people that do vote will vote the party line or according to the name they recognize. Chicago is a very segregated city. If the district/ward is primarily Polish or German, having a Polish or German name is very necessary to be elected as a judge or alderman. In the Irish wards, Flanagan, O'Malley, etc. are just as powerful. Because people often only go to vote for one position, they will often go with whatever feels comfortable or good for the others they don't recognize.

As to your contention that abstention is a good thing, it really is not unless there is a consequence for abstention such as no candidates being elected. During a modern campaign, the goal is to get the people who have voted before to show up at the polls and then try to swing the undecideds to your side. The other goal is to lower the turnout for your opponent. While most people think it is about motivating people to vote in general, such a strategy is almost guaranteed to lose unless you have unlimited funds. A good book to read is The Race to 270. It covers the 2000 and 2004 campaigns and demonstrates the change from macro campaigns to micro or targeted campaigns. (I spent my whole undergrad studying campaigns). By pinpointing specific areas with higher concentrations of voter turnout, a campaign can spend their money effectively. Imagine sabermetrics in baseball, but for political campaigns. It's why Bush could win 2000 elections by choosing very specific Florida counties that were Red in past elections to recount (Gore failed to realize the strategy until it was too late) and winning the 2004 election without carrying the national vote. I have already gone on too much, but essentially Karl Rove figured out that certain issues and targeting certain groups was much more effective than trying to rally people to vote.

What this all means is that there are always going to be a certain number of people who vote for each side and then a certain number of voters that are undecideds. It is much cheaper to focus on your base and those voting undecided than to galvanize new people to take time to vote and vote for you. Therefore the incentive is not to come up with good ideas, but to pander to the known voters. Its why the Tea Party had such a strong presence in 2010 despite being so small. They were loud and they voted.

So abstaining without consequence is a bad thing because it only reinforces the campaign strategies that are the most successful and cost effective.

If you are interested in campaign and voting politics check out these books:

Get Out The Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout. They do a great breakdown of cost/benefits of specific campaign strategies like mailers, meet and greets, TV spots, etc.

The Persuadable Voter: Wedge Issues in Presidential Campaigns. They do a good job of defining and tracking wedge issues (e.g. abortion, guns, etc.) and how modern campaigns use them to split the opponents base or unify their base. One of the key arguments is that it is often in one or both sides' best interest to not solve a wedge issue. It's fascinating in light of Obamacare and the way that has become a wedge issue.

tl;dr It is cheaper and more effective to target areas with large concentrations of voters than to try to persuade non-voters to vote in the first place. I also recommend PS 411 for any current or future Illini undergrads.

u/ExpressNess I think Communication Studies is a fun minor to have if you are looking to use computer science to create positive change in society or communicate better with people. It's a lot valuable life-skills, work/life relationship skills, ethical reasoning skills, and soft-skills that non-programming Computer Science classes try to teach and just aren't able to teach effectively. I personally only know 3 other people in Computer Science actively pursuing it. Here's my experience:

Comm Theory is definitely a harder class in my opinion (it's a pre-req) because of memorization and if you aren't used to studying human communication and relationships, but it's definitely valuable in learning. A lot of things seem like common sense but they are based on different theories.

Textbook: https://www.amazon.com/First-Communication-Theory-Conversations-Theorists-ebook/dp/B00VF61QTC/ref=sr_1_3?crid=238JE3CAIS2CI&keywords=communication+communication+communication&qid=1554518401&s=books&sprefix=communication+communication+comm%2Cstripbooks%2C210&sr=1-3

Beyond that class, there's a lot of cool opportunities and fun and useful classes.

I already had public speaking out of the way coming to UNC Charlotte and took COMM 2102 - Advanced Public Speaking to enhance my public speaking abilities since I do a lot of workshops and talks in tech. I've learned so many other ways to give speeches that I've never have thought about. It's gotten me skills to be confident enough to write an outline and practice a speech to submit for a TED talk. Also, I learned a bit of voice acting.

COMM-3120 Mass Media was fun! I took it with Prof. Tim Horne online and basically watched a lot of Netflix and wrote about how media and tech shapes manipulation of our reality. If anything, I learned a lot of skills to spot fake news if I daresay.

COMM-3136 Leadership, and Service with Adam Burden was amazing. Got to do volunteering work and meet a lot of student leaders on campus and learn about leading a team. The things I've learned in that class has helped me in a lot of group projects and I learned a lot on my personal strengths and values when working in teams and organizations. There's a service project which is just group volunteering which does help you with your soft-skills on your resume. It's based on relational leadership:

This is an awesome textbook that's used for that class: https://www.amazon.com/Exploring-Leadership-College-Students-Difference/dp/1118399471

There also a lot about the process of being inclusive and empowering others purposefully and ethically which a lot of tech companies are looking at as it's generally a problem in the tech industry.

Global Media - You learn a lot of views of the whole world and how technology effects culture and vice versa. It really opens up on a lot of ethical perspectives on how tech and media effects democracy and marginalized communities. Really, I think it the class should be called "Working towards achieving world peace through emerging tech, civilizations, media, and economies" tbh. Also, the professor is famous, worked for the United Nations, and wrote the textbook.

Textbook: https://www.amazon.com/Citizenship-Democracies-Engagement-Marginalized-Communities-ebook/dp/B075R3YXJ2/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=democracy+marginalized+economies&qid=1554517749&s=books&sr=1-1

For a related LBST 2102 Global Connections class, I'd also recommend taking Language, Media, and Peace with Prof. Jillian Wagner at the same time with Global Media or Mass Media if possible. This class is similar but focuses on the power of language and peace.

There's also Interpersonal Communications, Group Communications, etc...

> I'll agree that the paper's conclusion may not be perfectly represented in the video. However I do think that the conclusions outlined in the video are far closer to the reality of the data than the narrative typically pushed.

The reality of what data?

> Do you have any data that does show that a significant amount of minority gamers are adversely affected by current video game norms?

After years of arguing with Creationists on the Internet these types of questions always make me weary. I'm not sure how much of a gotcha that question was designed to be, but giving you the benefit of the doubht I woudl say that there is no single data set or research paper that demonstrates the adverse affect of unrepresentation of minorities in media, in the same way that there is no paper that proves evolution takes place. This is because the field in discussion is vast and science does not work in order to allow the easy winning of Internet debates.

So I would say to you the same thing I would say to a Creationist asking for me to demonstrate evolution happens, you need to immerse yourself in the research in this subject in order to gain a clear idea of the field.

If you are interested in that I would suggest introductionary books on media studies. A few that seem up to date and which include tons of resources would be

http://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Minorities-Media-Changing-Boundaries/dp/0335202705
http://www.amazon.com/Gender-Race-Class-Media-Critical/dp/1452259062

I have not read either of those, but from scanning them on Google Books they seem reasonable.

Now of course you may balk at the idea of spending $70 on a media studies text book or devoting that much time to the subject. That is fine. I may say to a Creationist that you have to understand biology to understand evolution, but I do not expect them to go away an enroll themselves in a B.Sc Biology until we can continue. Luckly they don't have to because lots of other people already have. And you can just listen to them.

In the same way that you can just trust that the thousands of biologists working in the area of evolutionary biology have already figured out that yes evolution takes place (despite all the Creationist objections), you can also trust that the thousands of media studies academics are just pulling this all out of their asses. I know it has become fashionable to laugh at subjects such as media studies as being "just-so" stories, but then if you feel that you can go and buy the text books and learn for yourself.

> And likewise, any data on a proposed solution that would correct the problem rather than just (and preferably not at all) stifle creativity and free choice?

I never understand this line of thinking. What do you mean by "stifle creativity and free choice?" What is creativity in this regard?

Taking the example of Friends, which vastly underrepresented the number of black Americans that one would typically find in any 20 meter section of New York, was it "creativity" that lead to this white washing of New York? Or just laziness or ignorance? I don't think it was some ones creative decision to pretend black people don't exist in New York.

If it was that is even worse than simple laziness, that is someone actively choosing to pretend black people don't exist. I fail to see how we are expected to be concerned that this "creativity" is stifled

I have to disagree with you on this.

Is being ill-informed unintelligent? An intelligent person can still lack information. Even the smartest of people can't know of a top level secret without a whistleblower and they certainly won't know whats happening across the world from them without being informed of it truthfully. This is the purpose of the press. To inform the people whether they are smart dumb, black, white, fat, skinny, etc.

We can measure the accuracy of media and hold media outlets and corporations accountable. We can and do study the political economy of media. The idea of a free press is not a "lofty" standard. We can measure how media outlets told the truth at the moment of truth. This is not immeasurable. In fact the as of February 12th 2014, the United States is ranked 46th in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index.

If one person watches Fox News and another watches Jon Stewart it isn't that one is smarter than the other (not that it matters) it is that both are being subjected to "infotainment". This is not news that informs the voter. The real problem is that American journalists do their jobs the way corporate media expects them to. For profit. This does not align with the 1st amendment. A free press is not founded in profit. A free press creates a free dialogue and populous. A for profit system creates customers. Thats why Fox news lovers love Fox and Daily Show lovers love Stewart. Each mother company that profits from them holds profit as the ultimate ideology.

I recommend checking out Robert McChesney's Political Economy of Media, and Digital Disconnect (same author) and Richard Falk's Israel-Palentine on Record. Also follow [FAIR],(http://fair.org/) [Democracy Now] (www.democracynow.org/)! or if you are lazy/have some time check this video out.

TD;LR: Corporate media creates ill informed voters. Yadda, yadda, yadda, liberal college student, yadda yadda yadda, Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent.

Hmm... I must say I take exactly the opposite stance on Noam and Free speech that you do – he always strikes me as a leader and champion in such things.

Among many many other things he actually ended up putting his carrier (and possibly life) at risk defending free speech in the Faurisson affair.

One of Noam's most famous quotes is "If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech for views you don't like. Stalin and Hitler, for example, were dictators in favor of freedom of speech for views they liked only. If you're in favor of freedom of speech, that means you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise." (from his book Manufacturing Consent which deals with EXACTLY what gamer gate is dealing with: calling out a corrupt political elite controlling the narratives that come out of the mass media as to manipulate the populous into otherwise unpopular views.)

But I do like to understand where people are coming from as I might learn something. Could you let me know how you reached that Stance on Noam? ...because I am pretty surprised and confused by it.

First of all, you need to invest in a copy of the Writer's and Artist's Yearbook.

The section for illustrators is very small, but contains excellent advice. It also contains a comprehensive list, with contact details, of all UK press and broadcast media. This is it's real strength.

It also contains advice regarding getting an agent (a good idea if you want to make a living out of illustration), what you can expect from them etc. It is the bible for self-employed or freelance commercial artists and writers. Well worth £15 or so.

I can't recommend an industry body to you, as I'm not an illustrator. But I can give you an example of a similar organisation to which I belong, which is the Society of Authors. I don't know if you'd be eligible for membership as an illustrator, but if you can find a similar, respectable organisation, I'd recommend it.

The W&A Yearbook should also contain a list of stock image libraries, although you can search for these online easily. Consider the type of work they do and perhaps, when you have little commissioned work on, maybe create images for a stock library. Most do not pay up front, but you will receive usage fees should they be licensed by a client.

Also, there is a W&A yearbook for children's publications. You shouldn't ignore this market. Children's publications consume a lot of illustration, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Oh god, my heart. It's aching a bit because you're saying 1995 is old. No, no, no, that was just yesterday what are you talking about.

The beauty of fandom is that, along with being obsessive about a TV show or a movie or a book or a game or anything, is that there are people who are obsessive about fandom. And research it. And write books.

So you can find Enterprising Women by Camille Bacon-Smith and Textual Poachers by Henry Jenkins, which aren't perfect, but both of them give fantastic insight into how Star Trek fandom was in the 80s and 90s (and I believe that the latest version of Textual Poachers also gets into the transition into the Internet).

And from there, you can dig into more ethnographies and fan histories and the like. And then if you get really into it, and really want to do research, there are 'zine archives in a lot of large academic libraries (UC Riverside's and University of Iowa's are pretty amazing to browse).

But here's what I remember from being a teenager in the early '90s and being obsessed with nerdy things.

I was really into Star Trek. So I would get Starlog magazine, and read through the letters and the penpal section and all that, and I'd write to people. I submitted stuff to a few 'zines, and then from there I'd find out about other 'zines, and then I'd write to those and I'd keep writing letters and reivews and stories and sending them out.

I lived in the LA area, and Creation Cons were a big thing. I went to my first Star Trek convention in...1991, I think. And I got to hear the guests talk and check out the merchandise stalls and talk to fans and it was amazing, because here were actual people who were interested in the same things I was.

There were Star Trek cons, and Quantum Leap cons, and I went to a lot of those, and that increased my penpal list and my 'zine list and I wrote a few more random things for various places. I joined a Star Trek letter-based RPG. You would take a role on the bridge, send your actions to your captain, and they would pull everything together and send a letter back telling you what was happening on the bridge.

So, really, my fandom experience pre-Internet was a lot like my fandom experience now - it just took a lot longer and you needed a lot of stamps.

I'll take number 4.

My favorite intro book on media and politics is Media Politics: A Citizen's Guide by Shanto Iyengar. It's a great textbook for teaching undergrads and covers pretty much everything.

For general theories of how political elites interact with the media, I would recommend Cook's Governing with the News, Patterson's Out of Order, and Zaller's A Theory of Media Politics (It's an unpublished manuscript, so just Google it and it'll come up.)

There's a ton of great work on the concept of media bias, but I'll give you two older works that I think capture the intersection of journalistic norms and coverage really well. Check out Gans's Deciding What's News and Schudson's Discovering the News. There's also work that looks at how economic forces lead to bias. See Hamilton's All the News That's Fit to Sell for an intro to that.

On media effects on behavior, start with Iyengar and Kinder's News that Matters. Beyond that, I'm partial to Graber's Processing the News, Soroka's Negativity in Democratic Politics, and Ladd's Why Americans Hate the Media and How it Matters.

If you're interested in how recent changes to the media environment (cable TV, internet, etc.) have affected things, I would recommend Prior's Post-Broadcast Democracy, Arceneaux and Johnson's Changing Minds or Changing Channels, Levendusky's How Partisan Media Polarize America, and Hindman's The Myth of Digital Democracy.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't recommend some Lippmann or some Edelman. Those are for more high-minded/theory-driven thinking about how the media constructs our realities.

I know that's a lot, but there's a ton of stuff I'm cutting out as is (nothing about selective exposure or motivated reasoning, barely touching on the framing literature). If you have any more specific questions about American media, I can probably narrow it down some more.

Oh, and a couple quick recommendations on the other questions (which aren't really my specialty). I really liked Democracy for Realists by Achen and Bartels. Frances Lee's new book on political messaging in Congress is pretty interesting. And I'm a subscriber to the legislative subsidy school of thought on interest groups.

The Law by Frederic Bastiat (awesome, short, soooo many quotable quotes)

Healing Our World by Dr. Mary Ruwart (old version available free)

Haven't read any of his books (have listened to many lectures and radio show), but something by Harry Browne should do quite nicely. I've heard great things about Why Government Doesn't Work

Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity - John Stossel (do check out his excellent Fox Business show "Stossel" on hulu.com, and look for his old 20/20 specials on libertarianism - they're fantastic)

good economists: Peter Schiff, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Walter Block

You might be better off waiting til you get more comfortable with libertarianism, but G. Edward Griffin's Creature From Jekyll Island is a must read. It's more about the monetary system and the Federal Reserve than libertarianism in general though.

I haven't read anything that makes a good argument against libertarianism, but can recommend a guy who makes a seemingly good argument against capitalism and for socialism - Michael Parenti. I haven't read any of his pro-socialist books (but have one on foreign policy called The Terrorist Trap which is quite good and very short. Libertarians and socialists tend to agree on not inviting war and not waging war). But I have listened to his pro-socialist lectures - they're well delivered and impassioned and a person who didn't know any better would easily be tempted. They're worth listening to to use his arguments and twist them to actually make the case FOR libertarianism. He'll use some faulty facts/data that leftists typically do such as "Hoover was an ardent free-market advocate and we can blame him and capitalism for causing the Great Depression" (we can blame him for the depression all right (prolonging it, to be specific), not b/c he was a capitalist but b/c he really started all the policies that FDR continued when he got into office)

What you're ignoring is that the gravest insults under which you suffer are perpetrated by those authorities you deem "insufficient". Petty slights in everyday life pale in insignificance compared to the systemic crimes against your rights by the powerful (and are in fact to a large extent caused by these systemic frustrations), and a system like this would do nothing but grant them unprecedented powers to expand these crimes.



Want some literature? Begin with the obvious, Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World. Next, read up on complex systems theory, maybe take a course or at least have a look through some of the videos here. Having some insight into behavioural economics and power dynamics is very useful.

Then read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, and then Necessary Illusions by the same Chomsky ("Understanding Power - The Essential Chomsky" is also a good, but long, one) for an overview of the mentioned systemic crimes by those in power, and for a general understanding of how power operates on large scales. Many will discount Chomsky due to his political leanings, I think that's a huge error. The way he argues and presents relies heavily on actual examples and real-world comparisons, and these are useful even if you fundamentally disagree with his political stance (I personally belong on the left of the spectrum, but I do not subscribe to his anarcho-libertarianism or anarcho-syndicalist stances). I also recommend "Austerity - The History of a Dangerous Idea" by economist Mark Blyth for this purpose.

Finally, Extra Credits has a good introduction to the concept of gamification with the playlist here. At the end, see this video for an introduction to the actual Sesame Credits system in the gamification perspective.

The field is inherently cross-disciplinary, and "specialisation" in the field is almost a misnomer since the only way to get there, really, is to have a broad (if not deep) understanding of multiple fields, including psychology, pedagogy, linguistics, game design theory, design theory in general, economics, management and leadership theory, complex systems and network analysis, and now it seems politics as well. Some gamification specialists operate in much narrower fields and so do not need this broad an approach (generally, most people in the field operate in teams that contain most of this knowledge), and some of the fields incorporate aspects from the others so you won't have to explicitly study all of them (pedagogy, for example, is in many ways a branch of applied psychology, and game design theory must include lessons on psychology and complex systems).

Edit: Added Amazon links to the mentioned books.

these topics are interesting, and there are a lot of related subjects which would be beneficial to learn. I hope it's correct to assume you're in America.

i haven't actually read these linked books, just doing a little search for you because I miss my days studying politics

The American Political Party System: Continuity and Change Over Ten Presidential Elections

The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000

Political Scandal: Power and Visability in the Media Age

Mass Media and American Politics

Demographic Gaps in American Political Behavior

Religion and Politics in the United States

Words Like Loaded Pistols: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama

Soviet Society in the Era of Late Socialism, 1964-1985

How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business (Culture and Society after Socialism)

The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers

I think using the political scandals books would be really important. Because let's face it, yes politicians do lie but they don't always get off the hook. I think the book on rhetoric would also be super interesting. Learning about soviet / chinese society is interesting because they have it worse than us in terms of lying politicians (I'm a good patriot)

You should try and use historical-overview type texts for the bulk of citation. If you are quoting opinionated pieces, you can't just present their opinion as fact. You should reference the topic using the neutral sources as well.

By the way, an incredibly useful tool for constructing this kind of reading list is looking at the bibliographies of other books.

Start with: How to Change Your Mind (start with this detailed annotated summary). The pop culture starting point these days. The summary is all you need to read to understand the entire book but the book is well worth the time.

After that you'll have more ideas where to do. Below is a lot of stuff. I've watched/read all of them, so happy to answer any questions/give more guidance.

​

Study the "classics" by taking a look at these (skim the long ones to start):

Seeking the Magic Mushroom (first western trip report on mushrooms)

My 12 Hours As A Madman (another historically important trip report)

The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based On The TIbetan Book of the Dead (classic book on guided trips)

LSD My Problem Child by Albert Hoffman

Al Hubbard: The Original Captian Trips

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Docs to Watch:

The Sunshine Makers (documentary)

Orange Sunshine (documentary)

Aya: Awakenings (documentary)

Dirty Pictures (documentary)

A New Understanding: The Science of Psilocybin (documentary)

Hoffmans Potion (documentary): r/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFfblVjCwOU"

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And a whole lot of others:

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Books

The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide – James Fadiman
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction – Gabor Mate
Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream – Jay Stevens
Psychedelic Psychiatry: LSD from clinic to campus – Erika Dyck
The Natural Mind: A Revolutionary Approach to the Drug Problem – Andrew Weil
Acid Hype: American News Media and the Psychedelic Experience – Stephen Siff
Acid Dreams: The complete social history of LSD – Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain
Drugs: Without the Hot Air – David Nutt
A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life – Ayelet Waldman
Neuropsychedelia: The Revival of Hallucinogen Research Since the Decade of the Brain – Nicolas Langlitz
The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America – Don Lattin

Videos

Terence McKenna discusses the stoned ape theory

A Conversation on LSD – In a video from the late 1970s, Al Hubbard, Timothy Leary, Humphry Osmond, Sidney Cohen and others reflect on LSD’s heyday

Alison Gopnik and Robin Carhart-Harris at the 2016 Science of Consciousness Conference

The Future of Psychedelic Psychiatry – a discussion between Thomas Insel and Paul Summergrad

Documents, Articles & Artifacts

Al Hubbard’s FBI file

Remembrances of LSD Therapy Past – Betty Grover Eisner’s unpublished memoir about her role in developing psychedelic therapy

LSD, Insight or Insanity – Transcript of excerpts from hearings of the Subcommittee
on the Executive Reorganization of the Senate Committee on Government Operations [concerning federal research and regulation of LSD-25] May 24, 1966

The Brutal Mirror: What an ayahuasca retreat showed me about my life —A Vox writer’s first-person account

​

Forums

Ayahuasca.com: Includes experience reports, discussion of spirituality, ecology, healing, and recovery by means of the vine are collected here. A place to learn from members of ayahuasca churches, as well as a few foreign language channels.

Bluelight: A 20 year old online harm reduction forum that fosters open and factual discussion of drugs and provides support for those seeking recovery from addiction.

DMT Nexus: A hub for underground psychedelic research on botanical sources of tryptamines and other psychedelic compounds.

5Hive: A newer forum devoted specifically to 5-MeO-DMT — synthetic, botanical or toad-derived.

Mycotopia: All things mycological — discussions of edible, wild, and psychoactive fungi.

The Shroomery: A forum  devoted to cultivating psilocybin-containing mushrooms and sharing trip reports.

TRIPSIT: A 24/7 online harm reduction resource.  Users can chat instantly with someone about their drug experience, or questions they may have about about the safe(r) use of a wide variety of controlled substances.

They had the story from an NSA informant (actually a FISA court lawyer). They were told by the Bush administration that "the terrorists would win" if they published it, so they buried it.

http://www.npr.org/2014/06/05/319233332/new-york-times-editor-losing-snowden-scoop-really-painful

If you want a better idea of the timeline on it, Frontline covered it pretty well.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-secrets/

If you want a better idea why the New York Times would cow-tow to the White House like that, Manufacturing Consent does a pretty good job of explaining the forces at play here (access, flack, anti-terror hysteria).

First appreciate the concept of the overton window. That political shifts are relative to the era they occur in. You do not suddenly go from an authoritarian theocracy to a progressive democracy over night. It's a gradual process sometimes spanning generations.

In the context of these internet communities. You create various sock puppet accounts to make it look as though the communities are more popular than they are. Then use those various accounts to normalize concepts. Spam racism. Downvote dissenting posts. Tell them it's just edgy humour and they need to stop being so uptight. Upvote other peoples accounts that adopt the behaviours your desire like parroting racism.

Over time through an instinctual desire for group conformity you end up with communities that are a mix of genuine racists and people who think racism is just a really funny joke. Now the actual brainwashing can begin. They are no longer repulsed by racism. It's just a joke. Nationalism is just memes. HAHA! They start posting more serious content. That another rape by a minority group occurred. That murderer is an immigrant. That the innocent kid who was murdered by police was really some kind of gangster thug. You still keep pumping memes because you want to your community to grow. But now you start posting links to discussions on other sites and forums. And your racists and trolls go and normalise such views in the real world. Imitating the behaviour they have been programmed with.

When governments do it. It's called psychological warfare or psyops. This is carried out by many nations. Russia's internet research agency is a noteworthy one. There have been reports of the Isreali Defence Force posting pro-israel propaganda on forums. There were even allegedly grants given to students that took part in such operations. And don't take this as some liberal lefty getting butt hurt over trump. Or some casual antisemitism. Every major power is involved in this shit. We are. America is. China is. India is. Everybody is. Maybe not targetting us specifically all the time, but you'd better believe when they see an opportunity like brexit they seize it.

Then there's civilian groups that tend to use it to secure funding for their movements. Like how the far-right use various chat servers to coordinate misinformation.

And that leaves us in our current predicament. There's no way of telling who is real, and who is a troll, or who is a part of a foreign intelligence community, or who is a sock puppet account for a political group trying to lobby support for their self-interested cause. When the fascists aren't boasting that they're printing their ideology on beermats it's a lot harder to know if they're really British.

For me. It's not about censoring anonymity. It's about creating verified communities.

Oh and I almost forgot. This isn't just limited to politics and hybrid warfare. It's also widely used by marketing firms. Google "influencer pricing".

Edit: Oh, a great book on the subject is Manufacturing Consent. Though this is more of a historical approach when such operations could only really be run by large media groups like newspapers, tv, and radio.

Appreciate the post fellow Patriot!

Welcome anyone wanting more info on QAnon, please check out our current Amazon political best selling book:

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I'm quite into reading politics related books so if you like I can recommend a couple that I'd buy myself :P

This book by Naomi Klein is FANTASTIC

I quite liked the look of this one as well

A really interesting book on Political Theory

If he doesn't like Chomsky, he doesn't like politics!

Can never have too much Chomsky!

Maybe a bit o' Lincoln too?

Oh jeez.

I actually kinda want to revisit that DDoS episode for a couple reasons. Not to least, my friend Molly, who helped with that ep, just released her book on the subject which is AMAZING. If you're looking for some reading, highly recommended.

Pairs well with another colleague's book about Anonymous that just came out, if you need new reading times two.

"Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America's Conspiracist Underground" by Jonathan Kay is pretty great. It tries to understand conspiracy theorists' motivations and reasons for thinking the way they do in a non-mocking way, as many of them (9/11 truthers in particular) are actually pretty intelligent and patriotic, wishing for the rule of law to prevail over whoever they believe really did 9/11.

http://www.amazon.com/Among-Truthers-Cognitive-Underworld-American/dp/0062004816

Also: "The Great Derangement: War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire" by Matt Taibbi has a section about his time immersed in the 9/11 truther movement, followed by a pretty biting and hilarious analysis of the fundamental logical failures that underpin all 9/11 conspiracy thinking.

http://www.amazon.ca/The-Great-Derangement-Terrifying-Politics/dp/0385520344

The reason I went into journalism and have a strong interest in health journalism is because of reporter John Stossel and his great work covering the issue of consumer scams in the late 1990s and 2000's. His book Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity spends a chapter on the issue of chiropractors and basically lays out that with his research and under-cover work that as far as he could tell then: its mostly a scam.

​

The book is a little dated (published 2006) but it really impacted me on how good journalism can break through to hard truths and point out bonkers things in society.

​

Its a quick read and I recommend it to you guys!

There's a great book you might enjoy:

• Amazon: Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground
  
  
• NYT Review: Inside the World of Conspiracy Theorists
  
  
• Bloggingheads: A great one hour interview of the author.
  
  The author, Jonathan Kay, is the editor of Canada's The National Post newspaper.

I'm pretty sure a book is a source and generally a highly regarded source in both media and academia.

Not obscure - The BBC: Myth of a Public Service https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1784784826/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_5OAPDbFGME8F6

Amazon have it good to go for your kindle or soft and hardback books are available.

If you think I'm going to disseminate a 288 page book on the subject for you, I don't think you've got much chance.

Great. Thanks for that. Good timing too as I have just finished reading the new Media Lens book.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Propaganda-Blitz-Corporate-Distort-Reality/dp/0745338119/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537984427&sr=8-1&keywords=propaganda+blitz

Here’s some books:

• 9 books

-most of these can be found in video form on YouTube

• understanding power

• manufacturing consent kindle (couldn’t find it as a pdf)

Chomsky is a great read, he also has some great lectures on YouTube. The reason that only a tiny minority knows him is because of his lack of appearance in mainstream media (in my opinion). He summarizes it greatly in this video:

Noam Chomsky- concision

All mass media has been biased since it's inception. Partisan bias is one single facet of the biases of mass media and shouldn't be taken as the only one. As per Chomsky:

1. Size, Ownership, and Profit Orientation of the Mass Media. Mainstream media is essentially owned by corporations and the government, because those are the very agents who fund them. Any favourable studies, studies or information that the government or corporations want the public to know (or don’t want them to know) either ends up being aired or buried as a result.
   
   
2. Advertising License to do Business. Mass media isn’t interested in attracting viewers to educate them, but rather to sell them on something. They’re more interested in engaging an audience with higher buying power than actually making a difference through education and information.
   
   
3. Sourcing Mass-Media News. Whatever is aired on mass media needs to be 100% credible, meaning it’s viewers need to completely trust what’s being aired, without the need of them using their critical thinking skills. Since the majority of the public trusts the government and mass corporations, AKA the propaganda machines, most of the “news worthy” content comes from them.
   
   
4. Flak and the Enforcers. “Flak” refers to negative responses to a media statement or program aired on the network. Perhaps the most influential producers of flak are corporations and the government. Corporations have created large scale organizations whose sole purpose is to produce flak. The government is also a large producer of flak, as it constantly corrects or threatens the media based on their interests.
   
   
5. Anticommunism as a Control Mechanism. Everything at home seems to be a lesser evil if there’s something on the news that seems much worse (fake terrorist attacks, false enemies, and/or “radical” states). Anything that sounds too left can also be dismissed if it sounds too much like “communism.” By creating an extremely anti-communist state, the elite will never have to worry about losing control over society because their wealth and power remains safe and sound.
   
   A great animated version of this is available here.

Not a well known book outside of the UK I think but brilliantly simple and impactful. Has been a cornerstone in my view of media along with Manufacturing Consent and Propaganda. Once you've gone through those you'll probably be more inclined to focus on your own life.

In no specific order: The Dictator's Handbook: presents a realist perspective on international and intra-national politics, specifically it presents a real-world analysis of politics through the lens of Selectorate Theory.

Something from Chomsky, I'd say Manufacturing Consent or Understanding Power or both. Chomsky has written about 40 books so it's impossible to keep up with him and you may end up disagreeing on substantial points, but I think he's probably the most important to read because he situates his political analysis outside the invisible constraints of American political culture, and American political culture tends to be naive about the goals and methods of government and other institutions.

Watch this CGP Grey video and consider how it applies to political parties, political discourse, and political activism. Afterwards you should either read the meme wikipedia page or Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene.

Looking back I notice all my recommendations circle around studying politics itself as a phenomena, I don't know if that's what you meant but you might enjoy it. If you're more wondering which political stances you should take, decide that by which policies have empirical evidence of working and base your decisions on how robust you think the evidence is.

1. Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins
   
   
2. A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
   
   
3. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media by Edward Herman & Noam Chomsky
   
   
4. Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies and the Public Relations Industry by John Stauber

This book may be of help, it is quite an interesting read

https://www.amazon.co.uk/BBC-Myth-Public-Service/dp/1784784826

I recommend Tom Mill's book on the long history of the BBC and government. It's been used by various governments to years to push a range of agendas. People really need to understand its biases if they want to have a nuanced debate about the issue.
A single Reddit comment isn't capable of explaining this well enough for a good discussion.

I just read this book, it should help you: https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Model-Today-Filtering-Perception/dp/1912656167

media ownership is more concentrated than it was, the new technologies like the internet get 80% of their news from the corporate media, apparently.

conformity among intellectuals is slightly less than what it was, it is now possible to mention the propaganda model in academia without being laughed at.

I encourage everyone to read this book. Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky he explains detail about how the media is changing everything.

Awesome article.

For more, here's a decent documentary based on Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent:

>It's basically an institutional analysis of the major media, what we call a propaganda model[...] they do this in all sorts of ways: by selection of topics, by distribution of concerns, by emphasis and framing of issues, by filtering of information, by bounding of debate within certain limits. They determine, they select, they shape, they control, they restrict -- in order to serve the interests of dominant, elite groups in the society.

That’s not surprising. Propaganda works. There’s a book you might want to check out called Manufacturing Consent that explains why the media pushes certain ideas even if those ideas are lies. The book was written in the 80s but it’s just as true today as it was then.

https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media-ebook/dp/B0055PJ4R0

Then you have a weird fetish for everything Trump - repeat a lie long enough its the Truth, all publicity is good publicity ! https://www.amazon.co.uk/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0099533111

> When I wrote a book about conspiracy theories a few years back, I found there is a rich lore of anti-Baconian sentiment among many radical thinkers.

[This is a fascinating read.] (http://www.amazon.com/Among-Truthers-Americas-Conspiracist-Underground/dp/0062004816)

My student Molly Sauter has written an awesome book about this very topic which really provides the best answer http://www.amazon.com/The-Coming-Swarm-Hacktivism-Disobedience/dp/1623564565

But generally there is so much fear and misunderstandings about DDoS it is frightening. One of my students this year likened a DDoS to setting a hotel on fire--even after a few lectures about it! I had to remind the student that while it is ok to disagree with its use and it does cost companies $ and resources, the fire analogy does not work and is rather alarming. So one big step would be just get people to understand what happens during a DDoS attack/campaign.

Manufacturing consent is as relevant as ever.

Sadly, most journalists seem to read it and think it's a text on best practices.

McGowan, David (in English). Derailing Democracy: The America the Media Don't Want You to See. Common Courage Press. p. 13. ISBN 1567511848.

I wouldn't pin your hopes on the BBC; they manipulate the news to their own agenda as much as anyone else. Here's a good book on it - https://www.amazon.co.uk/BBC-Myth-Public-Service/dp/1784784826/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1479236347&sr=8-12&keywords=Bbc

It's generally if a particular issue touches your life in a direct personal way, such as the way agricultural policy affects farmers. Partisan attachments are very deeply held, symbolic, emotional, and hard to change -- so for anything to trump that it usually has to be deeply personal as well. But that's probably only for one or two issues, at most.

There's also a concept of "cross-pressures," which basically means some voters belong to multiple social groups that pull them in conflicting directions, such as black Republicans or Baptist Democrats, and some research says these are the people who are most likely to buck their party's issue positions. But although that's independent of partisan identification, it's probably not what you meant by "independent opinions" -- it's just dependent on social pressures by groups other than parties.

More recently, there was a book by Sunshine Hillygus and Todd Shields that re-interprets "cross-pressured" as voters who disagree with their own party on one or more issues. However, IIRC they are primarily concerned with the effects of this incongruence rather than the cause of it.

I'm not sure there's much research about what could make somebody a truly independent, rational, critical thinking, engaged, citizen who makes decisions about all issues for him/herself without deferring in any way to group or partisan attachments. Many people sincerely believe that describes them, but empirically it's difficult to find a whole lot of evidence for that at all.

This book is decent It also has a chapter on Ayn Rand objectivism as a cult.

Also see another book:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Believing-Brain-Conspiracies-How-Construct/dp/1250008808/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=128C3144EKDPV7SQPYRY


Among the Truthers is also not bad.

This is a good book about conspiracy theorists, I recommend it: http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0062004816

anyone surprised by this should read this and this and later this

The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness (Critical Digital and Social Media Studies) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1912656167/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_e7cYDbFH1ZR7X is an excellent collection of updates and expanded roles to the propaganda model

https://www.amazon.com/QAnon-Invitation-Great-Awakening-WWG1WGA/dp/1942790139

Click this link to go to book on Amazon

Someone made a sub this time around to document the widespread absurdity:

/r/BernieBlindness

It's hard to not conclude the media aren't a corrupt monolith.

EDIT:

Noam Chomsky concluded this long ago:
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

Noam Chomsky​ Lecture with introduction by Bernie Sanders​

Have you heard of this book at all?

They do write books though.

That was right out of Manufacturing Consent last night, if you ask me.

Very related and, frankly, required reading: Manufacturing Consent

Not believing the CIA/mass media/whoever != believing Trump.

Here's something you should probably read.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0055PJ4R0/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Yanna Krupnikov (YK):Much of the research in political science focuses on the idea that people aren’t likely to change their minds Even though many scholars (see for example Lodge and Taber’s [book] (https://www.amazon.com/Rationalizing-Cambridge-Studies-Political-Psychology/dp/052117614X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478273033&sr=8-1&keywords=lodge+and+taber)) find this in many contexts, but not all people are immune to persuasion.

First – and most obviously – people who have weak opinions are most open to new information and changing views. But its more than just a weak opinion. In their [book] (https://www.amazon.com/Persuadable-Voter-Issues-Presidential-Campaigns/dp/0691143366/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478273091&sr=8-1&keywords=hillygus+and+shields), Hillygus and Shields show that people who have positions that are in some way unusual for their partisan group (so, for example Republicans who hold a liberal position on one issue or Democrats who hold a conservative position on one issue) are also more likely to change their minds.

Your question is about individual characteristics, but there is also the question of context. Some people are more or less open to persuasion depending on the context they are in. In my own research with Eric Groenendyk, I've shown that once you put someone into a very combative, political context, their “shields” go up and they become much more likely to dismiss a lot of information. In contrast, you may find people to be more open to political information in a situation that is less combative and less political.

Similarly, Bashir’s [work] (http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/lockwood/PDF/Bashir%202013.pdf) in psychology suggests that people are resist \ information transmitted by those who call themselves “activists.”

So, what this may suggest people are more likely to resist information from those who have a long history of trying to persuade them or a long history of combative behavior but may be more welcoming of new information from those that they do not necessarily view as having purely political goals.

Of course, some people are closed to persuasion no matter what, but for others context/persuader may play a key role.

WWG1WGA =
https://www.amazon.com/QAnon-Invitation-Great-Awakening-WWG1WGA/product-reviews/1942790139/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_show_all_btm?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews

Crazy stuff

Disgusting. Also far too common. Further reading : Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent
Here

Give him a copy of Manufacturing Consent. It pulled me back from the edge at around his age.

I think the problem is at that age you start to get a sense that the media is manipulative as fuck. But the only people saying that loudly enough for young people to hear are the Tommy Robinsons of the world.

We desperately need some loud leftist voices.