→Contemporary extremism is designed to increase polarizationSep 17, 2018highlights & Journalism
Contemporary extremism is designed to increase polarization. One tactic is to twist frames. For example, “ideological diversity” has been deployed to suggest that people who hold conservative viewpoints experience a loss of opportunity similar to those who have faced systemic racism and sexism. But this isn’t about the history of economic inequality in the US. It’s a dogwhistle. It’s about using nominal conservatism as a cloak to promote toxic masculinity and white supremacy. It’s about extremists using conservatives. And it’s about intentionally twisting historical pressure to diversify newsrooms and Silicon Valley to open the Overton Window. Fundamentally, it’s a technique to grab power by gaslighting the public and making reality seem fuzzy. — https://points.datasociety.net/media-manipulation-strategic-amplification-and-responsible-journalism-95f4d611f462?source=rss—-2488f66d2e39—4
→Last week, Facebook and Twitter were accused during a Congressional hearing of having conservative biasSep 16, 2018highlights & Journalism & Social
Last week, Facebook and Twitter were accused during a Congressional hearing of having conservative bias. This should sound familiar to many of you in this room as you too have been accused for political purposes of being the “liberal media.” The core of this narrative is a stunt, architected by media manipulators, designed to trigger outrage among conservatives and pressure news and social media to react.It works. Over the last two years, both social media and news media organizations have desperately tried to prove that they aren’t biased. What’s at stake is not whether these organizations are restricting discussions concerning free-market economics or failing to allow conservative perspectives to be heard. What’s at stake is how fringe groups can pervert the logics of media to spread conspiratorial and hateful messages under their false flag of conservatism. — https://points.datasociety.net/media-manipulation-strategic-amplification-and-responsible-journalism-95f4d611f462?source=rss—-2488f66d2e39—4
→Accusations of conservative bias are not evaluated through evidence because reality doesn’t matter to themSep 16, 2018highlights & Journalism & People
Accusations of conservative bias are not evaluated through evidence because reality doesn’t matter to them. This is what makes this stunt so effective. News organizations and tech companies have no way to “prove” their innocence. What makes conspiratorial messages work is how they pervert evidence. The simplest technique is to conflate correlation and causation. Conspiracy makers point to the data that suggests that both journalists and Silicon Valley engineers are more likely to vote for candidates from the Democratic party. Or that they have higher levels of education than the average American and are more likely to live in Blue states.As my colleague Francesca Tripodi points out, accusing tech of conservative bias also leverages and reinforces a misunderstanding of how search engines and social media work. As she notes, “People believe Google is weighing facts instead of rank-ordering results that match the entered keywords.” When the goal is to drive a wedge among the public, it’s not hard to encourage people to see bias. — https://points.datasociety.net/media-manipulation-strategic-amplification-and-responsible-journalism-95f4d611f462?source=rss—-2488f66d2e39—4
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