Re-upping this in light of the conversation around disinfo in media. The information ecosystem has been polluted for 100+ years in the U.S. That was done systematically and intentionally, and the response to needs to be similarly systemic and intentional!
Conversation
One thing I've noticed is that a lot of the conversations around disinformation focus on political propaganda. And rightly so! Very important! But don't sleep on corporate propaganda, aka PR, which is done to help companies or industries but doesn't stay contained
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So, for example, when the first publicist created the first fake experts bureau to disseminate economist studies about how taxes on the railroads would be bad, not only did that influence policy, it also shaped the public's understanding of the economy.
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Or when PR firms concocted science denial, it didn't just help to fend off regulation of their clients' products, it also eroded scientific literacy and contributed to a distrust of science that has had many terrible and probably unintentional results.
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There's even a podcast for easy consumption: rigged.ghost.io/podcast/ , now with corrected transcripts!
Replying to
Partly because of its own genius re-brand (from propaganda to PR back in the early 20th century), people forget that we have a powerful and profitable and entirely legal propaganda industry in this country that has fundamentally shaped how we get & process information
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