Does RI recognize history/science vs pro Mind Bending?

[Penguin]

(alternate fictional storylines mirroring real fictional storylines of "news", fwiw )
http://motherjones.com/riff/2008/09/tig ... ats-cylons

News is entertainment and entertainment news. Soupy.

...emphatically stated that most of the time, the vast majority of people operate within the framework of one or more mass-culturally created and reinforced narratives, a large number of which are created and reinforced by forces that do not wish them well.

[compared2what?]

c2w, have you ever heard of...Advertising? Public Relations? Psychological Operations?
They really exist!
And are institutionalized.
And have some limited success. Sometimes significant success.
And they even churn out their manipulative spew when unsuccessful-to-badly-counterproductive.

Despite your absurd attempt to portray human culture as random chaos that nobody could ever influence in any way.
Good grief. Your sophistry here is insulting to our intelligence.

.....
...influence the attitudes and beliefs of large numbers of people in an uncontrolled environment by briefly exposing them to thousands of incidental, uninflected sounds and images that are totally unrelated both to each other and the subject area you're targeting with absolutely no regularized or systematic pattern or timing when you couldn't possibly have any data at all about whether the vehicle through which you're sending your message is going to be meaningful enough on its surface to act as an agent of influence to anyone.

I've said this before. But fwiw: Mindbenders need to have either more comprehensive information about or more access to the people whose minds they seek to bend than could possibly be gotten under the terms you propose. Because that's just how people are.
.....

I didn't portray human culture as random chaos that nobody could ever influence in any way. As you may recall, one or two pages ago I emphatically stated that most of the time, the vast majority of people operate within the framework of one or more mass-culturally created and reinforced narratives, a large number of which are created and reinforced by forces that do not wish them well.

Neither have I ever shown the slightest sign of being unaware that advertising, public relations, and psi-ops exist. And if you've gotten the impression that I don't really know all that much about how the messages borne by mass media worm their way into the hearts and minds of the demographic (and/or psychographic) they aim to occupy -- or fail to, as the case may be -- then you haven't been reading a word I write.

Allow me to clarify once again: If you set out to influence how favorable or unfavorable people's opinions and attitudes about some event, person, thing or concept are via mass media communications yet failed to do so, assuming that you had all the necessary resources at your disposal, it almost has to be because you fucked up. Because it sure wasn't because of how inherently tough-and-independent-minded or resistant to mass-media pressures the popular opinions and attitudes held by most members of any large class or community of people are. Although it doesn't have to be that way. If people just relaxed and admitted that we're naturally strongly inclined to form tribes and adopt tribal values, and that we have strong emotional responses to most things, and that there's nothing wrong with either of those things and therefore no need to rationalize them by pretending they're something they're not -- ie, rational, among other things -- 99 percent of the crap obstructing their natural ability to think for themselves and enjoy it would no longer be a problem. And if psi-operators and propagandists couldn't count on sinking their hooks into the unacknowledged and unaddressed neediness and confusion that kind of naturally form a large part of any group psyche that routinely refuses to recognize that its most basic fears and desires are what they are, they'd practically have no game left at all.

But to return to reality: People's opinions and attitudes are reliably highly susceptible to the influence of a modest number of very simple tactics. And if your objective is to influence opintion via advertising, marketing, public relations, messaging, branding, mindfuckery or any other form of media campaining, they really do have to be simple. Furthermore, if they're mass-media based, they have to be part of something that's perceived by the recipient as a communication that's addressed to him or her in some way. They have to be repeatedly received from the same source or from sources of like value. And those values have to be stable, consistent and unsullied by attributes and content that distract attention from or conflict with the brand attributes and message content. In addition to which they also have to be designed to accommodate and maximize the existing preferences, dislikes, information base, cognitive capacity and communication-skill levels of the target group. All of which the senders have to know in a fair amount of detail to make accommodating them possible. They have to be deployed on a schedule that's timed to coincide very closely with the schedule of the [whatever-it-is] regarding which opinions and attitudes are being influenced.

For those and so many other reasons that I could easily go on listing them for several thousand words, you cannot effectively influence opinion or attitude about remote and complex subjects via incidental words and images in movie posters, movies, television shows and newspaper headlines. You'd be working against rather than with all the major the principles of marketing and cognitive-behavioral psychology if you tried. So. Given that there are a number much easier, more reliable, less expensive and more effective routes to take, why would anyone bother trying?

[barracuda]

Oddly enough, as a result of Hugh, I can't think of pancake collapse without thinking of Dan in Real Life and I'll probably never see another stack of pancakes without thinking of the world trade centers.

I enjoyed pancakes this morning shortly after reading your response on this thread, and I have to say, the subject matter discussed here honestly never crossed my mind til this minute. Forcing specific associations between dissimilar concepts using, as c2w puts it, "incidental words and images" is an extraordinarliy difficult process, even within the scheme of the most pervasive and pernicious marketing strategies. Actually changing someone's mind about an issue is another thing entirely.

In any case, a primary attribute of any tactic such as priming subjects for subliminal messaging would be measurability. Without the ability to gauge the effectiveness of your tactic, there would be no possible method for dynamically changing those tactics in order to reinforce a working mode versus a non-working one. I would ask Hugh exactly how he thinks a fair statistical evaluation of the methodologies he proposes might be gathered by the psyop agencies as a way to hone their effectiveness. If no such metrical analysis can be carried out, then no true dynamic strategy is present, and any effect upon the populous is likely scattershot at best.

have you really considered just how difficult it is for your conscious mind to apprehend the way that your subconscious mind can be affected by something like a movie poster?

I would venture to submit that a movie poster inherently carries with it no more or less affecting information than any other visible stimulus such as a flower or a sandwich. In other words, yes, everything you encounter had some effect on you. However, spending a great deal of time in visual coorespondence with an environment which is filled with, for example, fences, in no way primes your subconscious mind to somehow enjoy fences more than you might otherwise. Your enjoyment of fences is predicated entirely upon associations you gather surrounding your subjective experiences of them, e.g. the Proustian cookie.

I mean just about everyone on this board acknowledges the effect of subliminal messaging and it's actual use by the advertising industry and probably also the propaganda departments of various usg agencies. Yes? No?

There is actually a significant amount of research against any such effectiveness, whether it is in fact being used or not.

Do you believe the usg uses subliminal messaging to effect the populace, at all? If so, can you provide an example or at least a theoretical example?

Well, the United States is a brand, with all the attributes of brands, for better or worse. The primary visual symbol of this brand is, of course, the American flag, and it is thrust before us daily in thousands of guises which serve to reinforce it's effectiveness as a group identity in ways which are subliminal and not. The measure of how important this symbol is to the brand can be seen in the numerous attempts to make its defacement illegal.

[orz]

c2w, have you ever heard of...Advertising? Public Relations? Psychological Operations?
They really exist!
And are institutionalized.

Yes they certainly do and literally every single person working in these fields would consider you a nut.

[Zap]

If you ever get a chance to watch the weird old Popeye musical movie with Robin Williams, note the American flag sneaking into almost every frame of the final triumphant scene, before Bluto turns yellow and swims away.

[brainpanhandler]

Oddly enough, as a result of Hugh, I can't think of pancake collapse without thinking of Dan in Real Life and I'll probably never see another stack of pancakes without thinking of the world trade centers.

I enjoyed pancakes this morning shortly after reading your response on this thread, and I have to say, the subject matter discussed here honestly never crossed my mind til this minute.

That you're consciously aware of. (insert annoying smilie)

Forcing specific associations between dissimilar concepts using, as c2w puts it, "incidental words and images" is an extraordinarliy difficult process, even within the scheme of the most pervasive and pernicious marketing strategies.

No doubt it would be extraordinarily difficlt between dissimilar concepts and objects, which is why I imagine that concepts similar enough for the irrational subconscious to make associations are what are used.

Actually changing someone's mind about an issue is another thing entirely.

And that's why I imagine any target audience for a campaign of opinion influencing would have to come from a middleground of people that are influencible. The already fully indoctrinated need only maintenance and no amount or type of subconscious persuasion will work on the other end of the spectrum. It's the middle ground that is the target. Like for instance those that are convinced the twin towers were brought down with thermite will never be convinced otherwise and those that believe the 911 commission report's version of what caused the towers to collapse is airtight will likewise never be convinced otherwise, at least not with subtle subconscious techniques. So neither of those populations would be the target audience in any campaign to reinforce the official explanation of the cause of the collapse of the towers, if there was such a campaign.

In any case, a primary attribute of any tactic such as priming subjects for subliminal messaging would be measurability. Without the ability to gauge the effectiveness of your tactic, there would be no possible method for dynamically changing those tactics in order to reinforce a working mode versus a non-working one. I would ask Hugh exactly how he thinks a fair statistical evaluation of the methodologies he proposes might be gathered by the psyop agencies as a way to hone their effectiveness. If no such metrical analysis can be carried out, then no true dynamic strategy is present, and any effect upon the populous is likely scattershot at best.

Agreed. I'd be interested to hear Hugh's response. I'm about as good with statistics as I am at the trigonometry in the Norway spiral thread. I could think up some bullshit, but nothing worth bothering you with.

have you really considered just how difficult it is for your conscious mind to apprehend the way that your subconscious mind can be affected by something like a movie poster?

I would venture to submit that a movie poster inherently carries with it no more or less affecting information than any other visible stimulus such as a flower or a sandwich.

On the face of it this is not true. Like for instance I don't think any ad agency would ever try to sell a product with just a picture of a flower. Not even flowers.

In other words, yes, everything you encounter has some effect on you. However, spending a great deal of time in visual coorespondence with an environment which is filled with, for example, fences, in no way primes your subconscious mind to somehow enjoy fences more than you might otherwise. Your enjoyment of fences is predicated entirely upon associations you gather surrounding your subjective experiences of them, e.g. the Proustian cookie.

Well, yah, but it's not just enjoyment we're talking about here. Like for instance, let's suppose that your goal is to portray antiwar protestors as whiny liberals constantly yammering about the bill of rights and the freedom of speech and assembly. Maybe you could insert images of protestors behind the chain link fence of a free speech zone into a show in a way that is tangential to the story line. And maybe you could portray the fence as being less imposing than they are and much closer to the area where the protestors would likely wish it to be. And you could show them having more room than they do and actually being heard and all that stuff. Like something completely atithetical to this:


Now is it possible to register all that, subconsciously, adding it to your already existing store of evidence that people defending the constitution are whiners such that later in another context when you hear someone arguing that free speech zones are a violation of the constitutional right to freedom of assembly and speech that you are a little more likely to think, "what a whiner" than you would be otherwise?

I mean just about everyone on this board acknowledges the effect of subliminal messaging and it's actual use by the advertising industry and probably also the propaganda departments of various usg agencies. Yes? No?

There is actually a significant amount of research against any such effectiveness, whether it is in fact being used or not.

The abstract in the first link says that there is in fact some evidence for the efficacy of subliminal techniques. The second abstract from the second link says there is none, although it starts out by saying, "Claims persist that subliminal messages can have significant effects on motives and behavior.", which is problematic without being able to see the rest of the article. I mean, is nonaction counted among behavior? I would think that a lot of psyops are designed to get people to do nothing, rather than do something. And why in the first sentence of the abstract is the word significant used but by the end of the abstract we jump this, "It is concluded that there continues to be no evidence that subliminal messages can influence motivation or complex behavior", without any qualifier? I'd have to read the article. Of course you understand it will be claimed the article is propaganda itself.

Do you believe the usg uses subliminal messaging to effect the populace, at all? If so, can you provide an example or at least a theoretical example?

Well, the United States is a brand, with all the attributes of brands, for better or worse. The primary visual symbol of this brand is, of course, the American flag, and it is thrust before us daily in thousands of guises which serve to reinforce it's effectiveness as a group identity in ways which are subliminal and not. The measure of how important this symbol is to the brand can be seen in the numerous attempts to make its defacement illegal.

Well, exactly sensory habituation by repetition is an excellent way to get into someone's subconscious. Like this logo placement:



I mean that's a cgi in that show and the mcdonald's arches appear for a second or two. I assume that mcdonalds pays for that placement. I also assume that a significant portion of the audience do not consciously recognize the logo's presence.

Btw... that show creeps me out. How come all these non-science fiction writing experts have so thoroughly imagined our absence?

As a further aside, I have seen at least a couple of episodes which feature computer generated images of steel beam high rises falling into their own footprints. Wha's up with that?

Here's one of them:

[barracuda]

No doubt it would be extraordinarily difficlt between dissimilar concepts and objects, which is why I imagine that concepts similar enough for the irrational subconscious to make associations are what are used.

Then we are in trouble, because, let's face it - this sign:



carries more weight against the possible prevalent of 911 truth than it is possible to counter via any method of activism I can think of. Think about the number of levels it works on vis-a-vis the various theories of the WTC attacks. There are 1,433 IHOP resturants in the the US, and their advertising has been ongoing since 1958 in order to build a highly recognisable brand presence which supercedes and dilutes in every way the concepts of LIHOP and MIHOP, and focuses a resonant association with "pancake collapse" in both cases and beyond.

And that's why I imagine any target audience for a campaign of opinion influencing would have to come from a middleground of people that are influencible. The already fully indoctrinated need only maintenance and no amount or type of subconscious persuasion will work on the other end of the spectrum. It's the middle ground that is the target. Like for instance those that are convinced the twin towers were brought down with thermite will never be convinced otherwise and those that believe the 911 commission report's version of what caused the towers to collapse is airtight will likewise never be convinced otherwise, at least not with subtle subconscious techniques. So neither of those populations would be the target audience in any campaign to reinforce the official explanation of the cause of the collapse of the towers, if there was such a campaign.

Advertising works best in an arena in which the target audience needs something. Advertisement functions by telling them how to satisfy that need. I don't think there has ever been a good explanation on exactly how the Dan In Real Life poster causes people to ignore the anomalies of 911 in favor of the OCT.

In any case, a primary attribute of any tactic such as priming subjects for subliminal messaging would be measurability. Without the ability to gauge the effectiveness of your tactic, there would be no possible method for dynamically changing those tactics in order to reinforce a working mode versus a non-working one. I would ask Hugh exactly how he thinks a fair statistical evaluation of the methodologies he proposes might be gathered by the psyop agencies as a way to hone their effectiveness. If no such metrical analysis can be carried out, then no true dynamic strategy is present, and any effect upon the populous is likely scattershot at best.

Agreed. I'd be interested to hear Hugh's response. I'm about as good with statistics as I am at the trigonometry in the Norway spiral thread. I could think up some bullshit, but nothing worth bothering you with.

Without addressing this issue, I don't think there is much of a discussion to be had regarding the scientific aspects of Hugh's theory. As of yet, his "douche versus mist" idea doesn't hold liquid.

On the face of it this is not true. Like for instance I don't think any ad agency would ever try to sell a product with just a picture of a flower. Not even flowers.

Inherently. That is, language is a learned function of the brain. Otherwise it would be common to see animals crowding around outdoor signage due to the inherently stimulating visual signals they give off. Which would make an interesting science fiction script. And any advertising agency woiuld give their eyeteeth to produce advertisements as inherently atttactive to people as a real field of flowers.

Well, yah, but it's not just enjoyment we're talking about here. Like for instance, let's suppose that your goal is to portray antiwar protestors as whiny liberals constantly yammering about the bill of rights and the freedom of speech and assembly. Maybe you could insert images of protestors behind the chain link fence of a free speech zone into a show in a way that is tangential to the story line. And maybe you could portray the fence as being less imposing than they are and much closer to the area where the protestors would likely wish it to be. And you could show them having more room than they do and actually being heard and all that stuff. Like something completely atithetical to this:


Now is it possible to register all that, subconsciously, adding it to your already existing store of evidence that people defending the constitution are whiners such that later in another context when you hear someone arguing that free speech zones are a violation of the constitutional right to freedom of assembly and speech that you are a little more likely to think, "what a whiner" than you would be otherwise?

In other words, "could you lie to uninformed individuals and by doing so lead them to false understandings?" The answer would be yes, but the pathway there is a highly complex one which follows extremely overt layers of misinformation rather than subliminal suggestions in order to get there.

The abstract in the first link says that there is in fact some evidence for the efficacy of subliminal techniques. The second abstract from the second link says there is none, although it starts out by saying, "Claims persist that subliminal messages can have significant effects on motives and behavior.", which is problematic without being able to see the rest of the article. I mean, is nonaction counted among behavior? I would think that a lot of psyops are designed to get people to do nothing, rather than do something. And why in the first sentence of the abstract is the word significant used but by the end of the abstract we jump this, "It is concluded that there continues to be no evidence that subliminal messages can influence motivation or complex behavior", without any qualifier? I'd have to read the article. Of course you understand it will be claimed the article is propaganda itself.

Let's just say that the proof of effectiveness is highly equivocal, and that effectiveness can only be demonstrated under very specific and highly controlled conditions for extremely limited sets of results, per c2w's assertions. The effectiveness of subliminal messaging versus a placebo control group has been demonstrated to be minimal.

I mean that's a cgi in that show and the mcdonald's arches appear for a second or two. I assume that mcdonalds pays for that placement. I also assume that a significant portion of the audience do not consciously recognize the logo's presence.

I don't know if they pay or not. Showing those arches in a cgi set is an easy way to convey the urban setting we are accustomed to see them in. Do you think there is evidence that looking at the arches for a moment in the show increases the number of hamburgers sold? Anything that showcases your brand in a positive way is useful in building product loyalty, though.

[brainpanhandler]

In other words, "could you lie to uninformed individuals and by doing so lead them to false understandings?" The answer would be yes, but the pathway there is a highly complex one which follows extremely overt layers of misinformation rather than subliminal suggestions in order to get there.

I should have been clearer. I think it would be possible to place such a scene into a tv show for instance in such a way that if you asked people afterwards if they remembered seeing any protestors they would answer no, but they would have registered the scenario I layed out subconsciously nonetheless and it would have some small but cumulative impact.

Do you think there is evidence that looking at the arches for a moment in the show increases the number of hamburgers sold?

No, but it doesn't seem like it could hurt, unless of course as you point out it was in the context of something negative, like a story about a mass murderer in a mcdonald's or obesity or whatever, but then it would function to limit the number of hamburgers sold, which might be the desire of someone, by decreasing product loyalty.

But you know, logo/product placement may work regardless of context. An example from golf of all things. This is anecdotal, but my experience seems to bear this out. If a guy is standing on a tee and there's a water hazard to the right of the fairway, it does him no good to say to himself, "Don't go in the water". In fact it has the opposite effect as intended. The subconscious doesn't get the "don't go in the" part. All it gets is "water" adn it locks onto the water and that is quite often where the ball goes. That is why it is critical to focus on and visualize your target and nothing else.

I mean is it so hard to imagine the following scenario? Someone watches that show, they're already hungry, after the show they decide they're going to go out and get something to eat and having been exposed to the stimulus of the image of the golden arches and not having an aversion to mcdonalds they are a little more likely to decide to go to mcdonalds. If mcdonalds sells x percentage more hamburgers this way and the profit they make on them is greater than the outlay for y number of logo placements then why wouldn't they do it?

[barracuda]

I don't think there's any question as to a certain ROI wrt product placement if it is done in the correct manner.

[§ê¢rꆧ]

Btw... that show {Life After People} creeps me out. How come all these non-science fiction writing experts have so thoroughly imagined our absence?

As a further aside, I have seen at least a couple of episodes which feature computer generated images of steel beam high rises falling into their own footprints. Wha's up with that?

Here's one of them:

That show really creeps me out, too, bph. This week is 'Armageddon Week' on History Chanel. What's up with that??

I just wanted to say I agree about that show, and the observation about 'computer generated images of steel beam high rises falling into their own footprints' in it. In fact I mentioned it before here on the Psyops forum, they even used the term 'pancake collapse' in the narration while a building was falling into it's own footprint. That struck me as kind of over the top...

[brainpanhandler]

That struck me as kind of over the top...

so over the top you've got to wonder if it's intent was to get the audience looking for it to note it and take it as evidence that the pancake theory is being reinforced and by extension that cd is the reality being obscured, the intent being to further send people down that path and away from other avenues of investigation that would actually lead to the perps. sigh.

[brainpanhandler]

I don't think there's any question as to a certain ROI wrt product placement if it is done in the correct manner.

Alright, but is it at least sometimes used subliminally? What would be the advantage? I mean I would argue firstly that one of the inherent disadvantages of traditional advertising on tv is that it's annoying and you don;t want the target audience to associate feelings of annoyance with your product. Product/logo placement circumvents this conundrum. Additionally subliminal product/logo placement if it has an effect produces that effect such that the impulse seems to come from the target audience and not from outside. This is desirable in that people are more likely to act on what feel like their own impulses.

I'm just trying to establish that there is at least one subliminal technique that works to affect motivation and complex behavior.

Let's go back to Hugh's list:


> semantic priming
> lexical priming
> masked priming/ N250/ N400
> semantic differential/ Charles E. Osgood
> inoculation theory/ William McGuire
> interference theory/ similarity paradox
> mutual exclusivity
> parasocial interaction
> elaboration likelihood model
> source amnesia
> subliminal framing
> fuzzy logic
> heuristics
> mere exposure effect
> desensitization
> normalization
> conditioning
> non-verbal effects
> psychological operations
> psychological warfare
> counterpropaganda
> countersubversion
> disinformation
> fictionalization
> co-opting/hijacking
> persuasion theories
> memetic engineering

I honestly do not know where on this list logo/product placement would most accurately fit as a general principle, to be honest. It seems like the context would be more important as the messages are more complicated. Maybe "mere exposure effect". Like this:



btw hugh... you really ought to keep these lists more consistent or you are liable to make them less memorable via interference theory.

[barracuda]

I'm suddenly thirsty for a cola-type beverage.

By the way, generally, product placement in films is anything but subliminal. The classic use of the technique was the Reeses Pieces in E.T.

[brainpanhandler]

Ha. You see? You didn't even notice the cinema magazine in the rack, but you did mention films. You're lucky there's no reeses-pieces in a candy rack there.

[DrVolin]

The IHOP example is fantastic. I wonder whether the LIHOP/MIHOP discourse took advantage of it, essentially piggybacking on an existing signal to suggest an inherently goofy association of alternative 9/11 theories for millions of Americans?

Propaganda is a very serious topic. I share Hugh's concern with very fundamental questions about the means by which the public actively gets pre-disposed to accept or reject certain ideas. While I find them interesting and thought provoking, I don't usually share his certainty about the specific instances he proposes. And yet, I think his focus on messages aimed at children by powerful media concerns is entirely justified. Childhood is the time to impress and condition, even though adults are also susceptible to suggestion. I can't help but think back to the coincidences that both Roald Dahl and St-Exupery were active in intel, that they both wrote seminal texts about a pilot stranded in the desert, and that their work was picked up by major media concerns. It isn't that hard to imagine a plan at work here.