B.F Skinners – Operant conditioning
– ‘fiction of free will’
– behaviour is taught from rewards ( can be applied to phones. Does technology control us or do we control technology)
Propaganda & Persuasion
Harold Lasswell – wrote a book called ”propaganda technique” in which he highlighted the brew of ‘subtle poison,which industrious men injected into the veins of a staggering people until the smashing powers… knocked them into submission’. ‘manipulated mass media to justify actions done in WW1’
– hypoderminc model
– direct injection
– passive audience
WHO –Larisa Brown -> WHAT –Russia tried to sabotage Olympics with cyber attacks-> MEDIUM Daily Mail -> TO WHOM lower-middle-class British women ->WITH WHAT EFFECT negative ideas are formed around Russia and its intentions
Paul Lazarfeld – thinks that linear model may not be sufficiently complex to understanding the relationship between message sent > message received. Suggests communication of information is an active form of consumption.
Shoshana Zuboff – ”a major segment of the emerging behavior control technology is concerned with conditioning, through which various forms of persuasion are used to control behavior” – social media with influencers etc.
”new technology has begun to develop new methods of behaviour control capable of altering not just an individuals actions but his very personality and manner of thinking…the behavioral technology being developed in the united states today touches upon the most basic sources of individuality and the very core of personal freedom…the most serious threat… is the power this technology gives one man to impose his views and values another
Blumler and Katz – Uses and Gratifications
Maslows Hierarchy of needs –
George Gerbner – developed what is known as CULTIVATION THEORY, noting the distinct characteristics of television in relation to other media forms, they suggest that ‘television cultivates from infancy the very predispositions and preferences that used to be acquired from other primary sources‘ (Gerbner et al 1986). In other words, television shapes the way individuals within society think and relate to each other.
Stuart Hall – Theory of preffered reading (British Jamaican Sociologist)
- A dominant position accepts the dominant message
- A negotiated position both accepts and rejects the dominant reading
- An oppositional position rejects the dominant reading
Clay Shirky – End of Audience
There is no audience, only a large group of individuals who recieve different readings (not just 3)
‘the more ideas there are in circulation, the more ideas there are for any individual to disagree with.’
Alexander Nix
CEO of Cambridge analytica
targeting potential people who may be persuaded in politics