1. Use narrative engineering to persuade angry, frightened, gullible people to tune in and self-select.
2. Use narrative reinforcement to make them angrier and more frightened.
3. Wind them up and point them at a target.
4. Profit politically, and possibly also financially.
It doesn't matter what the narrative is. As long as it has an outgroup that can be accused of doing terrible things that arouse fear, rage, and disgust, almost any narrative will do. It could be vax conspiracies, it could be election conspiracies, it could be any number of other hot-button topics.
It's no different to how official propaganda works. [1] It isn't even all that different to conventional advertising.
The only difference now is that it portrays itself as covert, revolutionary, transgressive, and individualistic, where during the glory days of Time it used to present itself as wise, objective, and paternal.
But in fact it's just the same old farmed behaviour modification reinvented for social media.
[1] The suggestion that there was ever any kind of benign separation between old-fashioned patrician journalism and the US establishment is itself obvious bullshit. Historians have written books about this. This is just one intro.
So that would include the far right and the government, then. Hardly "everyone" ;)
I do find it interesting that left-leaning people (like myself) find it difficult to acknowledge that left-leaning media also engages in The Bullshit. Because we tend to agree with the propaganda statements, it's incredibly difficult to spot as Bullshit.
1. Use narrative engineering to persuade angry, frightened, gullible people to tune in and self-select.
2. Use narrative reinforcement to make them angrier and more frightened.
3. Wind them up and point them at a target.
4. Profit politically, and possibly also financially.
It doesn't matter what the narrative is. As long as it has an outgroup that can be accused of doing terrible things that arouse fear, rage, and disgust, almost any narrative will do. It could be vax conspiracies, it could be election conspiracies, it could be any number of other hot-button topics.
It's no different to how official propaganda works. [1] It isn't even all that different to conventional advertising.
The only difference now is that it portrays itself as covert, revolutionary, transgressive, and individualistic, where during the glory days of Time it used to present itself as wise, objective, and paternal.
But in fact it's just the same old farmed behaviour modification reinvented for social media.
[1] The suggestion that there was ever any kind of benign separation between old-fashioned patrician journalism and the US establishment is itself obvious bullshit. Historians have written books about this. This is just one intro.
http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php