Say It Ain't So.
Manuel Castells bored me rigid tonight while discussing his new book about power relations and networked societies, but he did suggest that a nugget of information is five times more likely to register in one's brain if it conforms to one's existing beliefs.
He suggested that this was why liberals listened to NPR and Republicans watched Fox News and that the media didn't actually lead opinions. I saw it as powerful confirmation of the idea that communications can only bolster what people already believe about specific products and services. If your product/service isn't credible, you can't convince people otherwise.
posted by john dodds @ 3:52 PM
3 Comments:
I relate to this view. Of course there are exception,s but I do think it is easier to start conversations on an area of acceptance [even if its negative] than to try and communicate a completely new concept.
We call it unplanned planning and if you'll excuse the 'plug', I wrote something about it here [http://tinyurl.com/qstxd4]
Its a good point John - it's where Cass Sunstein got to with Nudge and what he calls 'group polarization' - where like-minded people hang out together and their views become more confident and more extreme - as in terrorist groups or music fans.
But, I am not sure that the credibility thing is the only thing - as Mark often points out - if you give people things to do together they might just get over the credibility gap. I am thinking T-Mobile here. Views?
All of these are other terms for confirmation bias... a depressing and near-universal human trait.
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