Affinity Bias

 This is an excellent illustration of the Affinity Bias which is a cognitive bias which is an unconscious tendency to get along with people who are similar to us in various ways (gender, religions, ethnicity, etc.):

The key here is that this is an unconscious bias. The children in the video are not intending to be racist, but they have been raised in a culture that communicates racist assumptions to them which they have internalized. The experiment conducted by the psychologist reveals this. Because these biases are unconscious, the only way to combat them is to draw attention to them so that we can become aware of these tendencies in our thinking. 

Increasingly, conservative media is completely reliant on bullshit

 Here is a clip from CNN that provides  nice survey of the increasing reliance by conservative media (and, more disturbingly, the Republican Party) on bullshit. 

I would also argue that what is described in this video is best classified as bullshit. Bullshit is different from lies in that the bullshitter does not care if what they say is true or false. All they care about is flooding the conversations with so much shit that people stop paying attention or come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as true or false.  As Jim Acosta notes, this is extremely disturbing because this kind of bullshit makes actually conversation and discussion about how to move the country forward almost impossible. 

h/t to Digby

What about...

 Here is a nice article in Salon talking about the increasing reliance on the tu quoque fallacy (otherwise known as whataboutism) by members of the Republican Party in their attempts to defend against the indefensible actions and positions of their elected representatives. 

Science is great, but it isn't perfect

Here is a fantastic cartoon that highlights some of the problems with science. At the end of the day, science is a human activity, so it shouldn't be surprising that all the flaws humans succumb to also infect their scientific activities.  

Like Fox News, Social Media makes you dumber

The Pew Research Center has just released a study which likely confirms what many might have thought already. While the results may seem like common sense, it is very important to actually research this and make sure that "common sense" is actually true. 

The study is quite detailed and the authors go to great lengths to explain their methodology and present their evidence. Here is the authors presenting their main take away from this survey:

A new Pew Research Center analysis of surveys conducted between October 2019 and June 2020 finds that those who rely most on social media for political news stand apart from other news consumers in a number of ways. These U.S. adults, for instance, tend to be less likely than other news consumers to closely follow major news stories, such as the coronavirus outbreak and the 2020 presidential election. And, perhaps tied to that, this group also tends to be less knowledgeable about these topics.

As we can see, people who get their information from social media know less about topics than people who get information from other sources, and furthermore, people who primarily get their news from social media have a greater chance of holding false beliefs than people who get their news from other sources. 

h/t to The Washington Post

 

John Oliver on Conspiracy Theories

If you spend much time on this blog, you can see that I am a big fan of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. In particular, Oliver tends to do lengthy segments that are a deep dive into a particular topic. As of this posting, his most recent long segment was about conspiracy theories. While the focus was, given the current context, coronavirus conspiracies, many of the general points he makes about why conspiracy theories are popular and how to combat them are quite relevant to any conspiracy theory one might encounter.

Phil Donahue catches some flak (in 2003)

The fourth filter in Chomsky's and Herman's Propaganda Model of the Media is "flak," which is powerful criticism of the media by elites designed to limit the range of acceptable opinion and acceptable sources that are presented in the media.



One particularly dramatic example of this occurred back in 2003 during the run-up to the second US invasion of Iraq.  At that time, Phil Donahue had the top-rated show on MSNBC. Among other things, Donahue would bring on anti-war guests and guests who raised questions and concerns about the actions of the Bush administration. At this time, MSNBC commissioned an internal study to help chart the future course of the network. As reported at the time:

The study went on to claim that Donahue presented a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war......He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." The report went on to outline a possible nightmare scenario where the show becomes "a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."

As a result of this report, MSNBC went ahead and cancelled the show and fired Donahue. In effect,  MSNBC cancelled their top-rated show in order to avoid flak for not being perceived as sufficiently pro-American. As a result, the American public was denied to opportunity to hear important anti-war voices and voices skeptical of the Bush administration (voices that ensuing years have proven correct).

To add to this story, one of the people hired by MSNBC in the wake of this firing was former pro wrestler, actor, and former Governor of Minnesota, Jesse "the Body" Ventura. He was signed to a three-year contract, however, once MSNBC discovered that Ventura was anti-war, they basically paid him to do nothing for three-years. This is yet another example that illustrates how the Propaganda Model of the Media helps explain the media environment we find ourselves in.

A similar example can be found in the case of Bill Maher and his show at the time, Politically Incorrect. That story, along with a recounting of the Donahue story, some other examples, and some implications for today, can be found here.