The consumer (human) brain is a pretty nifty piece of plasma. Aside from the innumerable ways to marvel at it’s versatility and processing power, it has some major limitations.
One loop hole that mass marketers take full advantage of is what’s referred to as a Cognitive Bias. We like to think we are rational thinkers, but more often than not we are reflexive and emotional. Emotions are a shortcut to decision making and a Cognitive Bias we may have formed can be a springboard for those emotions.
As per example: there are 7 macaroni and cheese options on the grocery store shelf. You pick the one that ran a commercial during Seinfeld because, well “that’s the one that everyone else is probably going to buy”. Or you see a ball player investigated for PEDs and immediately judge him or her as guilty because, well, “they’re all spoiled and entitled”. Or you trust a good looking salesperson because, well, “all the trustworthy smart people in the movies are good looking”. These are all broad generalizations of course, but you get the point. Artificial Intelligence researchers refer to this as “classifier systems” .. a kind of file in which to place blocks of distilled information. WE do that, but in real life, commonalities among people and society are limited. There’s a ton of grey.
So it follows that the news and social media in all of its various forms are significant in their ability to create Cognitive Biases. On the whole, in order for news to be disseminated it must be simplified and dramatized – most unfortunate since the media is the lente’ principal through which we learn about the world and all of it’s problems. To compound that issue – there’s way too much misinformation as well as too many opinions and agendas.
Consumers (humans) aren’t perfect either; gaps in memory, individual life experiences, education and many other environmental factors may distort our interpretation of already abstract and complex subject matter that is often very heavy in facts that we’re just not interested in or can’t comprehend.
Both the Transmitter and the Receiver have major flaws… leading to a shit storm of ill communication.
Think of all the politics, all of the populist movements, all of the legalese, and all of the headlines in the world today and how we’re all simply not on the same page as we could be.
Mass media may be good at building brands, but it’s pretty lousy at uniting people. It amplifies one of our more profound weaknesses – the limitations language has in easily bringing about a consensus. A collective consciousness might save us. Maybe that’s the real promise of the internet.
