#mass2620

ID: 118309

Date: February 18, 2020

Number of words: 341

Introduction

American thinker Noam Chomsky identified in the article "The Ten Strategies of Control and Misinformation" ten strategies used by the stakeholders to manipulate the people and control their actions and thinking. The sixth strategy in Chomsky’s article states "Talking to heart before mind."

Media uses various forms of psychological methods to influence the feelings and attitudes of the addressee. In this article, I will talk about the types of cognitive strategies in the media and why we should care about them.

Cognitive strategies in media

There are different types of psychological methods that media use to influence individuals by using the weapon of emotion. Commercial companies benefit from this to market their products, attract customers and increase sales. Here are some techniques with examples.

        Authority –  An authority is someone who is seen to have expert knowledge and experience in a particular field(1) . People always tend to obey those in authority, trust them and take their advice.

Example – Smashbox is a brand of cosmetics, it used a popular YouTube beauty blogger Casey Holmes. She posted an image on Instagram shows that she uses Smashbox products, then the number of company sales increased.

       Exclusivity – Some companies create exclusive websites or products and specify the list of subscribers, so people feel that their product is special and carries great value.

 Example – Facebook limited persons who were able to get accounts at the  beginning.

Also, there are cognitive strategies in the media that affect the knowledge and intellectual aspect and introduce new habits into society. For example:

Introducing same-sex marriage ideas and linking them to the civilized progress of humanity and freedoms.

 Link the terrorist's  to men with long beards.

Why should we care?

We should care because these strategies affect long and short-term effects on values, principles, and behaviors, as they affect the culture of society, stereotypes of people's thinking, and constitute false mental images of peoples and religions.

Understanding

I understood how media and the information it transmitted influence the way we think, our attitudes, values, and beliefs.

References

(1)  https://www.getspokal.com/ten-examples-of-social-media-campaigns-using-psychology/ 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dz4aTUdZbavs&psig=AOvVaw3iwijM4V5FMySt6S5cq9u3&ust=1582036981253000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCPDgtZjp2OcCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAt 

https://www.apadivisions.org/division-46/about/fischoff-media-psychology.pdf 

https://www.noonpost.com/content/20085

Date: February 11, 2020

Disinformation

Disinformation is one of the oldest human activities, so it is not recent, but its use in recent times has been clear. It has become very widespread in recent days because of the emergence of new media and the development of communication technologies, so now everyone can easily share information and because of that disinformation is spreading quickly between them. The speed of the internet helped to transfer information quickly between the public, which leads to forming a public opinion towards a disinformation issue.

Disinformation can be used by anyone because the new media has helped in this, but most importantly, leaders and governments use this disinformation by controlling media institutions and the flow of information by distorting information and manipulation of it, disregarding some important facts and deleting them, so that control is in their interest to achieve their own goals.

Behind this disinformation, there are many political and media goals planned to influence public opinion. Some use this disinformation on sensitive issues by directing the public opinion to a specific direction that may not be important to them and to stay away from the negative side and focus on the positive side in order to make things well.

Sometimes the community is not aware of the disinformation, so they will see that the information is correct even though it has been modified, but because of the clarity and frequency of disinformation on many influential issues, most people can distinguish between the right information and the wrong information.

References:

https://www.cepa.org/disinfo-techniques

https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/journalism_fake_news_disinformation_print_friendly_0.pdf

ID: S123789

Date: February 11, 2020

1.     What is disinformation?

a.     It is false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth.

2.     Who , why used it?

a.     Most of the time the governments use it to achieve political and military goals.

b.     Sometimes citizens use disinformation.

c.     Some people use it for financial incentives.

d.     The advertisers use it to attract the audience and git hit selling.

3.     Examples:

a.     Malaysian Airlines flight 17 (MH17) over Ukraine.

b.     From 2016 US presential election ,for instance ,implicated (Hallary Clinton) in breaking election laws and selling weapons to terrorist.

4.     How did they do it? (sometimes)

a.     After they got the information that they want it by hacking ,forgery or ''creative'' such as articles ,blogs

b.     Then they design news stories presenting false information

c.     Then they published them to target audience.

5.     What are the results of this issue?

a.     Contaminate the information space to confused the audience and erode its ability to think critically.

b.     It is diminishing our ability to find the truth and agree on it.

6.     How can we avoid the consequences of disinformation?

We need to ask ourselves a pertinent question about the credibility of what we read and share.

-------------------

References:

http://ezproxysrv.squ.edu.om:2156/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=20&sid=5ef45b60-8681-43df-ad0c-549e34fd8479%40sessionmgr4006

http://ezproxysrv.squ.edu.om:2142/ehost/detail/detail?vid=2&sid=7288dc06-7cd0-4bff-a970-0316129a0fce%40sessionmgr103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=132316846&db=bth

ID:118330

Date: February 18,2020

MASS2620

It is more correct to use cognitive strategies in media and life in general in all its forms, such as memorization, conclusion, and discussion.

The importance of using these strategies lies in the fact that it help to give and present information or news in a better way, and to shed light on accurate things in the subject that we are talking about.

We must understand the small data in today's world, and understand verbal and non-verbal communication with the ability to analyze these data through which we want to know a topic.

We have to follow several methods and methods in knowing the information published or that we receive from the media, in order not to have believed a lie or incorrect news, and this matter is achieved through investigation and tracking the authenticity of this news with cognitive strategies.

Example:

When discussing a program concerning the history of a country, here we must use some strategies, such as memorizing, remembering and discussing with the other party, in order to get the information correctly and easy for the follower.

Take a way (understanding):

-When dealing with the media, we must use our knowledge strategies to present the content well.

-Some strategies are used in specific situations and cannot be integrated into all topics.

References:

Name : Ahmed Alghassani .

ID : 113466

Date : 18 February, 2019

Introduction

The current day’s media topography is contextualised with distinct types of information either about different personalities, events, places, course of action of celebrities, etc. All these are a part of information in the current context.

Critical Thinking

Disinformation

Disinformation is the manipulation of actual information. The genuineness of the presented information is at stake in the present era, it so happens either to increase the popularity or to seek attention of the respective society towards the person, event, activity or the location through disinformation. Eventually, in race of manipulating, twisting and adding spice to the actual information leads to distort or misrepresentation of the entire fact, as a result the accuracy of information is completely lost. On the other hand, the other face of the coin ‘the public’ often get entrenched in such information and get mesmerised.

For instance: a patch of information becomes disinformation when the other part of reality is hidden and not brought into light. To be very precise about disinformation consider an instance where a personality might look mesmerising and spot less clear, whereas the actual fact might be an illusion created before the public either through not spotlighting the disgrace and just be highlighting the admirable traits.

Labelling

Labelling is nothing but portraying about person, thing or an instance in a precise phrase. It is carried out to regulate, handle or develop an association for the divergent behaviour. Most of the responsible stakeholders in media believe that labelling is quite essential for an interaction to flow.

For instance: labelling is essential to explain or depict a person who has conducted a criminal activity either by breaking the law or by committing an unjust act, which is not admirable and it requires criticism to curb the event in the near future. Such type of labelling is also necessary to create an example or awareness for the present generation as to prevent them from such unjust activities.  

References

ID: 118309

Date: February11,2020

Number of words: 262

Introduction

Disinformation is a method of withholding, misleading, or falsifying information in a manner appropriate to stakeholders. It seeks to influence the recipient first and then public opinion as a whole. In this article I will talk about the objectives of disinformation and methods of using it.

The objectives of disinformation

The objectives of disinformation differ from one context to another and from one institution to another, they can be political goals such as counterfeiting information in proportion to the policy of the state or the institution funding the media institution. Also, they may be economical in order to increase the profit of the organization by attracting consumers by withholding or coloring the correct information.

Methods used in disinformation

There are various ways of disinformation depending on the media used and the goals of the misleading user such as, false visuals and advertisement disinformation.

        - False visuals, it is used to lend extra credibility to a false fact, or for political goals. For example, Al-Ahram fabricated a photo of Hosni Mubarak made him the patron of the peace negotiations.

        - Advertisements disinformation, it is used by linking products to human feelings and emotions such as the Pepsi and Cola advertisements focusing on linking their products in the recipient’s mind to youth, vitality and activity.

Understanding

Disinformation is a media ploy to reach an audience and influence their thoughts and behaviors. Some may consider it an immoral method because it is inconsistent with the ethics of media work. When the media is subjective or does not present or color the truth, then it is misleading

References:

https://www.thoughtco.com/disinformation-definition-4587093 

ID:118330

Date: February 11,2020

Mass2620

It is information that was created in order to harm a person or group, or to hide something that should not be visible to society and people clearly.

This type is frequently studied by journalists, media workers, and people in general, and they are the ones who display this information to the masses, but in a misleading or false manner.

Information is manipulated using emotion and rationality, which is transmitted to the public in large part, and even more than the correct information and At the present time with the internet, this information is spread to a large number of people and in a very short time, according to the purpose intended to publish such misleading information.

Disinformation is also a powerful tool for politicians to directly engage with citizens, which can spark public opinion.

Also, disinformation is considered one of the most dangerous weapons that some countries use to destabilize some of the targeted countries through the content of this published information.

The benefits of disinformation:

-Used to divert attention from a specific issue.

-Inspiring consumers towards a specific product or belief.

-Forging evidence about a specific incident.

-Used in elections outside the borders of countries.

-Used to make some political decisions.

The effect of disinformation on the audience:

-It makes people angry, afraid and disoriented.

-The public's confidence is tended towards the sources of information.

-The truth is far from society, and they are a kind of lies and prevarication.

References:

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC116009/understanding_citizens_vulnerabilities_to_disinformation.pdf