Science communications is performed precisely as a propaganda function: “The first is what science communicators call “the deficit model,” which assumes the public is deficient in their understanding of science and need scientists as the learned elites to help the benighted masses.” and “The second limitation is that the goal of health communication is not to inform others, but to change their behavior.”
A “report” by an advocacy group opposes “vaccine nationalism” and says we need “a massive course correction” on vaccine distribution by redirecting “excess rich-country doses” to “poorer countries”. But they pulled a little trick in their description – twisting the facts.
Some police appear to be playing music when someone video records their activities so that those videos get flagged on social media and taken off line: BHPD’s recent behavior suggests that at least some cops believe they can prevent themselves from being filmed or livestreamed by playing copyrighted music, which would have serious implications for more serious incidents of police misconduct. That is: if this had only happened once, an officer coming up with an off-the-cuff, if slightly dodgy, plan…
See how a WSJ report skews your views of the subject of a news article by diminishing the impressive background of the primary individual in the story. This is a common technique to spin a news story. Ultimately, rather than blame some for asking odd questions, we should ask why were they confused in the first place? The answer comes down to poor public messaging surrounding public health – from the public health practitioners themselves.
Forbes publishes a fake news column about “Walmart insulin”, deletes it later the same day. No editor’s note explains the deletion.
Reports of a polar bear spray painted with “T-34” on its side were greatly exaggerated. The tagging was done by scientists, not pranksters. The bear had been rummaging a garbage dump and scientists wanted to see if it was returning. They tagged it with a short duration ink; this was not graffiti by pranksters as initially reported. Typical of this type of report, the original source for the video was unknown, the back story was unknown, and the video was shared on social media by an environmental activist. Media then used social media as a primary source. What could possibly go wrong?
With Michael Bloomberg running for President, Bloomberg News says it will only do investigative reports on non-Democratic Party candidates, due to its conflict of interests. What? Bloomberg News is delivering an in-kind public relations/propaganda donation to Bloomberg and his party. The proper response would be to refrain from covering any aspects of the Presidential campaigns.
Study finds that “science communications” has routinely devolved into propaganda messaging intended to persuade targets to adopt someone’s agenda.
Facebook’s head of PR admits to developing a program to slime others with negative propaganda messaging. He had already submitted his resignation.
Facebook’s COO hired external firms to smear those who questioned or criticized the company. Facebook itself engaged in the propaganda behavior made famous by Russia-based Internet Research Agency while simultaneously lying to its user community.