Technologies of Persuasion: Marketing, Politics, and Propaganda in a Digital Age
Douglas Rushkoff - ITP Fall 2005.
This seminar will explore influence techniques from print, graphics, traditional media and social reality as they migrate to the interactive space. We will first study the fundamentals of persuasion, influence, and coercion, and then look at how they have been adapted for use in interactive contexts. These will include email, the web, and cell phones, as well as integrated marketing, "one-to-one" communication, viral media, hacktivism and neuromarketing. We will study a broad range of applications, from simple marketing through online trading, political campaigns, activism, and satire, and discuss the relative ethics of using the same techniques for different purposes.
Readings will include whole books and excerpts from among the following texts:
Coercion and Media Virus by Rushkoff, Postman's Technopoly, Cluetrain Manifesto, and the CIA Interrogation Manual, as well as writings by Adorno, Barbrook, Caldini, Barthes, Larry Lessig, Seth Godin, Malcolm Gladwell, MoveOn, RtMark, and etoy, We will also watch the documentaries Century of the Self, Merchants of Cool, The Persuaders, and the Politics of Fear.
Although students with all ranges of interests are welcome to take the course, be forewarned: the seminar will be structured to allow for a highly critical analysis of the role that marketing and influence techniques have played in both online and offline society.
required :
Rushkoff, Douglas. Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say. 1-57322-829
recommended :
Bernays, Edward. Propaganda. (intro by Miller) 0-9703125-9-8
Fogg, BJ. Persuasive Technology. 1-55860-643-2
Rushkoff, Douglas Media Virus. 0-345-39774-6
Metzger, Richard. Book of Lies. 0-9713942-7x
Howard, Martin. We Know What You Want. 1-932857-05-2
Postman, Neil. Technopoly.
DO:
1. weekly
assignments.
Each student will also be responsible for leading one week's
discussion.
2. One 800-word paper about or inspired by any of the following: Merchants of Cool (streaming online)
Technopoly (Postman)
Influence (Cialdini)
Cluetrain Manifesto (online)
Century of
the Self, Parts 3 and 4.
This paper must have a thesis; you are making a proposition, expressing an argument, or reaching a conclusion.
3. Field
project, conducted in groups of 4 or 5 people:
Disseminate an idea, trend, belief or fashion throughout ITP and, if possible,
beyond.
Come up with a way to prove your results.
Individually, write an 800-word
evaluation of your process.
Technologies of Persuasion: by the week.
note: Movies can be checked out from equipment room, or viewed on Movie Night, Mondays at 6:30pm at ITP.1. (9/7) Intro to course.
2. (9/14) Public Relations and Propaganda
Watch: Century of the Self, parts 1 and 2 - (DVD on reserve)
Reading: Propaganda by Bernays. Intro, Chapter 1, Chapter 11. (HANDOUT)
Do: Find one newspaper article that shows evidence of PR at work.
3. (9/21) Person to Person Persuasion.
Read: Coercion - first half
Read (or at least browse): CIA Interrogation Manual
Do: Tell us about: one live interaction/experience you had this month that you
feel qualifies as persuasion - from either side of the equation.
4. (9/28) Persuading Groups
Read: Coercion - second half
Do: Bring an example of coercive group, subscription, cult with which you have
come in contact.
5. (10/5) Marketing and Technology
Watch: Persuaders (dvd on reserve or stream from here)
Read: Adorno: The Culture Industry (1944)
6. (10/12) Captology: Persuasive Computers and the Web
Read: BJ Fogg - Persuasive Technology, chapters 3 and 5 (HANDOUT)
Do: Find one website using persuasive tactics.
7. (10/19) NLP - hypnosis, pacing, and framing.
Read:
http://www.purenlp.com/nlpfaqr.htm - Steve Robbins essay: http://www.nlpschedule.com/w_neuro_linguistic_programming_definition.html
and the first two lessons in Thom Hartmann's NLP course at
http://www.thomhartmann.com/TH_NLPwk1.html
http://www.thomhartmann.com/TH_NLPwk2.html
and as many more weeks of this "course" as you're interested in after that.
(Additional weeks are simply consecutive numbers after the letters NLPwk_)
Do: Find (or perform) an application of NLP or NLP-like technique elsewhere.
8. (10/26) Total Immersion
Watch:
Power of Nightmares http://novakeo.com/?p=131
(and DVD on reserve)
Read: Ubiquity of Advertising
Do: Turn in papers.
9. (11/2)Viral / guerilla
- the activist side
Read: Media Virus, Introduction and Chapter One. (HANDOUT)
Explore: Moveon.org, rtmark.com (watch the promo video), thing.net, etoy.com
Watch: info wars (dvd on reserve)
- the market side
Read article: Seth Godin at
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/37/ideavirus.html
Optional Material:
Read chapter one: Cluetrain Manifesto http://cluetrain.com/book/index.html
Read Tipping Point , pages 3-14, 193-215 (HANDOUT)
Do: Progress reports on projects
10. (11/9)Hi-Tech, Wireless and Beyond
Read: BJ Fogg - Captology,
chapter 8 (Wireless) (HANDOUT)
Read: We Know What You Want - Technology chapter (HANDOUT)
Do: Find a hi-tech coercive tool (or account of a tool) you think works.
Sight-
Read (as best you can):
1. McQuarrie and Mick, Visual Rhetoric (PDF
link)
2. YouJae Yi, Direct and Indirect Approaches to Advertising Persuasion
(PDF link)
Do: Bring in a print or web example of visual/design intended to influence,
and deconstruct the technique.
12. (11/30) Deep Brain and the Future Explore: Mind Control: Technologies,
Techniques, and Politics website and read at least two of the articles there.
Do: Progress reports on projects. 13. (12/7) Magick 14. (12/14) Final Discussions OTHER READING IDEAS Aronson, E. (1995). The social animal. Seventh edition. New York: W. H. Freeman. Brendl, C. M., Higgins, E. T., Lemm, K. M. (1995). Sensitivity to varying gains and losses: The role of self-discrepancies and event framing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(6), 1028-1051. Chaiken, S. (1987). The heuristic model of persuasion. In M.P. Zanna, J. M. Olson, & C. P. Herman (Eds.), Social influence: The Ontario Symposium (Vol. 5, pp. 3-39). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. San Diego: Academic Press. Cialdini, R. B., Eisenberg, N., Green, B. L., Rhoads, K. v. L., and Bator, R. (1997). Undermining the undermining effect of reward on sustained interest. In press, Journal of Applied Social Psychology. Corbett, E. P. J. (1990). Classical rhetoric for the modern student. Third edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Degen, C. (1987). Communicator's guide to marketing. Salem: Sheffield. Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Special Issue: The future of the field: Between fragmentation and cohesion. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51-58. Fiske, S. T. & Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social cognition. New York: McGraw Hill. Fiske, S. T. (1980). Attention and weight in person perception: The impact of negative and extreme behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 889-906. Ganzach, Y. & Karsahi, N. (1995). Message framing and buying behavior: A field experiment. Journal of Business Research, 32(1), 11-17. Hassan, Steven. (1990). Combatting Cult Mind Control. Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press. (ISBN 0-89281-311-3) Hovland, C. I., Janis I. L., & Kelley, H. H. Communication and persuasion: Psychological studies of opinion change. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect Theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometirca 4, 362-377; Econometrica 47, 263-291. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1982). The psychology of preferences. Scientific American, 246, 160-173. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1984). Choice, values, and frames. American Psychologist, 39, 341-350. Kanouse D. E. & Hanson, L. R. Jr. (1972). Negativity in evaluations. Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press. Krosnick, J. A. & Brannon, L. A. (1993). The media and the foundations of presidential support: George Bush and the Persian Gulf conflict. Journal of Social Issues , 49, 167-182. Krosnick, J. A. & Miller J. M. (1996). News media impact on the ingredients of presidential evaluations: A program of research on the priming hypothesis. Chapter 3 of unpublished manuscript. Langer, E. J., & Rodin, J. (1976). The effects of choice and enhanced personal responsibility for the aged: A field experiment in an institutional setting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 334, 191-198. Lanham, R. A. (1983). Analyzing Prose. New York: Scribner's. Lepper, M. R., & Greene, D. (Eds.) (1978). The hidden costs of reward. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Lepper, M. R., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R. E. (1973). Undermining children's intrinsic interest with extrinsic rewards. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 28, 129-137. Levin (1987). Associative effects of information framing. Bulletin of the Psychnomic Society, 25, 85-86. Levin, Chapman & Johnson (1988). Confidence in judgments based on incomplete information: An investigation using both hypothetical and real gambles. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 1, 29-41. Levin, I. P. & Gaeth, G. J. (1988). How consumers are affected by the framing of attribute information before and after consuming the product. Journal of Consumer Research, 15, 374-378. Loke, W. H. (1989). The effects of framing and incomplete information on judgments. Journal of Economic Psychology, 10 (3) 329-341. Maheswaran, D. and Meyers-Levy, J. (1990). The influence of message framing and issue involvement. Journal of Marketing Research, 27, 361-367. Meyerowitz, BE and Chaiken, S. (1987). The effect of message framing on breast self-exam attitudes, intentions, and behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 500-510. Meyers, D. G. Social Psychology. (1990). Third edition. New York: McGraw-Hill. Mulholland, J. (1994). Handbook of persuasive tactics: A practical language guide. London: Routledge. Neale, M. A., Huber, V. L., Northcraft, G. B. (1987). The framing of negotiations: Contextual versus task frames. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 39(2), 228-241. Neill, W. T., Valdes, L. A., & Terry, K. M. (1995). Selective attention and the inhibitory control of cognition. In F. N. Dempster and C. J. Brainerd (Eds.), Interference and Inhibition in Cognition (pp. 207-261). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Ogilvy, D. (1985). Ogilvy on advertising. New York: Vintage Books. Perloff, R.M. (1993). The dynamics of persuasion. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Petty, R. E. & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). Communication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to attitude change. New York: Springer-Verlag. Petty, R. E. & Cacioppo, J. T. (1981). Attitudes and persuasion: Classic and contemporary approaches. Dubuque, Iowa: Brown. Petty, R. E., Ostrom, T. M., & Brock, T. C. (1981). Cognitive Responses in Persuasion. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Payne, J. W., Bettman, J. R., and Johnson, E. J. (1992). Behavioral decision research: a constructive process perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 43, 87-131. Pratkanis, A. & Aronson, E. (1992). Age of Propaganda. Freedman: New York. Putnam, L. L., & Holmer, M. (1992). Framing, reframing, and issue development. Communication and negotiation. Sage annual reviews of communication research, Vol. 20. (Linda L. Putnam, Michael E. Roloff, Eds.), pp. 128-155. Sage Publications, Inc., Newbury Park, CA. Roney, C. J. R., Higgins, E. T., Shah, J. (1995). Goals and framing: How outcome focus influences motivation and emotion. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21(11), 1151-1160. Rosenthal, R., and Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom: Teacher expectation and pupils' intellectual development. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Shafir, E., Simonson, I., & Tversky, A. (1993). Reason-based choice. Cognition , 49, 11-36. Simonson, I. & Tversky, A. (1992). Choice in context: Tradeoff contrast and extremeness aversion. Journal of Marketing Research, 29, 281-295. Simonson, I. (1993). Get closer to your customers by understanding how they make choices. California Management Review , 35, 68-84. Simonson, I., Carmon, Z., & O'Curry, S. (1994). Experimental evidence on the negative effect of product features and sales promotions on brand choice. Marketing Science, 13, 23-40. Simonson, I., Nowlis, S. M., & Simonson, Y. (1993). The effect of irrelevant preference arguments on consumer choice. Journal of Consumer Psychology , 2, 287-306. Singer, M. T. & Lalich, J. (1995). Cults in Our Midst. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Smith, S. M., & Petty, R. E. (1996). Message framing and persuasion: A message processing analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 22(3), 257-268. Smith, S. M. & Shaffer, D. R. (1991). Celerity and cajolery: Rapid speech may promote or inhibit persuasion through its impact on message elaboration. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 663-669. Snyder, M., Tanke, E. D., & Berscheid, E. (1977). Social perception and interpersonal behavior: On the self-fulfilling nature of social stereotypes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 656-666. Spence, G. (1995). How to argue and win every time. New York: St. Martin's Press. Tversky, A . & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science, 211, 453-458. Tykocinski, O., Higgins, E. T., Chaiken, S. (1994). Message framing, self-discrepancies, and yielding to persuasive messages: The motivational significance of psychological situations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20(1), 107-115.
Read:
MRI articles
Brain has
a Buy Button?
Science
of Shopping
Politics
using Neuromarketing
Rushkoff
of Neuromarketing
Read:
Book of Lies essays: Grant Morrison, Mark Pesce, Hakim Bey (HANDOUTS)
Do: Tour of floor, online, or wherever field project techniques and progress
can be viewed.
Do:
Groups - final presentations of results, in a fashion that persuades us that
you have persuaded others (or, if need be, that persuades us of the real reasons you failed to).
Individuals - turn in final analysis.