FEB. 19, 2011 - FIRST SEGMENT - LISTEN TO REPLAY - HOUR 1  - HOUR 2 - George and Charlotte cover the news and the rest of the program they will discuss the 911 Truth Movement - OPEN PHONES FULL 1.75 HOURS - Call us tell us what you think.............

911myth
a.....Delusion?

The 911 event was the most important tragedy to ever occur in the United States. There exists a divergence of opinion as to whether or not this event was an inside job, some say that yes indeed it was an inside job, while detractors of the inside job theory call those yelling yes an inside job as whacked out nut cake loonies. The mind is a land at times of desolation and winding roads, leading nowhere, but somewhere deep down within our hearts is a yearning for truth. This so called truth is interfered by systems of thought, so tonight we will discuss the 911 truth movement and the biases and mechanisms, snares that  obstruct our sight, our vision our minds that we cannot see, cannot and want not to realize truth, it's too horrible a thought, no that just couldn't be true those people love America.

Premises - can be misleading!

 
OUTSIDE ENEMY

911 is a terrorist act, al-Qaeda committed the 911 attack so al-Qaeda is a terrorist organization

911 was committed by an outside entity and our enemies are outside of our country so that outside entity is our enemy 

 
          INSIDE ENEMY
 
          911 was an inside job, our enemies committed 911 so our enemies are inside
          our country 

 

KNOW THYSELF

KNOW THY THOUGHTS

KNOW THY WORLD

 

A delusion is a fixed belief that is either false, fanciful, or derived from deception.

Delusions - are categorized into four different groups:

In addition to these categories, delusions often manifest according to a consistent theme. Although delusions can have any theme, certain themes are more common. Some of the more common delusion themes are:[5]

BIASES

Many of these biases are studied for how they affect belief formation, business decisions, and scientific research.

Biases in probability and belief

Many of these biases are often studied for how they affect business and economic decisions and how they affect experimental research.

Social biases

Most of these biases are labeled as attributional biases.

Memory errors

Common theoretical causes of some cognitive biases

Hostile media effect

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The hostile media effect, sometimes called the hostile media phenomenon, refers to the finding that people with strong biases toward an issue (partisans) perceive media coverage as biased against their opinions, regardless of the reality. Proponents of the hostile media effect argue that this finding cannot be attributed to the presence of bias in the news reports, since partisans from opposing sides of an issue rate the same coverage as biased against their side and biased in favor of the opposing side.[1] The phenomenon was first proposed and studied experimentally by Robert Vallone, Lee Ross and Mark Lepper.[1][2]

Studies

In the first major study of this phenomenon,[1] pro-Palestinian students and pro-Israeli students at Stanford University were shown the same news filmstrips pertaining to the then-recent Sabra and Shatila massacre of Palestinian refugees by Christian Lebanese militia fighters in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War. On a number of objective measures, both sides found that these identical news clips were slanted in favor of the other side. Pro-Israeli students reported seeing more anti-Israel references and fewer favorable references to Israel in the news report and pro-Palestinian students reported seeing more anti-Palestinian references, and so on. Both sides said a neutral observer would have a more negative view of their side from viewing the clips, and that the media would have excused the other side where it blamed their side.

It is important to note that the two sides were not asked questions about subjective generalizations about the media coverage as a whole, such as what might be expressed as "I thought that the news has been generally biased against this side of the issue." Instead, when viewing identical news clips, subjects differed along partisan lines on simple, objective criteria such as the number of references to a given subject. The research suggests the hostile media effect is not just a difference of opinion but a difference of perception (selective perception).

Studies have also found hostile media effects related to other political conflicts, such as strife in Bosnia.[3] and in U.S. presidential elections.[4] This effect is interesting to psychologists because it appears to be a reversal of the otherwise pervasive effects of confirmation bias: in this area, people seem to pay more attention to information that contradicts rather than supports their pre-existing views. This is an example of disconfirmation bias.

An oft-cited forerunner to Vallone's et al. study was conducted by Albert Hartorf and Hadley Cantril in 1954.[5] Princeton and Dartmouth students were shown a filmstrip of a controversial Princeton-Dartmouth football game. Asked to count the number of infractions committed by both sides, students at both universities "saw" many more infractions committed by the opposing side, in addition to making very different generalizations about the game in general. Hartorf and Cantril concluded that "there is no such 'thing' as a 'game' existing 'out there' in its own right which people merely 'observe.' ... For the 'thing' simply is not the same for different people whether the 'thing' is a football game, a presidential candidate, Communism, or spinach."[6]

Selective exposure theory

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Selective exposure theory is a theory of communication, positing that individuals prefer exposure to arguments supporting their position over those supporting other positions, media consumers have more privileges to expose themselves to selected medium and media contents. People tend to engage in information that comforts and agrees with their own ideas and as a result, they avoid information that argues against their opinion. People don’t want to be told that they are wrong and they do not want their ideas to be challenged either. Therefore, they select different media outlets that agree with their opinions so they do not come in contact with this form of dissonance. Furthermore, these people will select the media sources that agree with their opinions and attitudes on different subjects and then only follow those programs.

"It is crucial that communication scholars arrive at a more comprehensive and deeper understanding of consumer selectivity if we are to have any hope of mastering entertainment theory in the next iteration of the information age. Essentially, understanding selective-exposure theory is a prerequisite for constructing a useful psychology of entertainment."
Bryant and Davies, 2006[1]


 

Foundation of theory

Propaganda study

The Evasion of Propaganda

When prejudiced people confront anti-prejudice propaganda involuntarily, even though they might avoid the message from the first time, the process of evasion would occur in their mind. Cooper and Jahoda (1947) studied how the anti-prejudice propaganda can be misunderstood by prejudiced people. When the prejudiced reader confronted the Mr. Biggott cartoon, which contained anti-minority propaganda, their effort to evade their feelings and understand Mr. Biggott’s identification with their own identity would bring about misunderstanding. This kind of evasion occurs because of what individuals often face to accomplish uniformity in everyday life. There is a fear to be isolated from what they belong and also threat for shivering their ego. Therefore, the concept of selective exposure was in the same thread with small effect studies in mass communication in 1940s.

Cognitive dissonance theory

Before the selective exposure theory was put forward, Festinger(1957) published a book, Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, and explained the cognitive dissonance theory, which assumes that all human beings pursue consistency in their mind.

Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory, which was one of the roots of selective exposure, explained people’s effort to reduce their dissonance of something against their existing beliefs. Nonetheless, his theory was broad enough to be elucidated in general social behavior, not just for selecting medium and media contents. Festinger suggested situations that increase dissonance. Firstly, logical inconsistency brings about dissonance. If a person who believes it is not possible to build a device to leave Earth's atmosphere observes man reach the moon, their belief and experience are dissonant with each other. Secondly, cultural morals entail dissonance. A person picks up a chicken bone with their hands, and it is dissonant with what they believe is formal etiquette. At this point, culture defines what is consonant and what is dissonant. Thirdly, if specific opinion is included in a more general opinion, dissonance should be followed. A person, who has been Democrat, prefers Republican candidates for certain election. This situation creates dissonance, because “Being a Democrat” needs to be attributed to favoring Democratic candidates. Lastly, past experience causes dissonance. If a person is standing in the rain, but is not wet, these two cognitions would be dissonant, because they might know standing in the rain leads to getting wet through past experience. Festinger (1957) also suggests the ways of reducing dissonance. For reducing dissonance, one may change a behavioral cognitive element or change an environmental cognitive element. However, sometimes, behavior change and environmental change do not help reducing dissonance. Festinger, then, suggested adding new cognitive elements. If people cannot reduce dissonance, they might seek new information, which is consonant with their beliefs or attitude; therefore, people might actively seek new information that would decrease dissonance and avoid new information that would increase dissonance. This third explanation of reducing dissonance is similar with selective exposure, which mass communication reinforces the existing opinion.

Klapper's selective exposure

Joseph Klapper (1960) considered mass communication do not directly influence people, but just reinforce people’s predisposition. Mass communications play a role as a mediator in persuasive communication.

Groups and group norms work as a mediator. For example, one can be strongly disinclined to change to the Democratic Party if their family has voted for Republican for a long time. In this case, the person’s predisposition to the political party is already set, so they don't perceive information about Democratic Party or change voting behavior because of mass communication. Klapper’s third assumption is inter-personal dissemination of mass communication. If someone is already exposed by close friends, which creates predisposition toward something, it will lead increase of exposure to mass communication and eventually reinforce the existing opinion. Opinion leader is also a crucial factor to form predisposition of someone, lead someone to be exposed by mass communication, and after all, existing opinion would be reinforced. Nature of commercial mass media also leads people to select certain type of media contents. Klapper (1960) claimed that people are selecting entertainment, such as family comedy, variety shows, quizzes, and Westerns, because of nature of mass media in a free enterprise society.

Selective exposure in entertainment theory perspective

Selective exposure is an instinctive activity of human beings. Early human beings needed to be sensitive to the sounds of animals. This kind of exposure was closely related with their survival from an external threat. Survival is still a very crucial matter for human beings; however, selective exposure is also important for human beings for other purposes, such as entertainment.

"Selective exposure designates behavior that is deliberately performed to attain and sustain perceptual control of particular stimulus events."
Zillmann and Bryant, 1985[6]

Affective-dependent theory of stimulus arrangement

Zillmann and Bryant (1985) developed affective-dependent theory of stimulus arrangement in the chapter of their edited book, Selective exposure to communication.

After all, people try to arrange the external stimuli to maintain their pleasure, which ultimately let people select certain affect-inducing program, such as music, movie, or other entertainment program. In other words, people manage their mood by selecting certain kind of entertainment to exposure themselves; mood management theory was also rooted by this affective-dependent theory.

Furthermore, people will select media based on their moods. An example of this is if a person is happy they would probably select a comedic movie. If they are bored they might choose action and if they are sad they might select tragedy or a depressing romance. These attitudes and moods also convince people to watch different news outlets based on how they feel. People with conservative beliefs tend to watch Fox news and Democrats usually watch MSNBC.

1**A person with liberal beliefs, who comes home from a hard day at work will probably turn on MSNBC. They would not be in the mood to fight with a news station that has conservative beliefs constantly being portrayed. 2**A woman who just broke up with her boyfriend would probably not be in the mood to watch a romantic movie and would therefore tend to pick a movie that falls into the genre of tragedy.

Selective exposure processes in mood management

Relation to C. S. Herrman's Exposure Theory

  • Exposure is a state of protected or unprotected risk or danger;
  • Exposure can be positive (adaptive) or negative (maladaptive)
  • Protected exposure presupposes the use of identification or projection to permit the feeling of security or safety despite the reality of risk or danger
  • Unprotected exposure is a state of risk or danger without the availability of identification or projection to obviate feelings producing maladaptive paralysis
  • People desire protected exposure, so desire to identify with what induces such, for example, favored opinions
  • People desire to avoid unprotected exposure, so attempt to project away from a possible identification with undesirable triggers/stimuli, thus away from undesirable ideas or ideologies!

Critiques

THE DELUSION IS REAL !.......
....IT REALLY IS!

The Secret Truth - Call in Li