Politics as Product

Happy Spokesmodel Selection Day to one and all. I am certainly not the first to comment on the commodification of American politics in general and this race specifically, but a little more can be said before we’re on the next distraction tomorrow. This election has been primarily a contest between the values of experience and …

John Pilger – Freedom Next Time

This is great speech by journalist John Pilger on the powers and dangers of corporate media. I think what’s most interesting about it is that he breaks from the Left/Right dialectic that plagues social change movements and takes liberalism to task for some of its crimes. The liberal Clinton administration increased the size of the …

PRWatch: Corporate Sponsored Slacktivism

After reading this, I wonder if artists or activists have been unwittingly influenced/inspired by some of these token, ineffective campaigns? If the culture is openly celebrating these supposed victories, one might believe they are actually effective. By Anne Landeman Recently while browsing the Web I came across UrbanDictionary.com, which is sort of a wiki of …

Loss Aversion, Greenpeace, and Health

Here’s a pattern of tactics I realized have something in common. They all work by presenting a threat. Loss aversion, as it can be called, can be more motivating – using the stick instead of the carrot. ## Example 1 From Greenpeace:## The ranking criteria reflect the demands of the Toxic Tech campaign to the …