Election Is Won In Increments

A little slide here, a bust-up there, an information blitz elsewhere, with hope waiting in the wings.

Every soldier matters, every tiny bit of information can lead to the next victory. Every ear you whisper into can be another partner in patriotism.

There's this tremendous essay on zombietime that has been out there for a while, but I don't know how many of you have read it complete.

It is worth reading in it's entirety, as relates to the effects of media and poll results on likely voters.

....the pressure to conform drops precipitously if the subject is aware of even a single fellow dissenter. All it takes is one person to shatter the facade of unanimity, and suddenly the number of conformist answers drop from around 33% to around 8%. With more dissenters, it drops even further. This is crucial, because despite the overwhelming left-wing bias in the media, there isn't an impenetrable wall of pro-Obama propaganda.

The Left's blunder is thinking that they have a monopoly on the entire infosphere. Yes, liberal ideologues dominate the media, but they do not hold a monopoly. Dissenting voices can be heard. But more importantly, the mediasphere is not the entirety of the infosphere. There are many alternate sources of information and opinion -- most significant among them being the political blogosphere, which is about evenly divided between Left and Right, and which has grown to be nearly as important as the media itself. All it takes is five minutes online for anyone to discover that they have millions of cohorts who think exactly like they do.

While conservative-leaning media outlets are in the minority, they certainly exist, and if one is so inclined one has a wide variety of conservative blogs/radio programs/TV shows/newspapers/writers from which to chose. And even though such outlets have less access to the "mainstream" of public discourse -- ridiculous rumors that crop up on left-wing blogs are almost immediately picked up and disseminated by mainstream media sources, whereas conservative blogs have to publish a real scoop with solid factual evidence if they want to get any media attention -- there remains a continuously audible undercurrent of dissent.

So, while the Left might (unconsciously) imagine they have the ability to pull an Asch on the whole country, the deception fails to work, because there is always a Rush Limbaugh or a Little Green Footballs or a Fox News or a Michael Savage whispering in the subject's ear, "It's all a trick! Don't believe the lies!" And under those conditions, the level of informational conformity would almost certainly drop to near zero.

BOOOYAHHH.

I've pulled the kernel of the summary, but there's a lot of supporting science-queer material at the source.

Some good overnight reading for you insomniacs.

Enjoy with AOSHQ's compliments, and VOTE TOMORROW.

Much thanks to Brandon D.

posted by Laura. at 09:56 PM

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