Attention! Rumor Bombs, Affect, Managed Democracy 3.0
26 Pages Posted: 31 Aug 2012 Last revised: 28 Sep 2014
Date Written: August 29, 2012
Abstract
The elite projects of steering mass communication, especially journalism through an increasing professionalization of politics via the methods of marketing, advertising and public relations, have met serious obstacles in the new digital culture era. However, I argue that elite projects of managing democracy are investing immense resources in studying the new digital culture and adapting propaganda methods to the new challenges. I argue that political rumor (in addition to rumor generally) is a site where one can study the struggles to manage communication flows in the present. More precisely, what I call rumor bombs (Harsin 2006) have produced a crisis of verification that produces what I call vertiginous democracy, which benefits elites more than citizens. In the rest of the essay, I offer a convergence theory of rumor bombs that explains their current historical ubiquity, while also employing recent insights from neuroscience, affect theory, and Tardean sociology of influence and imitation to explain their powerful viral efficacy — all of which have no small consequences for democracy.
Keywords: political communication, democracy, Internet, social media, neuroscience, rumor, American politics, journalism, attention economy, virality, networks, trust, authority, emotion, affect, contagion
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