Persuassion: The-Science-and-Art-of-Effective-Influence

For this intensive, 9 day class I'm taking, I have to keep a daily journal, so what a great excuse to write in my blog every day. It's a fascinating class, though I've never had such a struggle staying awake as I did the post-lunch session. It was painful trying to stay awake. I tried everything, squirming, pinching myself, and taking more notes, but at least I didn't fall asleep and start snoring, like someone behind me. And after spending most of the break with the kids, it was back to letting down during class. Oh, well, at least that kept me awake.

But, alas, here's the official journal that I'll have to turn in at the end of class and turn into a paper.

Day One:
I'm definitely in the right class. With my interest in news media representation, or mis-representation of the poor and working class, along with the digital divide, especially in the realm of Web 2.0, the content and framing of these mediated messages fascinate me. Also, after making documentary films and public service annoncements, the principles in class today have definitely forced me to reflect on my past production work. In crafting The Golf War - a story of land, golf and revolution in the Philippines - we definitely thought foremost of our audience - an American audience that might not have high literacy skills, using the creative treatement of Tiger Woods to attract a broader audience, and tireless editing to hone our message - I definitely have the logos tendancy. Having focus groups really helped with that. For my PSAs - we had two audiences - the general public, as well as the master control operators who had to choose to even air our announcements, which generally aired by (at the time long ago) mostly cable and other operators who had a few seconds of unpaid air time - usually at odd hours. We often talked with our public service clients that they needed to know what they wanted people to see, hear, feel, say or do once they watched it, but I don't think we were conscious, except in our general production experience of having a simple message.

However, two other points particularly strike me. One is the connection between labor/community organizing and the salient principle. In college in the late 1980s, and then in my early work in rural African American communities in North Carolina, we were constantly talking about and putting into practice the organizing principle of "starting where people are at," espoused by Saul Alinsky and other even more rooted and radical organizers. Today, Gary talked about doing an ethnographic study of great university faculty and ministers/faith leaders - I wonder if he's considered analyzing organizers - the whole point is to persuade people to become active. This rooting ourselves was key in my experience. One amazing activist from the black liberation army days, talked a lot about spending time in working class communities - a colleague and I always used to joke about the example given sometimes - join a bowling league. Though we put this philosophy to serious task - I worked in a service job for three years as we were trying to organize grocery store workers, and we frequently worked with the local black churches. This point of church involvement is related to the question in class today about the disconnect between agnostic environmentalists and how to recruit evangelical environmentalists - is it unethical to talk the talk about the god's role in this mutual work. My sense is that it's a coalition work - we would work with church leaders - usually black women - who then, themselves, did the speak-outs in churches about work conditions. It felt very organic and natural, which I think was a term that Gary used today.

The second point is in childrearing. In class, we talked about the three P's - power, pnegotiation and persuasion - I think I tend to use too much power and negotiation and not enough persuassion. It will be interesting to use this class as an offshoot to hopefully be a better parent - Gary talked about this struggle with his own son, but he was much older than my tots. I wonder if/how the principles change when the kids are so much younger. Along with age, I wonder how gender or class plays a part in these principles. We talked about culture but am wondering if stratification within one culture is a feature of the co-efficient formula.

I also wonder how propaganda is part of the ethical/manipulative aspect of the principles. In my analysis of the persuassion principles, I keep floating back and forth between personal relationships - which tend to be family - and more group/regional/national/international persuassions - which is where I think the propaganda element is key. I'm not yet sure what my question is around this theme, but it is percolating, as is the role of the form of the persuassion - which, I guess, in theory shouldn't matter since the principles are universal, but I wonder with the digital age, and the digital divide, in particular, as well as Web 2.0, what all of this means. Is propaganda even more possible with digital technology - or less, without a primary means for delivery - how is consistency affected by all of these outlets? How is my message, that follows most of the principles, dilluted by the power of money? As Gary said, even with the limitations, it's better to use the principles, but how can I evaluate this in light of "freedom of speech is for those who owns the presses" - is it "the power of persuassion is for those who have the power of the media"