argument for how PsyOps is a form of a nudge that can be used for good in the media, writing homework help

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Must make an argument for how PsyOps is a form of a nudge that can be used for good in the media; just as nudge, in the book, is used for good.

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4% Š 8:55 PM < Inbox A paper 8 pages long that summarize the book entitled "Nudge", and makes an argument for the media being used to nudge with respect to education instead of propaganda. Do find and use additional sources besides this book. First show who propaganda is a sort of nudge. Show how the way the book describes its way of nudging is not propaganda. Show how nudging is performed in the news media. Show how nudging can be used for educational purposes with respect to teaching society about the issues in headline news. It is not necessary for the paper to be organized in this way. However, all of these factors need to be addressed within the paper somewhere. This paper will be part of a 50 page (already written) thesis.
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Answer outline to MEDIA AND NUDGING


Discussion


Running head: MEDIA AND NUDGING

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Media and Nudging
Name
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MEDIA AND NUDGING

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Discussion
According to Thaler and Sunstein (2008), nudging draws focus on human psychology and nature
the same way propaganda does but in a more gentle way that will yield positive results. Humans
have the will to choose what they want and if they can be guided into the required direction the
decision is made much easier without having to manipulate their way of thinking and influencing
their psychology. It is human nature to make mistakes because of their fallacies and heuristics
and because they are influenced by the social factors in the society.

In the book Thaler and

Sunstein (2008) describe two systems thinking that define the human character which includes
reflective system and automatic system. In an automatic system, the thinking is fast and does not
really involve the actual instincts of what can be described as thinking (Kahneman, 2011). In the
reflective system, the thinking is slow and puts into account self-consciousness. The reflective
system is more critical and it involves analysis of the presented options.
How propaganda is a sort of a nudge
Mental manipulation can have good intentions but when used with stealth it can be wrong and
deceitful and that is what propaganda entails. Nudging can be used as a tool for designing
policies which make it an effective tool for propaganda. The idea with propaganda is that it
manipulates information and makes it deceptive so that the public is lured in the wrong direction.
With the information in your hands, one can be able to manipulate it in either a positive or
negative way depending on the intended results which make nudging a perfect tool for spreading
propaganda.
Nudging influences the behavior of the public and as Thaler and Sunstein (2008) state that
choice architect is built and manipulated by the nudger who may have either positive to negative

MEDIA AND NUDGING

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intentions. With propaganda, the architect of choice is manipulated in a way that influences the
behavior of the public towards the opposite direction of truth (Arno, Annelise & Steve Thomas,
2016). Propaganda prevents the public from seeing through the mirror by painting is opaque to
deceive them that they have the truth but the nudgers are fully aware of the truth. According to
Thaler and Sunstein (2008), the background to nudging is that the policy serves the interests of
the public rather than for the government something that is overruled in propaganda. Propaganda
creates the false illusion that good governance will ruin the society and therefore they hide the
facts that may make them appear wrong this is because propaganda is a half-truth.
Fallacies and biases
Thinking is dynamic and depends on a carefully presented background information that can be
used to guide the decisions. The media is one of the most dependable sources of information that
can be used to influence people in the most positive way on a reflective thinking. Because of the
thinking systems that define human character they are mostly subjected to fallacies and biases.
The differences between the two systems make people susceptible to making wrong decisions.
The first mistake is in anchoring which Thaler and Sunstein (2008) define as a cognate bias
where one heavily relies on information to make a decision. The media being the source of
information has the power to influence the people by nudging them in the right direction through
offering an educative piece of information rather than bias information. For instance asking a
random citizen to choose a president from a list of candidates whom they don’t know can be very
difficult because they don’t have the background information. The citizen may just guess on the
candidates but they will not make the right decision based on manifestos and acts of service to
the people which can be a helpful piece of information when voting for the candidates. The
media being the source of information is supposed to offer information about the candidates

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which can help them in making a decision that is made from a reflection of the pool of
information presented to them without being bias on either side of the candidates.
The second fallacy and bias are availability of heuristic which is the ability of the people to
predict the frequency of something based on examples in the mind (Kahneman, 2011). For
instance, the public may be made to think that blacks are being killed more than the whites this is
because the examples that are being presented in the media are for blacks. The media can be used
to provide balanced information to enlighten the people on the society they are living without
having to point or highlight areas that have the weight which may have rather negative effects
because people will overestimate the risks resulting in rather radical decisions such as pursuing
social objectives at the expense of other more fruitful objectives (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008).
The third bias that media can conquer is the representativeness heuristic where people tend to
make judgments based on the frequency of the events or hypothesis by comparing the available
data (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). The media can present information to the people in a more
frequent manner that is more educational to direct them into a positive thinking pattern. The
media can be used to rule out myths in the society which are false and account for propaganda by
providing facts. Projecting information in the manner it is supposed to be presented and not
manipulating it. For instance, people may have the belief that basketball players are “hot” this is
because with the number of shots they take they have more chances of being shot by the cameras
more frequently. For the fans, they think that because the player has made frequent shots over the
previous games they are more likely to make the subsequent shots which wrong beliefs. The
media counters this effect by providing balanced sides of events so that the viewer can develop a
new way of thinking that is based on facts rather than the frequency of data that is presented to
them.

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The fourth is status quo where people are more inclined to continue with the course of action
because it has been the tradition for a long time even though they may not be real...


Anonymous
Very useful material for studying!

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