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Желание формировать общественное мнение тоже не изменится. Достижение консенсуса всегда будет грязным, изнурительным процессом. За кулисами всегда будут действовать невидимые правители - следующий отец Кофлин, новая удивительная Полли, новый алгоритм. И средства массовой информации всегда будут развиваться, подобно тому как печатный станок и радио сменяли друг друга.
Но мы можем сосредоточиться, как это сделал Мэдисон, на смягчении их вредных последствий. Платформы могут разрабатываться с учетом стимулов, не ограничивающихся вовлечением. Правительства могут сделать приоритетом прозрачность и восстановление доверия. Противники - все мы - могут использовать те же сетевые инструменты, что и пропагандисты.
Путь вперед требует, чтобы системы не вырабатывали согласие, а выступали посредниками. Нам нужны системы, устойчивые не только к контролю и коррупции сверху, но и к стремительному росту слухов снизу. Это требует от всех нас повышенной осознанности: признания собственных предубеждений и предпочтений, приверженности балансу между скептицизмом и доверием, а также искреннего желания разделять одну и ту же реальность.
Примечания
INTRODUCTION
1 “Thundering herd,” The Economist, September 26, 2015, https://www.economist.com/united-states/2015/09/26/thundering-herd.
2 Olga Khazan, “Wealthy L.A. Schools’ Vaccination Rates Are as Low as South Sudan’s,” The Atlantic, September 16, 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/wealthy-la-schools-vaccination-rates-are-as-low-as-south-sudans/380252.
3 Gil Kaufman, “Vaccine Skeptic Eric Clapton Claims ‘Subliminal’ Messages Are Convincing People to Fall in Line,” Billboard, January 24, 2022, https://www.billboard.com/music/rock /eric-clapton-subliminal-messages-covid-interview-1235022031/.
CHAPTER 1: THE MILL AND THE MACHINE
1 NBA.com Staff, “Kyrie Irving on Flat-Earth Comments: ‘I’m Sorry,’” NBA, October 2, 2018, https://www.nba.com/news/kyrie-irving-regrets-flat-earth-comments.
2 Rob Picheta, “The Flat-Earth Conspiracy Is Spreading Around the Globe. Does It Hide a Darker Core?,” CNN, November 18, 2019, https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/16/us/flat-earth-conference-conspiracy-theories-scli-intl/index.html.3 Dustin Gardiner and Kyle Cheney, “Prosecutors Grapple with Alternative Reality Defense in Paul Pelosi Trial,” Politico, November 15, 2023, https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/15/paul-pelosi-jan-6-riot-00127267.
4 Consensus reality is the shared understanding and agreement within a group about what is real and true. It encompasses the commonly accepted beliefs, perceptions, and interpretations that shape our collective understanding of the world and is shaped by media, institutions (educational, governmental, scientific), and the public (including civil society, social movements, and collective memory). For more on consensus reality in the current cultural moment, see J. M. Berger, “Our Consensus Reality Has Shattered,” The Atlantic, October 9, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/year-living-uncertainly/616648.
5 Jean-Noël Kapferer, Rumors: Uses, Interpretations and Images (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2013), 3.
6 People participate in spreading rumors to compare their thinking to a group with which they identify; to arrive at consensus; for clout (being the one to reveal the rumor shows that they’re in the know); to participate in group dynamics and culture; or to persuade or convince others about something. For some people, transmitting rumors is akin to starting a crusade, and the rumor is a kind of revealed truth. Ibid., chap. 3.
7 Kristina Lerman, Xiaoran Yan, and Xin-Zeng Wu, “The ‘Majority Illusion’ in Social Networks,” PLoS One 11, no. 2 (2016), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0147617.
8 There are many definitions of propaganda; this one is adapted from Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion: Fifth Edition (Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2012), 7, which states in full, “Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.”
9 Nicholas Difonzo and Prashant Bordia, “Rumors Influence: Toward a Dynamic Social Impact Theory of Rumor,” in The Science of Social Influence: Advances and Future Progress, ed. Anthony R. Pratkanis (New York: Psychology Group, 2007), 271–295.
10 Edward Bernays, Propaganda (Brooklyn, NY: Ig Publishing, 2005), 61.
11 Ibid., 77.
12 Ibid., 109.
13 The details of this have been debated by scholars. The oft-repeated version of this story, where Luther nails the theses to the church door himself, was spread by Luther’s contemporary and biographer, Philipp Melanchton. However, Melanchton was not in Wittenberg at the time, and no other evidence has been found that shows that Luther performed this dramatic action. An alternative explanation, put forth by several historians, including Peter Marshall, is that Luther simply mailed the theses to an archbishop.
14 As historian Niall Ferguson writes in his examination of social networks and hierarchies, The Square and the Tower, “Printing was crucial to the Reformation’s success. Cities with at least one printing press in 1500 were significantly more likely to adopt Protestantism than cities without printing, but it was cities with multiple competing printers that were most likely to turn Protestant.” Niall Ferguson, The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook (New York: Penguin Press, 2018), 83.
15 Matthew Baker, “Flying Writings,” in Wild Boar in the Vineyard: Martin Luther at the Birth of the Modern World (online version of a 2017 exhibit showcasing early printed works by Martin Luther, primarily from the holdings of the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University), Columbia University Libraries, Digital Collections & Online Exhibitions, https://exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/exhibits/show/martin-luther/flug.
16 Ronald James Deibert, Parchment, Printing, and Hypermedia: Communication in World Order Transformation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 72.
17 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Verso, 2006), 40.
18 The “Pamphlet wars” began after the adoption of the printing press, when inexpensive, short booklets were used to spread ideas in polemical or propagandist ways. Pamphlets fostered debate about religious beliefs, government policies, political philosophy, and controversial civic issues across England, France, Germany, and North America. The Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, and the American Revolution were all periods of heavy pamphleteering. For a collected list of examples spanning regions throughout the period, see “List of Pamphlet Wars,” Wikipedia, last modified March 21, 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pamphlet_wars.
19 Peter H. Wilson, “The Causes of the Thirty Years War 1618–48,” English Historical Review 123, no. 502 (2008): 554, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cen160.
20 Pope Gregory chose a rarer Latin verb form, the gerundive, which contained in its very construction an emphasis that something must or ought to be done. This stylistic choice, which also appears in the famous imperialist rhetoric of Cato the Elder—Carthago delenda est! (Carthage must be destroyed)—and the writings
