后真相商业

As highlighted in the introduction, there’s a problem thataffects us all. We’re living in a media landscape where thetruth is deliberately manipulated, trust has been catastrophicallydevalued and organized misinformation is a growth business.This is a fundamental problem for democracy, with trans- parency and truth being such key foundations. The situation isbased on two issues that combined to devastating effect: post-truth and fake news. A debate at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davosnoted that due to ‘hacking, leaking and disputing the facts, it’snever been easier to distort the truth. Fake news and digitiza-tion present a major threat to global democracy. Social mediain particular has changed the way we consume and share newsand information and accelerated the spread of inaccurate andmisleading content’ (World Economic Forum, 2018). This is underlined by a lack of trust in mainstream media or-ganizations. A poll from Gallup noted that Americans’ trust in mass media peaked at 72 per cent in 1976 (Swift, 2016). By 2016that figure had plunged to 32 per cent overall, but just 14 per centamong Republicans, a ‘polarization’ point that illuminates the in-creasingly toxic nature of partisan politics around the world re-garding the inflammatory use of social media by politicians andvoters from both ends of the political spectrum. The United Statesis hardly unique in having a population that mistrusts the media,but according to theFinancial Times‘in few countries are views ofjournalists more defined by party allegiance and in no other has apresident so weaponized that mistrust’ (Edgecliffe-Johnson, 2017). COPYRIGHT MATERIALNOT FOR REPRODUCTIONWhile this book focuses on rebuilding brand authenticity ina distrusting world, as the political sphere plays such a majorpart in undermining people’s trust in the world around them, it’svital to illuminate that overall context. In terms of political bias(let’s face it, we all have one), I’ll aim to take an even-handed ap-proach to the subject; but as certain key personalities and coun-tries are so prominent in this debate, those players will naturallyfigure strongly throughout this chapter. Of course, truth is the crucial foundation here. A report fromthe Rand Corporation titled ‘Truth Decay’ explored the dimin-ishing role of facts and analysis in, for instance, US public life.Their report identified four trends that characterized the issue:‘increasing disagreement about facts and analytical interpreta-tion of facts and data, a blurring of the line between opinion andfact, the increasing relative volume and resulting influence ofopinion and personal experience over fact, and declining trust informerly respected sources of facts’ (Rand Corporation, 2018).From a business point of view, the issues that I’ll cover relate to brands of all varieties, as post-truth and fake news impactthe people who consume brands in every sector, for the sim-ple reasons that ‘truth and trust’ impact brands of every type.I’ll discuss issues including what happens when the truth be-comes devalued, the polarizing impact of social groups retreat-ing into niche-interest echo chambers, how the mainstreammedia became portrayed as the ‘enemy within’, why tracking technology and System One and Two thinking are such im-portantconsiderations, and finally how our social media plat-forms have found themselves in the front line in the war againstterror – which, once again, affects us all. A government of lies COPYRIGHT MATERIALIt’s generally accepted that the playwright Steve Tesich coinedthe phrase ‘Post-Truth’ back in the 1990s, in an article titled ‘Agovernment of lies’ which he wrote forThe Nationmagazine inreaction to the Iran/Contra scandal. NOT FOR REPRODUCTIONA quick recap on that infamous episode goes like this: Presi-dent Reagan shocked the world when he went on US TV to in-form the public that, despite repeated denials, his administrationhad covertly organized and funded US support for theContraanti-SandinistaGovernment rebels in Nicaragua–supportwhich had been specifically banned by Congress. To give thisan additional twist, the funding was linked to an illegal dealswapping weapons with Iran, a country that was the subject ofan arms embargo. The reason for that deal was to gain Iranianinfluence in assisting the release of US hostages who’d been kid-napped by Hezbollah in Lebanon.As political intrigue goes, that one takes some beating. To quote an old saying, what could possibly go wrong? When theinevitable happened and this politically explosive story broke,the phrase ‘Iran-Contra’ became a talking point around theworld, summing up incompetent government, political arro-gance and dishonest public officials. But it was the words that President Reagan used in his TVaddress, and the thinking behind them, that so intrigued SteveTesich. The president said: ‘A few months ago I told the Ameri-can people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and mybest intentions still tell me that