Doug’s new course on mass media mind control

IEET Fellow Doug Rushkoff is teaching an online course on mass media and persuasion this Fall through Robert Anton Wilson’s “Maybe Logic Academy.”

Technologies of Persuasion: From Propaganda to Paranoia - with Douglas Rushkoff

This seminar will explore persuasion in a wide range of media. Our task will be to evaluate humanity’s ability to maintain agency in the face of the increasingly sophisticated influence techniques used against us.

Does the emergence of interactive media change the balance of power between the masses and their would-be controllers? Or does the Internet merely provide the illusion of independent thinking on yet another tightly controlled media landscape?

More importantly, what is the real relationship between people, media, technology, and power? How can we come to recognize the biases of the media that we use - especially before we have committed our society to their implementation?

We will first study the fundamentals of persuasion, influence, psychology and coercion, and then look at how they have been adapted for use in interactive contexts. I’m particularly interested in looking at the relative media capabilities of people and their would-be “controllers,” and to determine whether the “masses” ever seize the true potential of the technologies being offered them.

We will study a broad range of applications, from simple marketing to political campaigns, activism, and satire - and we will discuss the ethics of using these techniques for different purposes. We will look at the propagandistic use of technology and futurism by both governments and corporations in their effort to “create” future scenarios favorable to their interests.

More details on how courses at Maybe Logic Academy actually work at:
http://www.maybelogic.org/academy.htm