From Murdoch’s “Win-Free-Sex” Propaganda to Systems Psychology
By: Dimitris Vayenas
Tags: Politics, Psychology, Propaganda, Science, AI

This is the last part in this introductory series regarding Propaganda and Electoral Polling in the Social Media era. In the… introduction and the second part of this introduction the “Russian” propaganda techniques as a means to accurately predict, if not influence, electoral outcomes were discussed. In the third part some of the technical tools required to approach such investigations were presented. In this final part I will attempt to present the elements that glue the previous parts into one.

Background studies in Mass Communication

One additional, and final, snapshot of my personal journey that I find worth sharing pertains to my studies in Journalism at City University London for a Masters in Electronic Publishing in the academic year 1999–2000. Close to Fleet Street, the traditional home of the British Press Industry, City hosts one of the leading Schools of Journalism in the world that invites Industry leaders to address the students. In our case our visitors included many of the editors of major British publications such as The Guardian, The Times and the Daily Telegraph.

Analysing the pages of publications in order to determine their impact to their audience (based on various reader profiles) remains an extremely demanding task. In this example, the cover of the latest edition of The Sun (21/9/2019) is exposed to different image processing filters to simulate its true impact to different reader profiles. Big data allows us to run similar simulations for all publications and/or historic analysis to further validate and optimise our models regarding their impact.

Meeting the editor of The Sun, UK’s leading populist newspaper:

In one such session, our guest speaker was David Yelland the then editor of most popular and profitable newspaper in the UK, The Sun, owned by Rupert Murdoch. David remains to date the only openly Labour supporter to have become editor of The Sun as he was lucky to have his success as deputy editor of the New York Post coinciding with the “love affair” between Murdoch’s News Corporation and Blair’s “New Labour”; so he was promoted to become the editor of The Sun, as it was good to align Britain’s top selling newspaper with Downing Street.

I had found David’s session inspiring for many reasons but here are the two most relevant:

1. Because he talked about the importance of logistics in the newspaper business (as he says in the interview in this link, he was impressed with the near zero (5% at worst) returns of the Sun at the end of the day with adaptive circulation)

2. Because he presented to us the “Win — Free — Sex” approach. As I cannot recall his exact words about it, let’s look into this excerpt from “Read All about It!: A History of the British Newspaper” by Prof. Kevin Williams.

At the time this resonated with me because I thought that their adaptive logistics can possibly take into account the context as well as the impact of the usage of these words i.e. if in one day the words “Win” or “Sex” are absent and the circulation may drop, or to even take into account impact of the main story for sections of your readers — e.g. following a football match -say Manchester vs Liverpool- to be able to predict the circulation in the respective cities depending on the result.

I was stunned when, in 2003, I came across the Soviet Propaganda Manual (presented in the first two articles of this series) as it was along the lines of Murdoch’s Propaganda approach:

The word “Win” covers for the “Conflict” motive

The word “Sex” covers for the “Joy” motive

The word “Free” covers for both the “Need” and “Altruistic” motives (depending on the giveaway)

Yet, as we have seen in the case of the populist Brexit and Trump campaigns, their principal elements/motivators were Conflict and Joy. The populist press employs similar motivators with only implicit references to the need and altruistic motives.

Additionally, the choice of words ought to match the context of the day.

The claim that the “Queen Backs Brexit” is accompanied by the promo “Win” to insinuate a positive outlook on the elections.

“Up Yours Delors” to liberate the UK from potential (at the time) European “hegemony” in the Euro-Pound talks, and the “Free” promo is more appropriate.

“Win-Free-Safe-Sex” would have covered 1:1 all Russian propaganda motives but, obviously, the motives in the Russian model can also be covered implicitly. For example the “need” can be covered by the very fact that people read the newspapers to be informed, thus to feel safer; the reliability of the distribution of the media can also amplify this effect, similar to the way that the clock in TV news is an amplifier of the sense of accuracy of the news one is. Even “symbols” such as the title word “Sun” can insinuate and implicitly convey meanings (warmth, openness, security, sincerity etc.).

Human Psychology, Control and Political Campaigns

As we are keen to explore the quantification of lying in the polls in order to accurately predict electoral outcomes, it is imperative to attempt to explore the human traits that lead to such a behaviour. The paradigms of the similarities of psychological behaviour in both personal and political communication are endless.

After-all Murdoch’s “Win-Free-Sex” trifold is a key driver in our intimate, personal relationships as well!

The supposed control of the masses by the media industry is popular in many conspiracy theories. If there is such a control we better look inside us than demonise the media. Our need to feel that we are in control, is part and parcel of the very definition of human behaviour. Fear and insecurity -even due to envy or awe- of the “subject/environment” induce the need of Control in our everyday lives. Additionally, people exercise a different kind of control in their private lives from the control (they are usually are subjected to) in their public lives; the latter usually levels any attempt to exceed what is perceived to be acceptable, while the former affords the individual more freedom for its expression.

A textbook example of a controlling personal relationship

Controlling behaviour is commonly exhibited by the so called jealous people who live in fear that their partner will betray and abandon them. They tend to employ nasty\derogatory comments, restrictions, surveillance, even physical violence to increase their sense of control. The paradox here is that the more control one achieves over his\her subject the more likely it is to devalue the subject, thus the reason of their own controlling behaviour. The “controller” ends up thinking: “if I have total control of my subject then this subject is too “controllable”, it is not “interesting” any more, thus not worthy of my efforts to control it”! Consequently, the controller attempts to make the relationship more interesting by testing the limits of his\her influence on the subject; usually by alternating “hope” and “fear” with varying techniques (e.g. by lying) at varying intervals and doses in order to obtain the desired re-assurance of his\her control. The most likely culmination to such a relationship is hate. The controller hates oneself for exerting control (obviously there are reasons behind it such as various -real or imagined- inadequacies and traumas) as well as hating one’s subject. On the other hand, the subject usually tries to “understand” the torturer while, at the same time, unwittingly becomes addicted to the behaviour as the “kicks” that to he/she is getting from the “maxima” that follow the “minima” are hard to let go; the fear of the actions of their tormentor is being replaced by the fear that life without their tormentor will become uninteresting for them too!

Such, albeit less extreme, examples of human behaviour ought to occupy each and every analyst who hopes to quantify human traits such as lying.

E. Burdick’s timeless political novel “The Ninth Wave”, first published in 1956, presents the case of how “hate” and “fear” are integral parts to successful political campaigning. The reader will certainly be able to identify politicians and voters in the novel with real life politicians and voters in every part of the globe.

Introducing Systems Psychology

In the third instalment special mention was made to the application of Control System Theory fundamentals towards the modelling of voting behaviour. The main argument towards this approach was summarised as coincidental: As everyone, I did what “I knew”. In the second instalment special mention was made to the fact that Sciences such as Psychology have yet to reach “Pure Science” status, yet they are on-going efforts to this end.

My predictions owe a lot to the study of Systems Psychology and I highly recommend to you to give to this field the attention it deserves.

What is Systems Psychology?

Systems Psychology is the field developed a few decades ago by enlightened Psychologists, Anthropologists and Sociologists who strived to integrate Cybernetics and Control Systems Theory with the study of human behaviour.

The pioneers of this field are:

Gregory Bateson who “in the 1940s, helped extend systems theory and cybernetics to the social and behavioral sciences. Although initially reluctant to join the intelligence services, Bateson served in OSS during World War II along with dozens of other anthropologists. He spent much of the war designing ‘black propaganda’ radio broadcasts. Bateson used his theory of schismogenesis to help foster discord among enemy fighters. He was upset by his wartime experience and disagreed with his wife over whether science should be applied to social planning or used only to foster understanding rather than action…

Where others might see a set of inexplicable details, Bateson perceived simple relationships. In “From Versailles to Cybernetics,” Bateson argues that the history of the twentieth century can be perceived as the history of a malfunctioning relationship. In his view, the Treaty of Versailles exemplifies a whole pattern of human relationships based on betrayal and hate. He therefore claims that the treaty of Versailles and the development of cybernetics — which for him represented the possibility of improved relationships — are the only two anthropologically important events of the twentieth century.” (source: wikipedia)

Roger Barker who is considered to be the founder of environmental psychology; he is the scientist who proved that the way in which the number and variety of behavior settings of persons belonging to groups remains remarkably constant regardless of the size of the group under examination. His study for example has implications when predicting, and generalising, electoral behaviours in areas of different population densities.

Humberto Maturana whose contributions to Systems Biology extended to Psychology; Prof. Maturana is a prominent member of the Second Order Cybernetics group founded by Bateson’s wife Margaret Mead and Heinz von Foerster one of the fathers of the field of “Artificial Intelligence”.

A practical application of Systems Psychology: Models for Intensive Longitudinal Data

Systematic datasets in Social science research (inclusive of electoral polling) can be categorised in two main types:

1. Longitudinal Data, commonly referred to as panel data, track the same sample at different points in time. The sample can consist of individuals, households, establishments, and so on.

2. Repeated Cross-sectional Data, which also provides long-term data, gives the same survey to different samples over time.

Longitudinal data have a number of advantages over repeated cross-sectional data. Longitudinal data allow for the measurement of within-sample change over time, enable the measurement of the duration of events, and record the timing of various events, thus allowing to correlate environmental stimuli with the response. For example, suppose the unemployment rate remained high for a long period of time. One can use longitudinal data to see if the same group of individuals stays unemployed over the entire period or if different groups of individuals move in and out of unemployment over the time period. On the contrary, repeated cross-sectional data cannot offer such insights; at best they can produce the correct overall unemployment rate.

The social media era affords us to take Longitudinal Data analysis to the next level as it provides the toolset to model and analyse the changes of behavioural patterns of targeted “groups”. A “group” can be the resultant behaviour of a set of individuals that share common characteristics or patterns of behaviour that the analyst deems interesting; for example the variation in the opinions of the members to specific stimuli can help us deduce possible behaviours or attempt to match behaviours with personality and other traits.

The volume “Models for Intensive Longitudinal Data”, Oxford University Press, 2006 offers an intriguing introduction to this field of research.

Some of the techniques presented here include state of the art sample selection and analysis (i.e. via exploratory modelling) that may also help limit the size of the sample required to produced accurate enough results. Yet, their true value, comes from the coupling of advanced mathematics with human behaviour.

Conclusion

I know that I could have been more succinct in telling my journey in this field. In academic terms I followed the constructivist approach. But I felt obliged to address all the sufficient and necessary components of the approach; not an easy feat in a multi-disciplinary endeavour like this one. As the tools define the skills whereas the skills merely refine the tools, the aim here was not to share the “secret recipe” of these predictions, but to share the toolset required for you to create your own recipes for related endeavours.

Besides, my friend David — who asked me present here, for the record, the story behind these predictions- is also a constructivist and fully familiar with the initial reception of my predictions while knows all too well that predictions are by and large a matter of “luck”; their reception a matter of even greater luck!

In my case, luck came in the form of friends and teachers or acquaintances along the way who shared their know-how as well as experiences and formed interesting relationships — even controlling ones similar to the one I described in this section — that provided the incentive to occupy myself with these fields. I admit that I was unable to predict my own path and destination — not 30 years ago, not now, not ever- and I am grateful to them for this.