I have been featured in an article written by Rhys Southan for Aeon Magazine.
The article talks about the tension between art and effective altruism. It features quotes from about a dozen different people associated with the effective altruist movement.
I think the article is fair and well-written but unfortunately, the title expresses a viewpoint no effective altruist agrees with. I think EA can benefit from public scrutiny, however, so the misleading title may not be so bad. My impression is that so far, EAs have mainly argued among themselves and have yet to face the criticisms of people that don't fall within their narrow demographic. I personally don't have much confidence in EAs to respond to those criticisms in ways that actually persuade people. They mostly strike me as so far removed from "the masses" that they don't know how to communicate with people outside their in-group.
Thursday, 20 March 2014
Monday, 17 March 2014
Communication Cache
At the completion of my thesis paper, I was planning to publish my bibliography on this blog. I've been assuming that that post would instantly become the greatest resource on media effects, communications, and persuasion available on the internet.
I am no longer certain of that.
Communication Cache is a website storing hundreds of academic articles on these issues. I discovered it by noticing it in the URLs of many of the articles I found on Google Scholar. The categorization system is a little sloppy but this site is a massive addition to my arsenal of resources.
I am no longer certain of that.
Communication Cache is a website storing hundreds of academic articles on these issues. I discovered it by noticing it in the URLs of many of the articles I found on Google Scholar. The categorization system is a little sloppy but this site is a massive addition to my arsenal of resources.
Thursday, 13 March 2014
BCC vs CFSC
On this blog, I've been writing about subjects as I teach myself about them. This is a way of leaving behind a trail of breadcrumbs for newcomers to optimal mass communication - so that they can see how to learn the subject from scratch. But in so doing, I have used language sloppily without realizing it, kind of like a philosophy newb that says "that's a valid point," not knowing the word "valid" has a technical meaning in philosophy.
I've often referred to terms like "behaviour change communication," "health communication," "social marketing," "communication for social change," "media advocacy," and "media interventions." But although I've acted as if these words are interchangeable in many situations, they can actually refer to pretty distinct approaches, models, and strategies of communication.
The main line I need to draw is between two distinct camps: behaviour change communication (BCC) and communication for social change (CFSC). Although most scholars think the two approaches should be combined, most uses of media fall more into one camp than the other.
Parks defines the two schools of thought as follows:
So while the former approach focuses on the top-down transmission of information, products, and services to individuals, the latter approach targets the more fundamental systemic problems that cause other issues such as illness and violence. In the case of a million kids with malaria, the first approach is to disseminate messages teaching people how to avoid malaria and to distribute insecticide-treated bed nets so that people have the means, as well as the desire, to change their behaviour. The second approach is to increase press freedom, change totalitarian policies, and stimulate cultural change through the use of interpersonal communication. According to users of the second approach, the first approach focuses too heavily on disguising symptoms when it should be targeting the underlying issues that trigger those symptoms.
CFSC is a bottom-up approach whereby professionals mobilize groups of people toward better outcomes. Rather than tell people what they need to do in order to become healthier or happier, they stress the dialogue process through which people identify values, obstacles, and goals. One way of understanding this is to see researchers as helping people go from preferences to idealized preferences.
Personally, I'm more interested in BCC, as it's more quantifiable and closer to the kind of conversation I'd like to be having about mass communication. I suspect that in CFSC it can be difficult to tell the difference between useful and useless conversations. So far, I've yet to find much useful writing on CFSC although I think the approach has merit in theory.
I've often referred to terms like "behaviour change communication," "health communication," "social marketing," "communication for social change," "media advocacy," and "media interventions." But although I've acted as if these words are interchangeable in many situations, they can actually refer to pretty distinct approaches, models, and strategies of communication.
The main line I need to draw is between two distinct camps: behaviour change communication (BCC) and communication for social change (CFSC). Although most scholars think the two approaches should be combined, most uses of media fall more into one camp than the other.
Parks defines the two schools of thought as follows:
- "Communication approaches based on modernisation theories and information-persuasion strategies used by Western governments and industrial sectors. Examples include: Diffusion of innovations, Social Marketing, Information-Education-Communication (IEC), Behaviour Change Communication (BCC);
- Communication approaches based on critical theory, collective learning, information-sharing and dialogic processes forged during social and political struggles against colonial and dictatorial powers imposed on poor communities and countries. Examples include: Participatory Communication, Communication for Social Change."
So while the former approach focuses on the top-down transmission of information, products, and services to individuals, the latter approach targets the more fundamental systemic problems that cause other issues such as illness and violence. In the case of a million kids with malaria, the first approach is to disseminate messages teaching people how to avoid malaria and to distribute insecticide-treated bed nets so that people have the means, as well as the desire, to change their behaviour. The second approach is to increase press freedom, change totalitarian policies, and stimulate cultural change through the use of interpersonal communication. According to users of the second approach, the first approach focuses too heavily on disguising symptoms when it should be targeting the underlying issues that trigger those symptoms.
CFSC is a bottom-up approach whereby professionals mobilize groups of people toward better outcomes. Rather than tell people what they need to do in order to become healthier or happier, they stress the dialogue process through which people identify values, obstacles, and goals. One way of understanding this is to see researchers as helping people go from preferences to idealized preferences.
Personally, I'm more interested in BCC, as it's more quantifiable and closer to the kind of conversation I'd like to be having about mass communication. I suspect that in CFSC it can be difficult to tell the difference between useful and useless conversations. So far, I've yet to find much useful writing on CFSC although I think the approach has merit in theory.
Wednesday, 12 March 2014
Attacking Issues From Multiple Angles
When it comes to using media for achieving social good our uncertainty is high enough that we can't bank on a single strategy to save the day.
Mass media effects are small and quantifiable. They do not generally turn good kids into school shooters or launch social movements, but they do have small effects on very large audiences. Due to the amount of people media messages can reach, even a small impact can have significant consequences.
For instance, let's say 10% of X-itis patients die and 10% of Rwandans that don't sleep under ITNs get X-itis. If the message you disseminate through the media reaches 1 million Rwandans and gets 5% of them to start using ITNs, you'd now have half as many cases of X-itis and half as many deaths from X-itis. If the original number was 250,000 cases of X-itis, you now have only 125,000. Rather than 25,000 deaths, you'd have 12,500, a difference of 12,500 lives.
Saving 12,500 lives is nice but how can we maximize this number?
Media interventions don't always outcompete interpersonal and other interventions. There are also multiple ways to use media for social change (entertainment-education, health communication, social marketing, farm radio show, etc.) and not that much known about which methods are the most effective. These methods are also based on divergent models of communication and social behaviour. Usually, many methods are used in unison and usually, this yields pretty good results.
I once made the analogy to a sculptor that can never see the entire sculpture from one vantage point. In order to make an aesthetic evaluation, she must circle the object and synthesize the input from multiple angles. Similarly, no theory simple enough to put into words will ever accurately describe the complex movements of cultural phenomena. It is less productive to try deriving a comprehensive theory than to utilize multiple perspectives.
In his incredible Family Tree of Theories, Methodologies, and Strategies in Development Communication, Waisbord proposes a "tool-kit" conception of strategies:
Mass media effects are small and quantifiable. They do not generally turn good kids into school shooters or launch social movements, but they do have small effects on very large audiences. Due to the amount of people media messages can reach, even a small impact can have significant consequences.
For instance, let's say 10% of X-itis patients die and 10% of Rwandans that don't sleep under ITNs get X-itis. If the message you disseminate through the media reaches 1 million Rwandans and gets 5% of them to start using ITNs, you'd now have half as many cases of X-itis and half as many deaths from X-itis. If the original number was 250,000 cases of X-itis, you now have only 125,000. Rather than 25,000 deaths, you'd have 12,500, a difference of 12,500 lives.
Saving 12,500 lives is nice but how can we maximize this number?
Media interventions don't always outcompete interpersonal and other interventions. There are also multiple ways to use media for social change (entertainment-education, health communication, social marketing, farm radio show, etc.) and not that much known about which methods are the most effective. These methods are also based on divergent models of communication and social behaviour. Usually, many methods are used in unison and usually, this yields pretty good results.
I once made the analogy to a sculptor that can never see the entire sculpture from one vantage point. In order to make an aesthetic evaluation, she must circle the object and synthesize the input from multiple angles. Similarly, no theory simple enough to put into words will ever accurately describe the complex movements of cultural phenomena. It is less productive to try deriving a comprehensive theory than to utilize multiple perspectives.
In his incredible Family Tree of Theories, Methodologies, and Strategies in Development Communication, Waisbord proposes a "tool-kit" conception of strategies:
"Practitioners have realized that a multiplicity of strategies is needed to improve the quality of life of communities in developing countries. Rather than promoting specific theories and methodologies regardless of the problem at stake, there has been an emerging consensus that different techniques are appropriate in different contexts in order to deal with different problems and priorities. Theories and approaches are part of a “tool-kit” that is used according to different diagnoses. There is the belief that the tools that are used to support behaviour change depend on the context in which the program is implemented, the priorities of funders, and the needs of the communities."Waisbord also calls for the integration of top-down and bottom-up theories, personal and environmental approaches, and multimedia and interpersonal communication. Basically, we don't know exactly how to optimize our media use for saving the most lives possible but we know that media interventions are helpful and attacking problems from multiple angles is even more helpful. At the moment, I think it makes more sense to target according to health areas and geographic regions than it does to target according to media strategy.
Sunday, 9 March 2014
Dan Pallotta on Charity
In past blog posts, I've mentioned that turning charity into a business where people have the potential to win big could help send way more money to the poor. Sacrifice is the world's worst meme. If you want people to focus on more altruistic projects, then find a way for them to benefit from focusing on more altruistic projects.
Dan Pallotta's TED Talk is along these lines. He points out some of the double standards we hold about charitable organizations (e.g. that investing in overhead or capitalizing is immoral) and how these double standards put the non-profit sector at an extreme disadvantage to the for-profit sector.
One of Pallotta's examples is that charities are shamed into spending minimally on advertising and marketing. There is no reason to expect advertising and marketing to work less effectively for charities than for businesses. Ads and marketing work. If organizations trying to maximize their profits find it to be a great investment of their resources, why shouldn't organizations trying to maximize donations?
Dan Pallotta's TED Talk is along these lines. He points out some of the double standards we hold about charitable organizations (e.g. that investing in overhead or capitalizing is immoral) and how these double standards put the non-profit sector at an extreme disadvantage to the for-profit sector.
One of Pallotta's examples is that charities are shamed into spending minimally on advertising and marketing. There is no reason to expect advertising and marketing to work less effectively for charities than for businesses. Ads and marketing work. If organizations trying to maximize their profits find it to be a great investment of their resources, why shouldn't organizations trying to maximize donations?
Tuesday, 4 March 2014
Alcohol Advertising Works
Alcohol advertisements don't just get consumers to switch from one brand to another. They also increase total drinking among youth aged 15-26.
The average amount of alcohol advertising in one's media environment is related to greater alcohol consumption. Teenagers and young adults in these environments also increase their drinking levels over time more than other youths.
This may be problematic given that alcohol use media interventions work better on adults (r = .11) than on youth (r = .07).
The average amount of alcohol advertising in one's media environment is related to greater alcohol consumption. Teenagers and young adults in these environments also increase their drinking levels over time more than other youths.
This may be problematic given that alcohol use media interventions work better on adults (r = .11) than on youth (r = .07).
Sunday, 2 March 2014
Saying True Things
It's harder than you may think to just say true things.
When people enjoy a book, they probably believe that it comprises mostly true statements. They agree with the main arguments, share the author's point of view, and only rarely disagree with something he says. But if a book makes thousands of claims, it's impossible for an author to get more than 90% of them right. The book just has to be littered with a mix of truths and falsehoods. When people say untrue things, it's usually because they used sloppy wording to say a thing that actually is true.
Case in point, the above paragraph was generally correct but it contained no true sentences. (Look back. After every sentence, ask yourself if the statement is true or not. I wrote each one to be at least somewhat questionable.)
A really bad writer says almost no true things. I Google Scholared "post-structuralism" and this was the first paragraph of the first available essay that popped up:
I underlined every second sentence to make it more apparent where each sentence begins and ends.
The paragraph begins with a couple of sentences that may well be true, but it soon turns into a bunch of claims and implications that are either clearly false or just plain incoherent. But criticizing post-structuralist theory is too easy. Let's take another example, one that is less obviously nonsense.
Take this paragraph from the opening chapter of Kalle Lasn's Culture Jam:
This is a typical paragraph in the book. Although if one were to steelman this paragraph, it would be possible to identify some good observations and arguments, it's shocking how difficult it is to simply find a true sentence. In the above paragraph, barely any sentence is actually true. Despite it arguably being more or less on the mark regarding the superficiality of American culture, almost no sentence in the paragraph says true things.
When reading or writing, a good habit is to go sentence by sentence, asking yourself whether the sentence in the hot seat is true or not. This is a way to improve your ability to reason clearly, notice bad arguments, and clean up your own writing.
When people enjoy a book, they probably believe that it comprises mostly true statements. They agree with the main arguments, share the author's point of view, and only rarely disagree with something he says. But if a book makes thousands of claims, it's impossible for an author to get more than 90% of them right. The book just has to be littered with a mix of truths and falsehoods. When people say untrue things, it's usually because they used sloppy wording to say a thing that actually is true.
Case in point, the above paragraph was generally correct but it contained no true sentences. (Look back. After every sentence, ask yourself if the statement is true or not. I wrote each one to be at least somewhat questionable.)
A really bad writer says almost no true things. I Google Scholared "post-structuralism" and this was the first paragraph of the first available essay that popped up:
"For many contemporary feminist theorists, the concept of woman is a problem. It is a problem of primary significance because the concept of woman is the central concept for feminist theory and yet it is a concept that is impossible to formulate precisely for feminists. It is the central concept for feminists because the concept and category of woman is the necessary point of departure for any feminist theory and feminist politics, predicated as these are on the transformation of women's lived experience in contemporary culture and the reevaluation of social theory and practice from women's point of view. But as a concept it is radically problematic precisely for feminists because it is crowded with the overdeterminations of male supremacy, invoking in every formulation the limit, contrasting Other, or mediated self-reflection of a culture built on the control of females. In attempting to speak for women, feminism often seems to presuppose that it knows what women truly are, but such an assumption is foolhardy given that every source of knowledge about women has been contaminated with misogyny and sexism. No matter where we turn-to historical documents, philosophical constructions, social scientific statistics, introspection, or daily practices-the mediation of female bodies into constructions of woman is dominated by misogynist discourse. For feminists, who must transcend this discourse, it appears we have nowhere to turn."
I underlined every second sentence to make it more apparent where each sentence begins and ends.
The paragraph begins with a couple of sentences that may well be true, but it soon turns into a bunch of claims and implications that are either clearly false or just plain incoherent. But criticizing post-structuralist theory is too easy. Let's take another example, one that is less obviously nonsense.
Take this paragraph from the opening chapter of Kalle Lasn's Culture Jam:
"A free, authentic life is no longer possible in America today. We are being manipulated in the most insidious way. Our emotions, personalities and core values are under siege from media and cultural forces too complex to decode. A continuous product message has woven itself into designer lives--sleep, eat, sit in car, work, shop, watch TV, sleep again. I doubt there's more than a handful of free, spontaneous minutes anywhere in that cycle. We ourselves have been branded. The human spirit of prideful contrariness and fierce independence has been oddly tamed. We have evolved into a smile-button culture. We wear the trendiest fashions, drive the best cars industry can produce an project an image of incredible affluence--cool people living life to the hilt. But behind that happy mask is a face so ugly it invariably shocks the hell out of my friends from developing countries who come to visit, expecting the giddy Americana depicted on TV and finding instead a horror show of disconnection and anomie."
This is a typical paragraph in the book. Although if one were to steelman this paragraph, it would be possible to identify some good observations and arguments, it's shocking how difficult it is to simply find a true sentence. In the above paragraph, barely any sentence is actually true. Despite it arguably being more or less on the mark regarding the superficiality of American culture, almost no sentence in the paragraph says true things.
When reading or writing, a good habit is to go sentence by sentence, asking yourself whether the sentence in the hot seat is true or not. This is a way to improve your ability to reason clearly, notice bad arguments, and clean up your own writing.
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