Webinar: Stay Sharp During Elections – How Cognitive Biases and Media Influence Our Decisions

0:02 [Music] 0:11 [Music] 0:18 hello and welcome everyone um today marks the 11th day in this year's All 0:23 Digital weeks campaign with a special focus on how digital literacies and 0:29 skills affect European life and this includes how we participate in European 0:36 Democracies as well as of course the very relevant election behaviors uh 0:42 which are upon us very soon uh as a matter of fact today marks uh two weeks 0:47 until the European Parliament elections uh taking place on June 6th to 9th and 0:54 what better way to set the tone and get a final prep in uh um then learn about 1:01 some common propaganda techniques um and our cognitive biases that can be used to 1:07 influence our attitudes and thoughts um today we hopefully can give 1:13 you a little bit of an input uh on these things so that you are better prepared to go to the ballot boxes and so that 1:21 you can go to the ballot boxes in a way that you don't fall prey or at least easily fall prey to political campaigns 1:29 which are very very active now as you may have noticed so to explore this stuff together I have the honor to uh 1:37 introduce to you a media literacy expert Maria murum Mel and uh Maria is one of 1:43 the coolest media studies heroes in Estonia if I may say so aside from her 1:50 superb uh teaching Talent she is also known for her tremendous support to different Educators in helping them 1:58 Implement uh critical thinking media literacies into their daily work uh with 2:03 young people and Maria is affiliated with daru University and the Baltic engagement 2:09 Center for combating information disorders so without further Ado uh I 2:16 give you the wonderful Maria the floor is yours thank you very much you're too 2:21 kind um well big shoes now that I have to fill and expectations might be high 2:27 but uh hi everybody uh we will be talking uh today at length about um the 2:35 specific techniques uh the specific strategies the things that we might do 2:42 and others might do on purpose but very many things we just do because our gut 2:48 feeling tells us that this might work so we will be talking about political 2:53 communication but also about communication that takes place you know everywhere I'm doing it right now now 3:00 I'm trying to persuade you to think that this is an important topic you should 3:06 perhaps think about this um at a bit you know longer time than uh one might 3:12 usually do I work as an associate professor of media studies so when I'm giving you 3:18 examples then uh keep in mind that my home uh discipline is sociology and 3:26 media studies so that's why I have these kinds of uh um experiences and these 3:32 kinds of examples but I will be very very happy if all throughout today's uh 3:38 lecture time which will take about 45 minutes you will share your examples 3:44 because I am an Estonian so that means that most of my examples today come from 3:51 Estonia but I think that most of you will recognize these techniques will 3:57 recognize these strategies and you can think of very specific people politicians that use these techniques in 4:05 your countries and it would be very interesting to learn about these 4:10 specific cases so ask questions share stories share links share names that you 4:18 recognize and you kind of uh draw your own parallels to uh also heads up if this topic 4:28 interests you if you find this to be somehow intellectually tasty then uh read up 4:35 there are many books that of course you can read about propaganda and persuasion 4:40 but one of them is here on the slides as my suggestion to you as well that gives you a really good overview of propaganda 4:48 and persuasion the other one is a Wikipedia project uh and it's um wheel or codex of 4:56 cognitive biases and I think that uh first it's really welld designed and 5:02 it's a really fun tool to go through because there are hundreds of different 5:07 um cognitive biases the things that our brain does that make us not that 5:14 rational uh as human beings so you can go and click on them as well uh I'm sure 5:21 that the organizers will give you the link uh somewhere there in the comment 5:26 section and really importantly as I already stated that my background is in social media studies and I'm an Estonian 5:33 so you know brace yourself the examples will be from these uh Fields but um we 5:39 will take a really critical look at uh political communication and we will 5:45 be kind of like grilling the politicians but I don't want to be too 5:51 harsh I don't want us to uh think that politicians are evil manipulators 5:58 because politicians are do doing a really important job and we need them so 6:03 and of course they need us so these strategies can be used for um 6:10 manipulative behaviors but they can be really everyday mundane things as 6:17 well why we are talking about these topics um mostly to make people 6:23 resilient to make people um face hardships 6:30 face the really difficult times that we are living in because it's it's not really easy information wise right now 6:38 so much so different information is out 6:45 there that it's really hard to really understand is it true or is it false 6:50 what am I supposed to believe is this faked is this authentic am I being lied 6:57 to so more like ly then uh not you are 7:04 um facing a lot of misinformation disinformation and malformation and we 7:09 don't want you to break we want you to handle this we want you to be ready for 7:16 this to face difficult situations and information that can be harmful that can 7:22 be really really disturbing even at times but not break because of that but 7:27 rather you know stand back up deal with it in a way so to build 7:35 resilience my plan for today is pretty bold I have [Music] 7:41 10 one might even look at them as suggestions things that an aspiring 7:48 politician might want to do so it can be a Playbook but it can also be um a memo 7:57 a list for us all to keep in mind when we are acting as Citizens we will be 8:03 talking about 10 different suggestions techniques um aspects that can be used 8:11 in political communication to draw attention to nudge people towards certain attitudes and behaviors and 8:19 within them we will talk about some cognitive biases some specific 8:24 techniques from uh rhetorics and de demagogy so from uh persuasion and 8:32 propaganda as well let's get going rule number one for political 8:39 communication but not only it's also relevant for uh Financial communication 8:46 it's relevant for organizational communication for influencers for 8:53 educational um structures it's it's important for 8:58 you know most Brands and people and organizations is to stay in the picture 9:04 to stay relevant to be visible and to be recognizable so I have here on the slide 9:12 uh a picture or a couple of pictures screenshots from an Estonian politician 9:19 uh who is doing this I would say relatively well right now he's trying to uh engage with the 9:28 younger audiences which means that he's very present on social media and he's 9:34 constantly posting about political stuff about you know calls to action vote for 9:40 me for example but also here I am just hanging out here's my cat here I'm doing 9:46 yard work and so on and so on so about really like normal mundane things but 9:52 also political things and it can be not just social 9:59 media it can be traditional media as well the same politician uh is here on the other picture 10:05 dancing most of the countries I think have some form of Dancing With the Stars 10:12 uh which is you know where famous people go and dance so this politician got some 10:17 publicity from uh that as well why should a politician stay in the picture 10:24 why does it work it's because our brains are lazy 10:30 our brains work in a very specific way uh if you want to know more about this 10:36 then perhaps you already have but if you haven't then carman's book um Thinking 10:41 Fast and Slow is somewhat like a Bible nowadays uh everybody is referencing to 10:48 it so so you can learn about this as well take it as a reading suggestion uh but to put it really 10:57 shortly um our thinking operates on two levels system 11:04 one and system two so system two is this rational problemsolving slow thinking 11:11 analytical thinking where we really really pay attention to the 11:18 details but system number one is quick almost like automated we don't think 11:25 about all the tiny little details that happen to us every day we go through 11:32 every day semi-automatically so we make these 11:38 micro decisions all the time without actually thinking about things so this 11:44 is called the the kind of like the fast system the fast thinking and if a politician a brand an 11:53 influencer a singer is constantly available to our brain 12:00 via social media feeds or advertising or in different reality shows then our 12:08 brain has easier access to that person or that organization or brand because we 12:16 remember things that are familiar available more readily 12:21 available and furthermore um if they uh behave uh like Yuri ratas um the person 12:28 that was on the previous slides then we form sometimes parasocial relationships 12:36 with them which means that if they show us the the everyday life the struggles 12:41 you know the crying kids and I don't know cat problems that they 12:48 have to take their cat to the veterinarian or they have to chop trees or you know like whatever people do then 12:57 we might bond with them psychologically uh in a way that feels 13:02 real to us and that's why it's called parasocial it feels like a social 13:07 relationship when in actuality it's not yurias doesn't know who I am but I feel 13:13 like okay so how is it doing today like what happened with the cat like did they 13:19 get help and I'm drawn to this Con uh content and I want to know more so 13:26 that's why being in the picture constantly might be an advantage if you 13:31 want to know more about this then you can go to Wikipedia because no Wikipedia shame here uh and you can uh check out 13:39 availability uh heuristic it's this uh longer explanation of why this 13:46 works also not only these kind of innocent looking 13:53 strategies are built on this but also tiring people out so one very specific 14:01 uh propaganda technique is uh Adam which basically means until vomiting or until 14:08 you're feeling sick of that and it means that people and politicians and um 14:14 political parties repeat certain messages until you know everybody is 14:21 kind of like tired of them but everybody is also super used to them so they 14:27 become a part of the language they become a part of you know our knowledge 14:33 about the world like everybody knows that it's you know make America great again or something like this so it 14:39 becomes like almost like a natural sentence and if you want to be a troll 14:46 about it then you can use the same thing repetition all the time repeating one message as sea lioning technique so sea 14:55 lioning is a technique that is being um uh called out out as a trolling 15:00 technique where people who have malicious intent uh go online and 15:06 they pretend to want to know more to they 15:12 pretend to be sincerely interested in something but they ask over and over and 15:17 over again the same really really base level questions the aim is to tire out 15:25 the other side to make them go H I can't answer the same question over and over 15:31 again like why won't you Google that and then they can say wow you are touchy 15:37 about the subject I'm just asking questions here so it's a human denial of 15:42 service type of attack and if you want to know more about it I'm really hopeful that our organizers can also provide the 15:49 link to uh online harassment disinformation terms uh which is very 15:55 helpful if you want to know more about that but back to influencing techniques 16:01 as strategies these days there is more and more talk about influencer uh 16:08 culture moving beyond influencer scene and what that means is that the things 16:17 the practices the the behaviors the Logics of influencers 16:24 creep over to other professions and life spheres 16:29 which means that doctors cannot be just doctors anymore 16:36 but they also have to do things that are similar to influencer practices they 16:43 have to for example spread um information about medical decisions they 16:49 have to fight disinformation uh I have some examples here as well but they are all estonians 16:56 but for example we have uh Ru uh who is a family doctor essentially 17:03 who has done amazing work for the past few years on social media doing 17:08 influencer things fighting for accurate information on social media or 17:14 politicians I don't know politicians can't do their 17:20 work well they can but they are better at their work if they have access to 17:26 social media platforms uh if you want to be an artist and create beautiful Ceramics for example 17:34 you cannot just do the Ceramics anymore you have to post pictures about them you 17:39 have to show the background you have to show how something you know flopped and it didn't work you have to create this 17:46 influencer like content there or if you're uh police officer Maria bunak is 17:52 our superar in Estonia uh then you have to do police work but you also if you 18:01 choose to and if you want to embrace the influencer creep you also have to do influencer 18:07 stuff and so on so on teachers lawyers 18:12 veterinarians scientists we all um kind of have to adapt with this 18:21 system so from this framework of uh influencer creep I have brought out um 18:28 Point 2 to four as three main characteristics of influence or creep as a process like what what do these people 18:35 actually do then first is that you have to think about yourself as a brand so 18:42 you have to keep a consistent uh look voice and 18:48 availability to you so you have to be there as a person for promotional 18:55 content and promotional is here you know it can mean many things but with 19:01 politicians it's especially uh Promotional and you have to keep this 19:08 emotionally available and um upbeat uh content creation 19:15 up uh across platforms usually so you you have to choose really wisely who do 19:20 you want as an audience and then go to these platforms secondly here uh is 19:26 optimization which means that you have you have to be smart about how you use these platforms you have to know how the 19:32 algorithms work you have to know when and why people are using these platforms 19:37 and who are there which are the Norms there which are the trends there you have to keep up with this and thirdly 19:44 from this slide we have to we don't have to do anything but if you want to take 19:50 advantage of the influencer creep then you have to present an authentic self you have to look believable 19:59 because we don't want fake things we want 20:05 authenticity and authenticity of course is this really really tricky concept because I don't know I am not authentic 20:14 right now I'm sweating I'm a bit nervous you know I am not my authentic self I'm 20:20 putting up a performance for you also if I leave this room and I see my students 20:25 outside this room then I'm not authentic to the fullest as well because I am in a 20:32 specific role then if I leave this building and meet up with my friends some of them have birthdays coming up so 20:40 then I'm once again a piece of my authenticity but not my full 20:46 authenticity because authenticity lies in pieces but if you want to build up this 20:53 attention worthy content you have to give some some forms 20:59 of authenticity that are really genuine to you and we see this uh when um 21:06 politicians are showing their soft side when they are you know just taking their 21:12 uh mobile phones or you know smart devices and they are just like taking us on this stroll and they are talking 21:19 about their frustrations about like why some bills are not moving fast enough or they are showing the human side of them 21:27 often it's really authentic sometimes it's performed 21:33 authenticity fifth thing to do is to borrow reputation and this is really 21:41 widely used that we try to um profit 21:47 from others good uh image others good reputation it 21:54 can be a brand it can be an event it can 22:00 be a symbol it can be other people it can be famous people you know anything 22:06 that has a good reputation that most people like 22:12 and they kind of associate good things with it so here on the slide we see a 22:18 picture um there with the yellowish tones uh that is from the Eurovision uh 22:25 this year uh Estonian um uh performance was this specific dance 22:32 that got quite popular and we saw the same dance making an appearance also in 22:38 our political campaigns uh here we see um members of a 22:44 specific political party who were doing their advertising via this dance trying 22:49 to look hip and young and up to beat it can also feel really cringe depending on 22:57 the eyes that are View doing this but once again for some it's cringe for some 23:03 it's like wow they're keeping up with a stonan contemporary culture and why it 23:10 works because once again our stupid brains yay but uh our emotions tend to 23:17 spill over to the things that are like next to them it's that simple it's 23:24 sometimes it's called halo effect so if a thing has a halo around it others 23:29 might be you know getting some light from that and we might associate the 23:34 same things that come from this source of this Halo with the things that are 23:40 next to it it's that easy so we Clump 23:45 objects and elements and people together in our brains because our brains are you 23:51 know pattern seeking machines so halo effect can work within a person so let's 23:57 say that somebody is really really beautiful we our little tiny lizard 24:04 brains usually think in this form wow he's so beautiful or she or 24:11 non-binary people they are so beautiful they must be good too because 24:17 so beautiful it must be also a good person because beautiful equals 24:24 good quite similarly if someone is in this you know inbox conventional way looking 24:32 ugly to us we might assume that they are bad as well that they have evil 24:38 intentions that they want to do bad things and we associate you know all 24:43 these other things based on one trait sorry for the mic so this is within people but uh 24:53 interpersonal communication wise we have seen this when politicians are posing 24:59 next to musicians here we have our uh one of our younger generation politicians in Estonia and also one of 25:06 the most popular rappers uh uh of Estonia nupu here is something for the older Generations um I 25:13 don't know of course if you guys know it but estonians definitely remember Edgar 25:18 Savar uh who very often posted with Sportsmen and uh singers and culturally 25:26 important people you know kind kind of borrowing their glow their uh positive 25:32 uh reputation it's not just all good things because there is a specific technique 25:38 that is called redo hitlerum um and it's being really widely used and it means 25:46 well reduction to Hitler um and that means it's borrowing 25:51 reputation but in the way that we don't want to do this so if you associate 25:57 yourself with with people organizations practices that are not that good or are not 26:04 perceived to be valuable I don't know virtuous you know good then your 26:12 reputation might be damaged as well so for example we might hear something ridiculous like yeah well youth work is 26:20 the road to the devil because you know Hitler went to the youth centers when they were a teenager and you're like oh 26:27 my God youth centers must be closed down because look at Hitler so it's a really 26:33 really simple manipulation technique when you associate something with something evil then the first thing 26:40 becomes evil as well uh also if you're interested then 26:45 there is a thing that is called uh Godwin's law which means that all all discussions and all arguments 26:53 end up with Hitler somewhere making an appearance but um borrowing reputation 27:00 is at the heart of it and it's it's getting used a lot once you notice it you can never unsee it you will start to 27:07 see it everywhere halo effect is uh visible also here where we have one of 27:13 estonia's rappers uh Reet and uh that was their kind of support campaign for uh 27:21 Reform Party of Estonia GAA Galas is their uh number one now our prime 27:27 minister at moment and here we see that Reet is saying in a video I for example 27:34 gave my vote to Kaa and one might 27:39 ask how do we know which GAA because we have several gas also well gag Galas is 27:46 the most prominent one but how would we know which GAA to vote for like 27:54 KET here we see that the these colors give us the right answer because it's 28:02 designed with yellow and blue that has been the color combination for Reform 28:09 Party so whenever we see yellow and blue we usually in Estonia think of the 28:16 Reform Party so these associations come really quickly to us we recognize the 28:22 specific yellow the specific blue and we're like it has to be Galas 28:28 here we have also a picture of gayak Galas as a Nao um once again with these 28:35 colors so use existing associations it's kind of borrow the reputation sometimes 28:44 but also form these associations that are not always that clear for example in 28:50 Estonia there was uh um this specific paper that came out 28:57 that was for European Parliament elections and it's called free Echo but 29:05 GAA is Echo uh so it's this double meaning there and also we can see that 29:11 here here as well we see the yellow and the blue Mak an appearance so it's this 29:17 free newspapers freedom of Journalism all good things that are associated with 29:24 specific colors I'm pretty sure that wherever you are from and you are watching us right 29:31 now you probably have a political party that relies really heavily on your 29:37 National symbols that uses the flag colors the national bird the national 29:43 flower you know all of these things that are kind of inherent to a culture that 29:50 people recognize wherever they see them I'm pretty sure that you have them you 29:56 can share them in the comments section uh so we will all take a look at them 30:02 but in Estonia also we have a conservative uh party that has kind of 30:07 you know taken over the national symbols because National symbols usually feel really warm and fuzzy we like them like 30:16 we care about these colors these flowers these birds we recognize them everywhere 30:22 and if you can make these associated with you you might benefit from that you 30:29 might also lose from it because up until very recently it was seen as bad form to 30:36 kind of like take the national symbols and make them a part of a specific party 30:42 but these days it's a really common practice Americans are really good at that so you probably recognize some you 30:50 know bald eagles and Miracle kind of stars and strip things why it works is 30:56 that once again the spin over so if we see our national things we're like ah they must be nationally minded they must 31:04 stand for us estonians you po you know whatever uh and we are in a hurry we 31:09 don't have time to reflect constantly so we make this really quick decisions as we talked uh 31:16 before now seventh uh is a risky one but 31:21 within attention economy where there is a really really really heavy um 31:29 competition over our eyeballs our ears our attention um anything 31:37 goes because this kind of like a tiny thing that has very little to do with actual 31:45 politics can make a political career can make people recognize you uh so if I say 31:53 politicians and haircuts you probably have a couple of people coming to mind 31:59 and I would be actually really interested if I say politicians and weird haircuts who do you think 32:06 of I have one very specific guy here an Estonian politician who went all in with 32:14 the weird haircuts Ryan Epler and who did this for the sake of attention and 32:21 it worked so well because it was kind of ironic it was kind of on purpose purpose 32:28 and it was outrageous so not many Estonian politicians end up you know in 32:37 Politico I'm not sure if that's what you actually want to as a serious politician 32:43 uh like in this context but attention he got and political Capital he 32:52 got differing being different why it works is also kind of has to do with our 32:59 lizard brain once again our really beautiful magnificent biased brain 33:05 because if something is out of the norm if it's deviating from how everything 33:13 always is then we turn our attention to it because it might be a threat or 33:20 opportunity but mostly a threat because you know if you're a caveman and you're just walking around within the 33:27 neighborhood of your cave then you're like yeah that's a bush that's a bush that's a bush and if you see Stripes 33:33 something different from the foliage folage uh then you run because you 33:40 instantly recognize the different thing so something that is really different it 33:45 draws our attention in and we deem it more important we we 33:51 turn our we tune our brains in at these moments so attention economy is built on 33:59 this logic whatever necessary Whatever Gets the people's attention drama fights 34:06 outrageous quotes you know people in politicians in bathing 34:12 suits politicians in scandals it's all about getting them eyeballs on 34:18 you um and here uh I have once again a reference to a Wikipedia article that 34:24 you can check out but I just want to um for a second turn your attention to 34:32 shame albes it's a really fun concept uh and I think that within politics and 34:38 political systems it has a lot of potential let's say it like that because within this 34:46 outrageous attention economy you are bound to you know cross some really 34:51 serious blinds that means that you have to apologize from time to time and you have 34:58 to be like I was wrong I have learned from my mistakes I'm ready to move on I 35:04 can coach people on my mistakes now $200 an hour please and you can you can kind 35:10 of like take profit from this so every time that you do something outrageous a 35:16 cycle of Shame kind of follows 35:22 so you mess up you apologize you learn from it you grow as a person 35:28 you swear to never look back you give out a a book about how you messed up and 35:35 grew as a person you give up uh out a a workbook perhaps or something like this 35:42 you profit from it then you do something outrageous once again you apologize and 35:47 so the cycle of Shame kind of goes like that and from political Viewpoint it works kind of the similar 35:55 way eight uh and nine has to do with gender 36:02 stereotypes so um right now gender is a topic that is really 36:09 explosive so we will not have time to go into all of the details but because of 36:15 our fast deciding brains stereotypes are 36:20 really important and we feel more comfortable with things that seem 36:28 familiar to us if women look like women and men look like men and women behave 36:34 like women and men behave like men we feel more at ease if my brain has to do 36:40 extra work and figure out like but what are you and why are you behaving in a 36:46 way that is not recognizable to me if I have to put in extra work you become a 36:52 problem to me to my brain so that's why we kind of forgive more 36:59 we turn to the recognizable and that's why we also see that female politicians 37:06 very often rely on looking good beautiful um posting outfit of the day 37:13 type of uh stuff or just like looking really good and Men on the other side are not 37:21 valued because they are so beautiful although sometimes beautiful being a 37:26 beautiful man is or a handsome man is also a plus but mostly men have to be 37:32 something else right we expect the men politicians to be something different 37:40 forceful with the meing they have to be this masculine 37:45 strong you know they have to be able to lift the log and the weights and do all 37:51 of these really masculine things because then we trust our governments then we trust our Fates with them because they 38:01 express the stereotypical easy to understand 38:06 masculinity I'm not saying that it's right but that's just how it works also 38:11 with older generations and within America United States especially we see 38:18 a lot of like trying to prove that you're still a vital person that you can 38:26 still run and your hips work and you are you know you are still alive and can 38:33 move in really rapid Pace because if you look at American rallies political 38:40 rallies then very often running to the stage is like a key element there and 38:46 once you start to zoom into this and recognize this it looks freaking ridiculous because why would you run 38:53 there but it's super important to show yourself to depict yourself as this 39:00 vital person who still has it you know I can run my hips are working just fine 39:07 and my knees are not giving in so give me your country or you know dancing doing his 39:13 little dancing moves showing that you're one of the people you too can dance you too have no rhythm and why it works is 39:22 our brain wants to make shortcuts to believe believe that they 39:27 are like this and they are like that and all are like and all are 39:33 like so gender stereotypes especially are these really quick stereotypes these 39:39 really quick shortcuts into ah they are like a real 39:45 man they are like a real woman and I know what to expect from them completely 39:51 unjust and very discriminative but that's how our brain works that's also why we see so many uh 40:00 like fashion pieces about female politicians women politicians and their clothing but not that much about men and 40:07 their ties for example because looking good is a part of the female repertoire 40:14 in people's brains and finally we are good and we 40:20 will win but they are bad and they will lose 40:27 and also we have the majority don't you worry about that I'm feeling like dictator here but it is it's that simple 40:35 it's us and them that's like the ground level of all manipulation techniques we have the righteousness we 40:45 have the Divine we have agreement of the majority and you have to come with us 40:51 because otherwise you will be with them with the demons with the ones that will lose and that not really good for 40:58 you so very often we will see these kinds of election posters where the 41:05 political party or the candidate is saying things like with us it's 41:12 possible with us you will win and then on the blue background we 41:19 love Estonia there is always this quiet voice of 41:25 them with them it's not possible with them you will lose they do not love 41:33 Estonia so they try to they they try to 41:38 convince us that we have to go with them because they are the winners and you 41:45 know they have the majority I want to belong in a herd right I want to feel 41:50 safe so bandwagon effect how it's being referred to uh is built on this that we 41:57 want to go with the loudest band we want to go with the biggest you know group we want to feel safe we want to 42:04 belong in a you know viable group so if everybody thinks like that 42:11 perhaps I have misunderstood something we start to doubt ourselves if 85% of people do this but 42:21 I'm not doing this am I in the wrong so that's how advertising works on us and 42:27 if you want to kind of make people uh erode from these groups you 42:36 divide and conquer you take a hole you take a really like a strong knit group 42:43 and you break it up then and that's like an advice to a dictator or like a really 42:49 evil person so please don't do this actually but if one wants to make us 42:55 weaker as a society the first thing that they do is make us into subgroups that 43:00 are doing a lot of infighting that's what's happening right now with the Russian disinfo that's 43:06 what's happening whenever we see actors that want to erode trust in societies 43:13 they make us into tiny groups that are really angry at each 43:19 other so here's my suggestion to you try 43:24 to become smart about cognitive biases about how media Works how social media 43:31 works and try to take a moment when you're seeing 43:38 these materials when somebody's trying to convince you in something try to 43:43 remember these brain tricks these things that make us biased in one way or the 43:50 other and then you might make better choices and also I'm hoping that you 43:57 will feel kind of like you've learned something today and you will be able to 44:02 use this knowledge as well because then knowledge is truly uh worthy if you have 44:07 any follow-up questions I'm really happy if you email me uh if you send some 44:12 really fantastic uh examples my way I'm also thankful and now we can also take 44:18 some 44:25 questions so uh this this is so great thank you so much Maria um I surely 44:30 learned a lot I hope the audiences did learn as well um just a few practical 44:36 things I will mention that uh the slides that Maria used today will be available on our participation resource pool so 44:43 you can find it there uh also uh we have been adding the links to the chat so feel free to check out all this awesome 44:50 material and just up your knowledge and keep upping it I know there's a lot of info but this is I think fa to say that 44:57 this is valuable info so we are never ready either because you could learn for 45:03 10 years and you still need to keep up with all of the like recent things indeed and I think that um I mean this 45:11 just goes right along with the Democratic uh life you know like we can't really think that we will be 45:16 always or like that we are just sort of at some point ready for democracy and then we can just rest assured that it 45:23 will live its life and it will be viable for for centuries that's just not how it works it's a trap exactly it doesn't 45:29 work like that um so again as Maria also mentioned please please feel very very 45:35 free and encouraged to to use the YouTube live chat uh to post your questions or write write your questions 45:41 in there uh I will get them in my device uh so so that I can ask them for you uh 45:47 otherwise you can also um reach out to Maria or to us for that matter at participation Salto you.net uh if you 45:55 have questions later on and I'm sure Maria will be kind enough to to provide a written answer hopefully but uh since 46:04 we are waiting for the questions from the audience uh I have prepared some of my own so uh while you are typing 46:10 hopefully uh I can warm up Maria a little bit and ask her a few things I'm so warm already Yes um yeah it's a it's 46:19 a very warm day here uh in Estonia in tartu specifically but first of all uh I 46:25 was wondering Maria what in your opinion might be the most dangerous propaganda 46:31 technique or manipulation technique or or even a cognitive bias it's you can 46:36 pick whichever one you want to focus on um I've been asked this question before 46:42 so I have an answer ready um and I but it's it's kind of like my gut feeling 46:49 it's it's my personal thing I get very anxious around uh TCT tactics and 46:56 strategies that are built on scaring people making people feel really really 47:01 scared of the other or just frightened as a whole because and that's not not 47:09 the fact that you know being scared feels really bad but it's because when 47:15 we are scared we become so easily 47:21 manipulated people so it's very simple to 47:28 take away our agency take away our rights you know just kind of force us 47:35 into these social hatred relationships that we might not actually ever end up 47:44 with naturally but because somebody's strategically making us scared about 47:50 certain topics we start to do evil stuff to each 47:55 other and we choose our you know leaders as our leaders people who probably 48:03 shouldn't have to be near power yeah so so things that have to do 48:09 with scaring and and frightfulness are the for me yeah and I I think I would 48:15 totally agree with you I I find that's also because fear takes hold of us so 48:21 much and makes us do completely crazy things and and and makes us think in a crazy way and we've seen that happening 48:28 through history as and we have we have a really scary time period that we are living through and it's not you know the 48:35 first time in history but it feels like the most important time in history because we are living it so it's very 48:43 easy if you have like multi crisis going on you know covid-19 followups uh then 48:49 we have the global um climate change we have uh the Russian threat we have you 48:56 know several crisises at at the same time financial crisis so on so then if somebody shows up and 49:04 tells us hey you there I don't know camera number two hey you there I have 49:11 solutions for you pick me choose me vote for me I know you're scared I will take 49:18 the you know feeling of scared away from you and I will punish the bad ones I 49:24 know who the bad ones are and then everything will be okay if we have a charismatic leader that can just do 49:32 that yeah we follow them because we want people to tell us how life is going to 49:40 be and tell us that there are solutions and easy solutions yay we like easy 49:45 solutions but you know increasingly complex life easy solutions are really 49:51 really really not happening anymore yeah I think that's one of those easy red flags right if something is too 49:57 simplistic or too simple that should raise some suspicion uh so that's 50:02 something to to at least take into account okay but I will not uh give you 50:09 much much piece because I'm going to crank it up even more and let's talk a 50:15 little bit about the AI I mean it's a Hot Topic we all hear it at nauseum but 50:22 um I was just wondering what is your opinion or viewpoint on it like do you 50:27 do you think the the threats that we keep hearing about the AI threats uh uh 50:33 to politics and elections is it overestimated are we overreacting or is 50:38 it rather the opposite that we are underestimating this kind of threat like it's just partly totally I'm asking for 50:45 your personal personal take on it but of course if you know if you have more info info about it feel free to to elaborate 50:52 as well first it's definitely it has elements of media Panic techno Panic you 51:00 know this kind of worry moral Panic even what's going to happen to humanity why won't somebody 51:07 think of the kids and all of that kind of stuff um so we have to keep calm in 51:13 this way jobs are not going away right now but slowly yeah some jobs are going 51:19 to go extinct but that also has always happened we don't have anymore the you know the people who throw stones at your 51:25 window to wake you up or the Milkman are gone Cowboys probably not that needed 51:33 anymore it's just how humanity and professions evolve in a sense so 51:39 obviously some jobs are going to not be in the band but it's a slow change and 51:47 that's what I also fear um I think that when things are moving super slow into 51:53 our daily practices we might not notice the point where we are giving 52:00 away something really important so with AI um large language 52:07 model tools mostly not AI right let's give it terminologically 52:13 terminologically um uh accurate 52:19 um we might use these tools because we are in a hurry students very often often 52:26 say that they have used chat jpt or whatever because they were in a hurry and they wanted to you know hand in 52:34 their paper or something like this but once you have done that and seen how easy it was and perhaps even 52:41 gotten a okay grade for it it's very hard to go back to actually you know 52:48 making these mental muscles work because you've seen how it works how it could be 52:55 and we are really lazy or like energy efficient as one of my colleagues said 53:00 we are energy efficient beings so why should I do all of this horribly harsh 53:07 work and really hard work of thinking if I can just do a really good prompt and 53:13 then take what the machine gave me I'm probably not going to write it any better at certain points so why not and 53:23 that's what I fear because 53:28 like think of the absurdity of these situations where for example a teacher 53:36 in school and a parent at home they have some kind of a conflict going on 53:43 regarding the child and the parent is really angry and they don't want to write an angry email so they go to chat 53:50 GPT and they're like I want you to write me a polite letter to the class teacher 53:55 regarding you know maths or whatever and just like tell them in a really nice way 54:01 that they are being or something like this and then they send the letter that came from chat jpt that 54:08 is like round and nice and kind of like uncan so it's it's this 54:15 nontext it's this really round what's the new what's what's the next word 54:21 should be and then the teacher gets the email and they're like so they have a problem 54:27 oh I've always known that there's trouble and then they don't want to get all carried away with the emotions and 54:33 go to J GPT and get the machine to write you an email write me a nice email as an 54:40 answer to this copy and paste and then you will have this back and forth of 54:47 non-communication that has no meaning actually that has no effort that human 54:52 connections usually take so what is this then or like from my field 54:59 of work scientists are admitting that they are using chat GPT and and the 55:04 likes for project writing so can you 55:09 imagine 10,000 scientists um admitting 10,000 project 55:18 proposals um you know increasing the the the number of proposals because it's so 55:24 easy to write me and Euro Euro project uh on the topic of this and that put it 55:31 like give it a catchy name please a financial plan considering that this is the the the money that we have and blah 55:38 BL blah so you can do this and then you will have 10,000 machine generated 55:44 project proposals that first humans have to sift through but very quickly it will 55:49 be you know because it's super hard to get reviewers the machines are going to 55:55 um choose the best project and then we as scientists have to do the best 56:03 project I don't want to do that like I don't want to be the person who does 56:11 what the you know large language model has told me to do like I don't want to 56:18 do this I don't want to give the creation away and I think that this is the main thing that we're going to lose 56:25 yeah exactly that's a very good point and a very good plot for a new sci-fi movie I find actually so someone should 56:31 be all up on on this one no that's a joke but uh but yeah 56:37 indeed I think it's it's really like the the you know the era has arrived where 56:42 we have to wake ourselves up and really start asking and answering the question 56:48 what is it that matters what is it that we want what is it that actually is high 56:53 up in the hierarchy of our values why are we doing doing communication that a machine can do like for example lots of 57:00 social media managers are using uh large language models for social media content 57:06 creation I would ask like why would you do that why would you participate in the noise making if a machine can do it like 57:14 do you really have that valuable things to say then not to be too critical but 57:20 sometimes perhaps the answer is no we don't have to publish that yeah exactly it works the other way way as well right 57:27 it it goes a long way to to realize that well what are all the weird behaviors we 57:32 engage in and have engaged in before the uh the AI or these machines that uh that 57:39 maybe are not actually as relevant or as valuable right but on the other hand like let's say let's continue with the 57:45 teacher um uh idea say that you are teaching second graders uh how to 57:53 calculate like you know two plus two type of things uh a bit harder than two plus two but um 58:00 say that you have 20 children in your class and you know what they're into one is really into like horses one likes 58:08 K-pop one likes Minecraft one likes I don't know ski toilet whatever they like 58:15 sorry um so each of them has their own interest and perhaps using chat GPT to 58:23 create specific kind of like text uh not 58:28 what's the text exercise you know like like tasks for them like two Minecraft creepers got together with blah blah 58:36 blah these kinds of uh real interest based um problem based learning 58:43 situations that could work so well and I couldn't come up with this like I would need hours but using large language 58:51 models I could just insert give me 20 uh 58:56 different calculation tasks uh for 20 different CH children that have these 59:04 interests and it's that simple it's like minutes yeah exactly there are indeed things we could delegate uh to the to 59:11 the to the machine okay we have another question here so uh this is a good one 59:17 if you meet people that are clearly affected by some bad 59:23 propaganda is there a good way to start a conversation with them to change their 59:31 mind ask questions because you if you go and have 59:37 chats with people saying that you're wrong change your mind you stupid it never works so changing Minds is not 59:45 that easy actually because you have to have some power over them you have to be 59:51 important enough to these people that they would listen and they will not listen to somebody that you know holds 59:58 no value for them so if you're a friend to someone who believes in ridiculous things like conspiracy theories or 1:00:04 something it's a long process and it never begins with you're stupid stop believing this but rather it's um asking 1:00:12 questions where did you find it can we look at it together why do you believe it have you seen any different uh 1:00:18 opinions who is this guy who is saying this can we do a background check like I'm really scared of the end times too 1:00:26 like I'm super anxious all the time I would love to have a you know a this 1:00:31 evil person to look at so seek common ground with people that you care about 1:00:37 of course like strangers perhaps not worth that much effort but people that 1:00:44 you really care about please yes and uh ask questions because very often people 1:00:49 will then notice the contradictions and notice the things that actually bother 1:00:55 them better that's very good advice um I uh I 1:01:00 I might add that I guess also um we often forget the the the importance of formats or like the the sort of 1:01:07 environments or contexts in which we have such debates um I mean I I we all 1:01:14 have seen how it escalates very easily in a Facebook uh commentary section uh 1:01:20 versus when you meet someone face to face it's a very really easy to dehumanize someone when you don't see 1:01:25 them you need don't see the body right it's it's the whole embodiment uh um idea there that is is actually very 1:01:31 crucial as well and we become these caricatures these cartoon people that 1:01:37 are only this and nothing else like ah they are vaccine 1:01:42 hesitant the constructed enemy but they are so much more like they they could do 1:01:47 a lot of like good things or or they are voting for the party that I 1:01:53 hate like they are so much more they they usually have so many different 1:01:58 layers that we forget when we see only that part on social media that they at 1:02:05 this instant they say something about this specific topic that is really really dividing for you 1:02:11 guys yeah thanks for that um so um I was wondering U Maria you are a big advocate 1:02:19 for the no thyself ground rule right which is also to a large extent what 1:02:24 you've been talking about today in in a way you you've given some specific uh uh 1:02:30 specific examples of uh how our beautiful flawed Minds operate and um 1:02:37 and U let's say that living with such a mind starts from knowing it right I 1:02:43 think that's that's uh what what the no self stands for here um but you've also 1:02:49 said that especially in relation to Media literacies this ground rule uh has a has a kind of a special special 1:02:56 importance um so and furthermore I think I've also heard you say you say so many 1:03:02 things but they are all great things but I've also heard you say that um well media literacy really in its core is a 1:03:09 skill set that uh helps us make just better choices MH as as broadly as that 1:03:14 sounds that's I think really what you mean um so now if we think about the context of Elections you know we choose 1:03:22 someone to represent us we choose a politician there's a choice to be made uh so do you think should we assess that 1:03:28 politician through the critical thinking uh based on uh their specific elections 1:03:34 campaign what we see in this sort of a limited time frame it's especially 1:03:39 targeted using all those weird techniques um um or or should we rather 1:03:46 look at the the political parties program what the politician the party of the politician we consider electing or 1:03:55 should we look at the character of that politician sort of sort of more broadly who is this person in front of me uh in 1:04:01 in a broader sense um or is it something even totally different than those options but or is it a mixture of them 1:04:08 like what what would be you know your advice like based on your knowledge and your 1:04:14 your experience uh what would you advise what what's the what's the more most um 1:04:20 uh the best approach maybe the the best approach would probably be to learn a couple of years of decision making on 1:04:28 the European level then on the local level then the all the nitty-gritty details and the history of political 1:04:35 parties and how it works in political systems in Transformations that's not going to 1:04:40 happen because you know Energy Efficiency of us uh obviously it's 1:04:47 wonderful if you find yourself motivated enough to for example start studying uh 1:04:54 political communication or political sciences or media and communication or something like this because then you can 1:05:00 actually like dive deep into these topics but if you're just like a normal human being you know and normal is not a 1:05:08 label that we use here but rather like just a word if you're just a human being 1:05:14 who is trying to make sense of this then try to do some background research like 1:05:21 just Google the candidate's name see what have they've been saying throughout 1:05:26 the years like start from the human because you are 1:05:32 probably it's it's very easy to get all discouraged and be like Oh I'm not going 1:05:37 to even go and elect because I don't know and you know political parties are so like wishy-washy and uh you know I 1:05:45 don't know what they stand for and it's super hard to uh navigate so start from 1:05:50 the person that you kind of feel like they are saying the right things and they are you know expressing it in a way 1:05:57 that you can get behind and and you kind of uh enjoy this then go do research see 1:06:04 what they themselves say about themselves and see what others say about 1:06:09 them and then see if that's consistent does it look good to you does it suit 1:06:17 you and then perhaps a little bit of work about the party as well like do can 1:06:22 you get behind these uh party line or like the general ideals the general 1:06:29 ideology behind that political movement also I'm sure that many countries have 1:06:34 these um voters Compass type 1:06:41 ofers or calculators or things try them out like play around with these things 1:06:47 find out about yourself like are you really that liberal are you really that conservative for example just try it out 1:06:54 learn about you yourself and learn about the the political parties and the political landscape as well because it 1:07:01 is important it might look like yeah it's just a bunch of you know 1:07:07 out of touch people somewhere you know eating brunches and doing their 1:07:12 political things but in actuality there is so much that is being decided on a 1:07:17 really abstract level that then translates into really practical things 1:07:23 like are you going to get roads in your home Village or are you going to get 1:07:30 support for the Youth centers is uh democracy being valued even are we going 1:07:36 to fight disinformation is it going to be at the cost of freedom of speech like 1:07:42 all of these abstract but really practical things come from the European Parliament 1:07:50 so we better take this seriously thanks for that uh advice I I 1:07:55 think um it it could be helpful for for some of us for sure um um following a 1:08:02 little bit maybe along this legislative path that you mentioned at the end I mean just a just a kind of a yeah uh 1:08:09 maybe a bit technical sounding question but it's actually quite relevant and quite important is that um well 1:08:16 political advertising is somewhat regulated right there's a time for it and and so on but do you think that it 1:08:24 would be wise somehow to regulate it more I mean we saw some examples of 1:08:30 basically political advertising you know becoming or or operating very similarly to any you know anyone trying to sell 1:08:38 you a product or a good in a neoliberal context so so this is why I'm asking the question what do you think do you think 1:08:44 we could benefit from regulating political advertising more or rather 1:08:49 this sufficient uh or this regulation we have now is sufficient or should it be even deregulated what do have there are 1:08:56 many calls for regulations on various Fields right now we are begging our 1:09:04 governments to regulate the platforms that are getting really greedy with our data we are you know trying 1:09:12 to turn away from the freedom of the Jungle that the internet has been and I 1:09:20 fear over regulation because with overregulation it it hides the 1:09:26 problematic practices they disguise themselves they they try to appear as something they're not so probably the 1:09:34 influencer creep will be like how do you regulate this if if a politician is 1:09:40 really popular and they have followers then they cannot post for a month or two 1:09:46 weeks or like how can others post about them can their wife post about them or 1:09:53 can kids go up to that politician and make their own content or are we going to blur that or like how how does it 1:10:00 work and if we over regulate something then it goes you know under the floors and into the black market area but also 1:10:08 people start to speak in codes so you know this kind of wink wink dog whistle 1:10:14 I know I shouldn't but type of things and then it becomes so much more fuzzy 1:10:19 and and you know unrecognizable even and 1:10:25 thus harder to analyze harder to recognize it to even like put your 1:10:31 analytical mind at work there so I would say careful with the 1:10:37 regulation but um loud as audiences because we can ask 1:10:45 all sorts of like difficult questions and we can do the the the the 1:10:51 self-regulation part the social Norm building like that's what we're supposed to do also in online spaces also with 1:10:59 politicians yeah very very very good uh good example of uh that something that 1:11:06 seems fairly simple on the surface actually runs very deep it it's not simple at all 1:11:12 right to regulate or not it's a it's a very complex question these days okay I 1:11:17 want to trigger you a trigger you a little bit on social media okay thank you so I hope you will go go along with 1:11:24 my manipulation but um you know social media I mean of the top of top of the head we tend to 1:11:31 sort of think about it in this uh pleasure outrage axis right it it seems to operate along that axis things either 1:11:40 you know whatever content we see it either gives us some kind of pleasure or 1:11:45 gratification or or just a feeling of ah fun or anger or outrage right that that 1:11:51 those two two sort of things and and then we are totally like uh you know angered outraged and then we activate in 1:11:58 social media so I'm just wondering what do you think um has this fact and that a 1:12:04 lot of the political debates have moved into social media 1:12:09 spaces um like can they really be deep and meaningful and and I mean or or 1:12:16 basically my question is I sometimes I get this subjective feeling that that 1:12:21 the the sort of the life has been sucked out of political you know debates like I 1:12:26 wish I could we could more go into the things that the meat on the bones you know not just look at dance videos of 1:12:32 politician so I feel that this superficiality kind of bores me but 1:12:38 superficiality is also the safest option because you don't get cancelled you 1:12:43 don't get called out you don't get kind of like the loud headlines of you can't 1:12:48 imagine what this politicians said and and these kinds of things that are taken out of context very often right so you 1:12:56 know journalistic practices perhaps need to update themselves as well but 1:13:03 um so it's so much easier to be this blah blah generator than to actually 1:13:10 focus and think about like the hard cuts and and you know the the the kind of like where do the resources come from 1:13:17 where do we take away what can we do what what is the value behind all of this because it it instantly becomes 1:13:25 this kind of polarized you said it like that I can't agree with you on anything now so so 1:13:32 perhaps this and also because social media is a public sphere 1:13:37 but perhaps we should be more trigger happy with the moderation practices um 1:13:44 Nina Yankovic who is a a person that has written and also live through uh lots of 1:13:51 um malicious uh info operations against her and troll attacks she has said for 1:13:58 example that your social media page is not a 1:14:03 democracy and that has stuck with me 1:14:09 because if you have started the debate and you get a wave of sea lions that try 1:14:17 to kind of like move it away to another Direction and if you allow them to do 1:14:23 that then and that's not your space anymore that's not your discussion anymore so perhaps we could be more you 1:14:32 know open with silencing people I know 1:14:37 this is a problematic thing hash cancel but you don't have to let people 1:14:44 rant and ramble on your page they have their own Pages for that you're not 1:14:50 silencing them you are directing them towards their own spaces so and I'm not 1:14:57 saying that you should delete everything that goes you know against your opinion but if someone is being mean and 1:15:05 aggressive and threatening and trying to just like scare people into you 1:15:11 know admitting something or or silencing this discussion then you can silence 1:15:18 them as well even if you're a politician I would say right problematic I know 1:15:25 problematic is the hasht problematic you know but um yeah we are really running 1:15:30 out of time now I mean it's it's been a pleasure to to discuss with you I mean I kind I can't let this go I can't let 1:15:37 this end without asking you and I will need a very short answer one sentence impossible mission for you what gives 1:15:44 you hope Maria why should we be optimistic about our futures look at the internet there is so 1:15:51 much cool stuff happening people coming together people like figur in stuff out and making connections and starting 1:15:58 movements it's not just bad things it's so many wonderful things and I think 1:16:04 that at the core we can do it it might take some time but we can do it yes 1:16:10 exactly and I also think that it's also okay to be some you know to not maybe punish each other for every little slip 1:16:16 we are Human After All so that's what you said right we we opt out for the dance video because it's safe because 1:16:22 we're afraid of each other I mean that's a bit social cooling that's what we should be 1:16:28 scared of as well yeah so let's be let's be a little kind once in a while at least but 1:16:34 critically anyway okay thanks so much Maria I mean as as always it's a pleasure to listen to you and it's a 1:16:40 even a bigger pleasure to be in conversation with you so thank you for that um we managed to I think answer the 1:16:46 questions that we got but again feel free to reach out to us if you have more otherwise thanks a million for taking 1:16:53 part of this webinar um I trust that everyone joins me again in extending the 1:16:59 Gratitude to Maria um and I really hope we are all better prepared for the voting action 1:17:05 now so please do go and vote and give it a little little think before you before 1:17:11 you make that choice and uh also check out the other uh All Digital weeks uh 1:17:17 events there might be more interesting stuff there and stay Sharp 1:17:24 [Music] 1:17:33 [Music]