The Only Thing You Can Trust From a Politician is Their Tweets

Why do politicians care about the things they care about? Clearly, it must be because they have a deep and personal understanding of complex topics. Right? Or is it more likely that they’re hopping media-driven bandwagons?

Well, a study out of the University of Antwerp surveyed political elites in three major countries and found that they were more likely to pay attention to issues covered by the media. A more modern study by a team out of New York University looked at tweets from legislators and found that American politicians were more likely to be responsive to issues that their “party supporters” were being vocal about on Twitter. Considering you could Google the name of any prominent politician along with “tweets” and find endless current examples of this behavior the New York University study is surprisingly timeless for a study that focuses on tweets.

Now that isn’t to say that the University of Antwerp’s research isn’t worth a look. You might think that only some politicians would be swayed by media coverage of issues, but these surveys found a biasing impact across all politicians. It says a lot about the power of the media that information put out directs our leaders’ attention.

However, I’m still skeptical of the inherent bias politicians may have against emails in general while completing this survey. The Antwerp study compared issues politicians were made aware of by media coverage to issues brought up in a personal email. I don’t know about you, but I am skeptical of any responses a politician gives when they know they’re being studied. Maybe these politicians didn’t want to appear too reliant on emails. After all, our inbox is a place most of us wear our skeptical hats.

New York University collected their information from the wild. May be weird to think of Twitter as “the wild”, but the politicians didn’t know their tweets would be collected and studied by a literal team of researchers. This plays to why I lean more towards the NYU study. The politicians weren’t performing for the researchers. Now, they may have been performing for their base. But the tendency of politicians to play to their supporters is also verified by NYU’s study! I don’t trust what a politician says, but I trust their tweets are honest plays to their base.

Where do you fall here? Does NYU explain why so many of our last president’s tweets were about himself? If his supporters believed the world was out to get him, NYU’s study seems to support that might be why Donald Trump played the same note on Twitter for so many years. Point is, regardless of which study I found more trustworthy, both suggest that our leaders might actually be followers.

What an Old Canadian Scholar Got Right (and Very Wrong) About Our Tech Obsession

Ever think about the time before smartphones? Maybe not if you’re a zoomer. Guess I just aged myself.

Point is, I’m getting a master’s at the time of writing this, and I can knock out lectures in the palm of my hand. This may not be a new development, but it’s not something my Sony Ericsson could pull off back during my bachelor’s.

There was a Canadian scholar named Marshall McLuhan that thought a lot about these messaging medium divides. This would come to be known as technological determinism. Some of McLuhan’s ideas here are surprisingly relevant, while others… not so much.

Boiling Progress Down to the Medium of Each Era

Still relevant: McLuhan’s general structuring of history by the main form of communication at the time is a strong way to organize societal eras. It’s somewhat simple, but that simplicity makes a wide view of how we’ve gone from word of mouth to a slew of modern tech mediums easy to digest.

Not-so-relevant: This simplicity is also reductive. While print was certainly the dawn of a major new medium, the “print paradigm”, as McLuhan calls it, tends to ignore the continued influence of word of mouth and the “tribal” isolation that still existed after the invention of the printing press. The existence of print media didn’t halt all forms of oral communication.

Links to Web Marketing Pros’: 95% of Consumers Have Mobile Devices in Hand While Watching TV

Can You Comprehend While Multitasking?

McLuhan never saw the dawn of accessible internet. But he did touch on multiple mediums co-existing. His “electronic paradigm” noted the simultaneous existence of television and phone.

Still relevant: The overlap of phone and TV lends itself to today’s blend of smartphones, computers, and TV.

Not-so-relevant: McLuhan didn’t seem too concerned with comprehension. He placed an emphasis on how one could still watch TV while talking to someone on the phone. I struggle to see how relevant this is due to comprehension concerns. I love browsing Twitter while watching movies, but I’m constantly rewinding because my attention is split.

We May Be a Global Village,
But What About the Global Village Idiot?

Despite focusing heavily on how we communicate as a society, McLuhan didn’t focus on how that communication can be twisted. He never blamed the medium, something common in the media today.

Still relevant: The concept of the “global village”. That modern tech allows us to communicate across vast distances. The closest thing I’ve experienced in my lifetime to distance-related challenges are long-distance phone charges and those are long gone thanks to alternatives like email and voice-over IP.

Not-so-relevant: McLuhan’s focus on the medium instead of the message places too much value on how someone consumes by ignoring the content being consumed.

If I see anti-vaccination movements as dangerous then focusing on what device a conspiracy theorist used to consume their misinformation seems irrelevant. The misinformation would be just as dangerous on an iPhone as it would be on a television news broadcast. McLuhan didn’t focus on the message or the messenger, but maybe we should.

Experts or Celebrity Presenters? Why Not Both?

Is Keanu Reeves any different from one of Twitch.tv’s original celebrities, Day[9]? Well, I felt the need to quantify Day[9]’s importance and not Keanu’s. Clearly there is a difference in the level of these two’s fame. And yet, both took the stage during 2019’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (aka E3).

With hundreds of millions of views, over half a million Twitch followers spanning back to the platform’s launch, and a Forbes 30 Under 30 listing, Day[9] is as decorated as a PC gamer can be. But my uncle didn’t watch him beat up Elrond.

With so much money behind gaming’s biggest annual conference, why have such a spread in star power? Each game publisher is trying to reach a different audience.

Central Targeting

Some of the presentations at E3 are targeted at those of us who are already bought in. Those who showed up excited about specific titles. These fans are ready to listen and crave nitty-gritty details.

Day[9] gets the “one of us” stamp of approval. Diehard PC players are more likely to trust and process what he’s telling them because he is also a diehard PC player. Day[9] is central to those watching who already feel PC game announcements are important or interesting.

Peripheral Targeting

On the other end is casting an intentionally wider net. Having Keanu Reeves hit the stage gave Cyberpunk 2077 a bump outside of gaming journalism. Xbox was targeting those with little to no peripheral awareness.

There are a lot of reasons it makes sense to aim wide during the Microsoft showcase. Xbox dominates the majority of Microsoft’s E3 presentations each year. I love my Xbox, but it is no secret that console-only players tend to be less technically-minded than the PC-only crowd. The makers of Cyberpunk, CD Projekt Red, already have bought in diehard fans. Microsoft and CD Projekt Red don’t need to win over fans that already had their copy preordered.

These gaming juggernauts were targeting casual viewers of E3. A quick look at Twitter reactions proves that loads of gamers watch just to meme about the presentations. Keanu made many drop their cynicism for a moment. How many of these “peripheral” viewers do you think suddenly gave Cyberpunk a fair shake?

Which Should You Target?

The hard truth is that buy-in is dependent on each and every individual. Peripheral prospects aren’t just those who aren’t already bought in. There are loads of reasons someone may only be half paying attention to your messaging. In E3’s case, I mentally check out every time a sports game is mentioned. No amount of celebrity endorsements or technical explanations are going to sell me the new Madden NFL. I’m simply uninterested. There was a very good chance that some gamers were turned off by the ethical concerns surrounding CD Projekt Red’s labor practices. But as we see with E3, you can still aim with intent.

Neither Microsoft nor the PC Games showcase picked a better host. They both knew who they were targeting and crafted bespoke presentations.

Know who you are trying to reach. Choose technical or flashy messaging accordingly. And maybe get a little lucky with a wholesome meme that goes absolutely viral.

I hate being called an influencer

Is being an influencer something you aspire to? Or another weapon in your insult arsenal?

It’s a term that makes my skin crawl. And yet, I fall squarely into the definition of what an influencer is.

2021 marks my eleventh year making online content. I’ve spent nearly a third of my life yapping into a microphone about the games I love to play and the games that makes me want to throw a chair.

If you’re familiar with my podcasts then you know, in the before times, I’d fly out to Anaheim every November to attend BlizzCon. Covering all the new games and updates Blizzard Entertainment had planned for us.

I still remember getting my first media pass. It was 2012 and I got an email from a Blizzard PR rep saying, “Hi Garrett, As part of the Blizzard community of influencers we would like to provide you with a BlizzCon 2012 media pass”. My brain flashed: Joy. Hype! That word you can’t stand…

I had made it. I finally didn’t have to pay the constantly-rising prices just to walk through the convention center doors (and metal detectors). But why did I feel so skeezy about being called an influencer? Well, intending to influence someone has always felt gross to me. It felt like the arena of political pundits. Not the fun and hobby-focused land of video gaming. I truly believed I was not an influencer, or a thought leader, or whatever buzzword Hubspot is throwing around these days (it’s still “influencer” by the way).

But then I came across the two-step flow theory. That theory’s TLDR is that information gets filtered through opinion leaders (cough*influencers*cough) and then gets passed onto the audience. Information filtering sure sounds a lot like how I write my podcast show notes. Heck, I literally copy/pasted the “General Updates” bullet-points from Hearthstone’s most recent patch notes and hand deleted the ones I didn’t think were relevant for listeners of The Angry Chicken podcast.

Only passing on information that I find relevant is a key part of this theory. To my previous example: if you listen to the most recent episode of TAC you’ll notice we made no mention of the fact that the latest patch increased the length of player turns by 5 seconds (in the first few turns). I deleted this because I thought it was too number crunchy and would get in the way of the meat of the podcast where the plan was to give our thoughts on how this patch would upset the established metagame.

I try to mention when I’m leaving out certain points for the sake of a smoother podcast. But I also try not to get too lost in inside baseball. Maybe I need to reassess my negative association with the word. Or maybe I just need to feel more comfortable knowing that if you’ve been listening for a while, it might be because you like our brand of filtration.

Admit it. You willingly seek out advertisements.

Do you feel impervious to advertising?

Skipping all YouTube ads as soon as possible? Did you laugh at how obvious it was that Black Widow was sponsored by BMW? Overlooking the fact that I you spent $30 to watch a movie at home. And this was likely the result of a slick trailer or the full screen thumbnail taunting me you in Disney+.

Attempts at influence come in all forms. From the obvious (like YouTube ads) to the more subtle (Scarlett Johannson drifting a BMW X3 through Budapest). But as entertained as I was by the latest installment in the MCU, I did not immediately drive to my local BMW lot to trade my FR-S in for a $43k dollar (starting) SUV.

So, did BMW’s product placement fail? Well, it depends. If BMW’s goal was for every single viewer of Black Widow to go out and buy an X3 then yes, this ploy was a massive failure. But expecting the tens-of-millions of viewers to purchase the same car is a wildly unrealistic goal. But I don’t think BMW expected this outcome. It is much more likely that BMW was seeking to increase brand awareness.

Assuming every Marvel fan would now be driving an X3 would be believing the hypodermic needle theory in full. That BMW’s messaging will enter viewers’ minds and directly influence their behavior. This is a great example of how the hypodermic needle theory is one-dimensional. It gives no personal agency to “the audience”. This older theory doesn’t account for critical thinking or personal biases that comes from concepts like brand loyalty, brand awareness, or fandom. More glaring, this theory doesn’t consider the fact that many of us actively consume advertisements.

As a self-described car nerd, I have brands and vehicle-types I like more than others. Personally, I view SUVs as giving up on the joy driving can provide. And I view BMW as a brand best enjoyed under warranty. Give me a small coupe or hatchback (and preferably from Japan or America). I value a low center of gravity and responsive handling above cargo and passenger capacity. The hypodermic needle theory doesn’t account for this bias. Nor does it consider that I may go and actively seek out influence.

Articles and videos covering new cars from Japanese and domestic manufacturers are constant staples of my browser history. I grew up in the early aughts. During the height of the tuner car culture glorified in the original Fast and the Furious and 2000’s Need for Speed games. This helped form my fandom before I could actually afford a car. But once I could buy my own car I had already filled my head with articles and influencers telling me which cars were the best. Universal praise for the Scion FR-S (and its Subaru twin, the BRZ) from Engineering Explained and the Straight Pipes moved me toward actually purchasing a 2015 FR-S.

I may feel impervious to more traditional advertising; but I am most certainly influenced by the media I go out of my way to consume. Now if you’ll excuse me, Nissan just announced the new Z and I have reviews to watch.