Narratives Overwhelm the World

Curator note

Narratives are helpful to underpin shorter statements. Narratives are not malicious in general and are a typical instrument for commercials or political campaigns. It is very helpful to refer to an existing narrative when there is limited time for detailed explanations, like in television interviews, short articles, advertisements, headlines, etc.
The theory behind narratives and commercials is old and was already used for trading of commodities and other economic goods many decades ago – remember the Marlboro Man and his well-constructed image of a free man and cool smoker.
Psychological Mechanisms
An important notion is that people tend to concentrate their attention on narratives that comply with their basic understanding, their firm beliefs, and their heart’s desires. They can be fortified but not inverted. At best, the changeable minds can be convinced and attracted. This is one of the conditions for the successful formation of solitary social communities and echo chambers.
The Digital Amplifier: Social Media & Algorithms
Relatively new is the extended reach by use of social media and the speed of sharing narratives. The most important drivers are the technical innovations that internet companies have created to establish their business models – the so-called algorithms.
Nowadays, narratives and their dispersion by algorithms are closely linked. Before the internet age, it was expensive to design, launch, and maintain an effective information campaign. Now, it is cheap and requires relatively low technical equipment and just a few skills to widely disperse information via social media.
The Business Model of Influence
This describes exactly the business model of the internet companies who provide sophisticated toolboxes for all customers who want to sell something – and offered products are not at all limited to physical goods.
The algorithms can be adopted to best fit one’s fields of operation and they can be fine-tuned to meet the needs and wishes of consumers. By collecting Big Data and exploiting all footprints that consumers leave on the internet, the picture about a customer becomes very complete. This allows predictions to be made about the customer’s behavior and developing interests, thus making advertising no longer annoying, but rather desired or at least unnoticed and thus very effective.
And of course, the internet companies apply all the modern high-tech tools like AI-based social media exploitations and forecasts.