Datamining and marketing (in politics, and elsewhere)

1 view

Skip to first unread message

Samuel Rose

unread,

Dec 4, 2006, 1:19:08 PM12/4/06

to Pinko Marketing Discussion

Look at this:

http://www.relevantnoise.com/index.php

These people are spidering and mining the blogosphere to track "buzz"
for advertising, political, business, and other clients. This can
potentially lead to socio-cybernetic-style adjustments that refine
polarization, information cascades, errors and amplification of bias.

If anyone has ever looked at the predictability of human behavior
through data mining, you know that this type of PR agency is probably
both inevitable, and frankly somewhat dangerous in mass culture.
Especially when employed by political campaigns.

If you've read Cass Sunstein's recent book "Infotopia: How Many Minds
Produce Knowledge", then you can see the studies he references, that
show how the political blogosphere is already prone to being an echo
chamber, and a amplifier of bias and errors. (I write about this some
more here:
http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/CollectiveProblemSolving/2006-11-23)

So, if you can datamine this echo chamber, then you can potentially
figure out the best ways to get the public to act and react to your
perception-building messages. Not so good for democracy and public
engagement. But, a goldmine for PR firms who consult to politicians and
governments.

Reply all

Reply to author

Forward

0 new messages