The greater “sleeper effect”
- Jan 30, 2017
- 3 min read
I’ve come across a trend that exist and can be applied and proven seriously—trends proven by the recent campaign and electoral process of our current leader of the free world. I’ve noticed that damage control is much easier than it used to be. All you have to do is wait out the news cycle. The deregulation of the media, namely the Telecommunications Act of 1996, have allowed the media to be dominated near completely by profit motive as opposed to more ethical considerations that were originally designed for seeking truth. Due to this profit motive, the news cycle has continued to demonstrate a significant amount of amnesia in regards to negative press. Investigative journalism just cost too much to engage in it, and it is much less expensive and easier to just move on to the next sound bite.
For these reasons, if I were a Chief Executive Officer responsible for producing a somewhat manageable, yet destructive series of defective products; I would have to say that my best bet would be to do a minimal amount of damage control and just wait until the “newsies” became reconnoitered by their producers and editors to focus on something much less expensive such as a sound bite generated either genuinely or disingenuously from some other source or one’s own sources or purposeful leaks. The motive of the media is to sell, not to seek the truth.
Mass media has become “an instrument of fragmentation,” according to Patterson and Wilkins in that “today, all of us now have the capacity to develop a Daily Me from the vast collection of information now on the World Wide Web.” The “daily me” aspect is a result of us now being able to personalize our news to suit our already established thoughts and values – all attributed to the genius of social media. And since we don’t have to muddle through opposing viewpoints and opinions, we have now isolated ourselves into little pockets of groups with the same unbending viewpoints. “In the absence of shared experience, society will have a much harder time addressing social problems.” Patterson and Wilkins cite the comment made by legal scholar Cass Sunstein who concludes that “the ‘Daily Me’ is the farthest thing from a utopian dream, and it would create serious problems from a democratic point of view” (Patterson & Wilkins, 2014).
Never the less, as a CEO who produces defective items; I have to find the fact that I have produced defective products irrelevant; and in addition, I find the media’s power to investigate equally irrelevant.
Considering these things, Patterson and Wilkins discuss the “sleeper effect” and how “practitioners, from Nazi master propagandist Joseph Goebbels through contemporary political consultants, have intuitively understood this human tendency to disassociate the source from the messaging” (Patterson & Wilkins, 2014).
“When people are exposed normally to a persuasive message (such as an engaging or persuasive television advertisement), their attitudes toward the advocacy of the message display a significant increase. Over time, however, their newly formed attitudes seem to gravitate back toward the opinion held prior to receiving the message, almost as if they were never exposed to the communication.”
(Sleeper effect, 2016)
As time (measuring from the moment of message was delivered) goes on, the message’s persuasive impact diminishes to the baseline opinion that was previously held prior to the persuasive message.
Considering the pace of messages that occur in our current world, the sleeper effect, in this ever-increasing rate of information and message presentation in the modern world, I believe will have a much steeper rate of decline over time as technology continues to allow for more and more mechanisms of message deliver, and it provides a great way to escape public exposure. These things being said, this just is not the right way to do things.
And that being considered, PR representatives must be respectful of this increasing rate and the interest of society. The PRSA aspect of truth must be more accurately applied to cases where they must balance the interest of the client (and the client’s messages) so as to balance the possible negative effect on the interests of society. The truth is the best way to make this balance, and the PRSA provides ethical guidelines that cover that aspect, and those guidelines are becoming increasingly important as message technologies continue to develop.
Reference
Patterson, P. ; & Wilkins, L. (2014) .New Media: Continuing Questions and New Roles . Media Ethics: Issues and Cases . 8th Ed . 2014 . p 226-253
PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) . (2016) . PRSA Member Statement of Professional Values . Member Code of Ethics . retrieved from https://www.prsa.org/AboutPRSA/Ethics/CodeEnglish/index.html#MemberStatement
Sleeper effect (2016) . Wikipedia . October 31, 2016 . retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeper_effect
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