New Study Explains Why Trump's 'Sad' Tweets Are So Effective (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: During his campaign and presidency, Donald Trump has used Twitter to circumvent traditional media broadcasters and speak directly to the masses. He is particularly known for one specific tweet construction: he sets up a situation that he feels should inspire anger or outrage, then punctuates it with "Sad!" New research from New York University suggests a reason why this style is so effective: a tweet containing moral and emotional language spreads farther among people with similar political persuasion. The study offered up "duty" as an example of a purely moral word, "fear" as a purely emotional one, and "hate" as word that combined the two categories. The research found that the use of purely moral or purely emotional language had a limited impact on the spread of a tweet, but the "presence of moral-emotional words in messages increased their diffusion by a factor of 20% for each additional word." The impact of this language cut both ways. Tweets with moral-emotional words spread further among those with a similar political outlook, and they spread less with those who held opposing views, according to the research published in the journal PNAS. The study looked at 563,312 tweets on the topics of gun control, same-sex marriage, and climate change, and rated their impact by the number of retweets each one received.

Comments

President Bartlett could have told you about this

[Anonymous Coward]

He already knew about the Ten-word answer over a decade ago. And none of the words should have more than three syllables.

A short pithy rejoinder will accomplish more than a Platonic dialogue, no matter how well composed it might happen to be.

In fact, the only thing more powerful would be an acronym or emoji.

In other news....

[kelanos]

The vast majority of the population are semi-brainless machines whose hearts and minds are manipulated from simple word-commands from authority

Dark but true, deal with it

Sad?

[Jack_the_Tripper]

/. has devolved into mostly partisan bickering. Sad!

"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Sad!"

[Pfhorrest]

"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Sad!" - CmdrTrumpo

Re:That's not a style

[Pfhorrest]

Because part of the study was measuring the rate of spread among people with the same and opposite political views to the tweeter using the moral-emotional language, so tweets about divisive topics make perfect candidates as there are clearly identifiable sides.

Re:President Bartlett could have told you about th

[Pfhorrest]

In fact, the only thing more powerful would be an acronym or emoji.

So you're saying the most viral possible right-wing tweet would be:

SJWs :-( Sad!

Re:That's not a style

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

I use the same words but nobody reads them. Sad.

The Genius of Trump’s Tweets

[bigwheel]

An other article from today calls Trump a genius.

https://townhall.com/columnist...

"He is able to speak directly to the American people without going through the biased mainstream media filter. The media doesn’t get to ask him slanted questions or pick and choose parts of his press releases to publish. Instead, Trump gets immense control over every single sentence he issues, which are then read by millions of Americans. "

Regardless whether you love or hate the man, you do have to admit it is an effective way to deal with unfriendly media.

Re:The Genius of Trump’s Tweets

[nasch]

If the media have been unfriendly to Trump then they must be really really stupid, because they gave him billions of dollars worth of free coverage during the campaign.

Re:The Genius of Trump’s Tweets

[mwvdlee]

But it is a clever strategy

It's also an amoral strategy..

which he stumbled upon quite conveniently

Manipulating the feeble-minded has always been his business model; it's no accident he uses tricks like these.
Just look at his university and other businesses. He even owned a casino at one point.

Trump's effective

[rsilvergun]

because he's the only populist. Everyone else is either like the Republicans and busy telling us why we can't have nice things (austerity) or the Dems and just shouting about how bad the other side is because they're in deep with the same mega corps that bought off the Right. There's an itty bitty tinsy tiny group that rally around Bernie Sanders and that's about it. So when Trump started saying things like healthcare for all and good jobs and education folks rallied around him because, hey, whatdayagot to lose?

Re:Trump's effective

[ffreeloader]

Under Obamacare my premiums have gone through the roof. Two years ago, if I would have been able to afford it, my premiums would have been $257/month with a $3500 deductible. That is basically $6600/yr. On top of that my medications would have cost me another $500/month over and above the copays and what the insurance would cover. That is $12,600/yr on less than $25,000/yr income. I'm disabled if you want to know the reason for the low income.

This year, if I had actually puchased a plan my monthly payment would have been $450/month, with a $6000/yr deductible. Add to that the costs of my medications over and above the copays and insurance coverage of $600/month and it comes to a right tidy percentage of our yearly income. Our yearly costs would have been a minimum of $18,600. That doesn't cost any possible hospitalization costs or what I have to pay for specialists visits which have a copay of $100/visit. I'm supposed to buy that on a total income of less than $30000/yr. In fact, the government will fine me for not having spent 62% of our total income on health insurance premiums, deductibles, and copays.

Let's look at single payer insurance. California has 39 million residents. They figured single payer costs of $400 billion/yr. That is twice California's current total yearly revenue.
Let's just say Caliifornia has 40 milllion residents to make a nice round number. And let's figure that the US has 320 million citizens. One is over estimated slightly and the other under estimated slightly. That makes the California population 1/8 of the US population. That means that a conservative estimate of single payer insurance costs for the entire us to $3.2 trillion dollars. That's approximately 75% of current total federal government spending.

Since the federal government already borrows $4 out of ever $10 it spends just where do you see the money to pay for a single payer system coming from? And just how sustainable are the federal government's current spending habits, let alone with a 75% increase in federal spending?

Also, do you understand that the current published federal debt of around $20 trillion is peanuts compared to what it owes in unfunded liabilities such as pension plans, future payments for current entitlement programs, etc...? In 2010 our unfunded liabilities were around $120-$140 trillion. Meaning if the feds had cut spending enough to begin paying that down at $1 trillion/yr it would have taken us well over a century to pay our debts? Our current unfunded liabilities have been estimated in the $200 trillion range. In other words paying them off with a federal budget that is $1 trillion in the black ever year would take us two centuries to pay the debt.

The US is flat out bankrupt.

Re:Trump's effective

[trawg]

Let's look at single payer insurance. California has 39 million residents. They figured single payer costs of $400 billion/yr. That is twice California's current total yearly revenue.

For reference - the UK NHS budget is £120m (USD$153m) for 65m people.

I can definitely see a US single payer programme costing way more per capita for many years (possibly decades) as the "old way of doing things" is unwound though.

Since the federal government already borrows $4 out of ever $10 it spends just where do you see the money to pay for a single payer system coming from?

I mean the obvious place is from the budget of the Department of Defense, right?! Most of the Americans I know (I lived in Ohio for two years) would happily stop exporting shrapnel and high explosives to the middle east if it meant they could get more efficient healthcare services.

Re:Trump's effective

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

I do have some sympathy for you, but your situation is unusual. You're pretty much at the poverty line with your yearly income due to disability and that does mean that you don't have a lot of choices for health insurance. And I hate to break it to you, but your premiums were still going up without Obamacare. Premiums went up constantly before it. They've gone up with it. They'll go up when AHCA gets passed. There's nothing in AHCA that's going to be of benefit to you.

I'm not accepting your numbers for US single payer insurance costs, which were no doubt pulled out of some biased right wing article you found. I also hate to break this to you, but single payer insurance is inevitable. It's the only thing that can ever bring costs down other than providing catastrophic only coverage that pays for nothing else, which would be a big problem for you. And even providing catastrophic only coverage is likely to see premiums go through the roof because the insurance companies will get less money that way in premiums, so they'll make it up by raising costs.

Your argument about the government paying pension plans is bogus because the US government back in the 1980s moved away from a pension plan system for federal employees and for over 30 years now all federal employees have had to have 401K plans. They have no choice.

Re:Trump's effective

[Waccoon]

Personal anecdote, but my coverage through MassHealth is the best coverage I've ever had. Coverage and premiums vary tremendously from state to state. Compared to Mass, the ACA health care available in New Hampshire is a disaster, I hear. That's not the case in my neck of the woods.

Let's look at single payer insurance. California has 39 million residents. They figured single payer costs of $400 billion/yr. That is twice California's current total yearly revenue.

Well, duh. Our health care system is purely for-profit, which means taking advantage of sick people... people in duress who are desperate to get better and know that if they don't, they can't work and are basically fucked. No insurance plan will help if a US medical procedure costs 15-20 times as much as the same procedure in Germany. Most nations in the world have aggressive price control for their health care specifically to prevent profiteering. But here in the US, that's called punishing success, so of course we can't do that, and pharmaceutical companies rank among the most profitable companies in the world because it's a comfortable racket if you can get your foot in the door.

Sad!

Yep - it's a theory

[Okian Warrior]

Does not sound like much of a study. More like a bit of a theory.

Yep. Researchers find a trend in the data, then rationalize an explanation and present it as "theory".

I'll propose an alternate explanation for the data.

People are tired of being told what to think, the outlets have been telling people what to think in the strongest possible terms, and as a result the strength of the words has declined.

Calling someone a liar, fascist, racist, islamophobe, Hitler, Cthulhu, and everything else was so completely over the top(*) that many people simply got used to the terms, thinking that exaggeration was the new normal they applied an internal reverse bias to compensate.

The term "sad" is mild, so when you encounter it you might think the person saying it *isn't* exaggerating, and may be choosing their words carefully. It's the difference between someone saying "I'm uncomfortable" versus "I'm too hot!". Literally, the 2nd phrase implies required action, which isn't usually true (that the action is required), and is taken as exaggeration. The 1st phrase sounds more accurate and reasonable, and gives the impression of truthfulness.

So when Trump says something is "sad", it's in lieu of calling something bad, nasty, stupid, or unconscionable. It comes off as more nuanced, non-exaggerated, and more trustworthy.

That's my theory, and it also fits the data.

Can someone propose a test to distinguish between the two theories?

(*) If you don't think that the recent media coverage was over the top, consider Breitbart's enormous jump in readership in recent months, [Democrat minority leader] Nancy Pelosi is desperately trying to shore up support, and CNN is now literally synonymous with the term "fake news". That doesn't happen overnight, nor from isolated events, nor does it happen for no good reason.

Re:Yep - it's a theory

[dbIII]

Trustworthy is debatable

Nothing to debate - he's a serial liar:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top-stories&_r=0&utm_source=TractionNext&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Worm-Subscribe-270617

Re:Probably an actual genius

[EvilAlphonso]

Calling him any sort of stupid is belied by the fact that he is a self-made billionaire, successful reality TV star

A self-reported billionaire, who started up with a "small loan" from his father, that has a track record of enriching himself by not upholding his part of contracts and screwing over his contractors. For the second part of your statement, do you also consider the Kardashians to be Mensa-grade?

You Can Do Something About It

[SoftwareArtist]

Yes, emotionally manipulative language is effective, but it doesn't have to be. Train yourself to look for it, and then choose to reject it. When you see someone appealing to your emotions instead of your reason, recognize what they're doing and call them out for it. That's especially true when they're saying things you agree with, because that's when you're most vulnerable to manipulation. We each have the responsibility to reject people who try to manipulate our emotions and tell them that's not acceptable. We also have the responsibility not to stoop to doing it ourselves. If your arguments are sound, they can stand on their own without emotionally manipulative language. If you find you can't make your arguments sound convincing without it, that's a pretty good clue there's something wrong with them.

Re:You Can Do Something About It

[Zontar The Mindless]

Yes, emotionally manipulative language is effective, but it doesn't have to be. Train yourself to look for it, and then choose to reject it. When you see someone appealing to your emotions instead of your reason, recognize what they're doing and call them out for it.

They ought to be teaching this to school kids.

Re: IMPEAXH RUSSIAN AGENT TRUMP

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand where fair an balanced comes from. It's a bunch of BS. Trump commits a new atrocity ever day of the week, but for some reason we have to trawl the bottom of the barrel to find a Democrat snafu to keep it fair. Oh hey guyz, remember that tiem dat Obummer wore tennis shoes and dress pants. OMG so unprofessional. Fair an balanced is how we end up with morons like Alex Jones getting air time. The guy should be sitting in a padded cell, not making six figures telling people there's a child sex ring in the basement of a pizza place that doesn't even have a basement.

Subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why aren't you taking advantage of the subsidy? You're earning under 200% of the federal poverty level for a household of two, so you should qualify for a subsidy equal to whatever it takes to reduce the second cheapest silver plan to 6.3% of your income. (Yes, there is still the matter of deductibles and copayments, but at least the premiums would be much more reasonable at around $150/month.)

Better still, in some states you should qualify for Medicaid on the basis of being disabled. I take it your state is not one of those?