Book Review: Invisible Rulers Explores How Lies Become Reality

(MENAFN- PRovoke) Poverty happens in two ways, Hemingway wrote: gradually, and then suddenly. I think democracy collapses similarly.

In my optimistic moments I hope we're still in the gradual mode, because that suggests there's still something we can do. Item one: find out what the hell is happening.

Over in a WhatsApp community I host for people like us, I mentioned what I think is probably the most important book on this for PR pros in a while that most PR pros won't read. Not a knock on PR people; I just find we're often light readers when it comes to heavy subjects related to our field.

And Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality by Renée DiResta hits on some heavy subjects-consequences of a new media environment shaped by influencers, algorithms and the crowds they spawn-polarization, extremism and, as current events unfold, real crises in our democracies.

This environment, she argues, is replacing an earlier top-down media landscape in the creation of public opinion, described in another book most of us probably haven't read, Manufacturing Consent, by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman.

Which reminds me: back in the mid-90s at my first job with a big agency in Washington, DC, we had a core set of slides - and by slides, I mean literally 35mm glass slides that were shown through a projector-that found their way into every client presentation.

One of those always-included slides was titled: The Agenda-Setting Media, with a few bullet points explaining the process through which a few select journalists and corporate media outlets essentially established the priorities and boundaries of public discourse for a news cycle or two. As many times as we showed that slide, I doubt we ever credited the theory behind it to Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw from the 1970s, and I know we never mentioned Chomsky and Herman.

Honestly, I doubt many of us were even aware of the back story of that slide; I certainly wasn't. But I did know it worked both in client presentations and as a roadmap for real-world assignments. And lordy, did we put it to work, meticulously working through first, second and third-degree media cascades to frame discussions-and ultimately set opinions-around all kinds of issues, policies, products and services. Stories for another day.

Back to DiResta. Our new global information ecosystem has three features, she says:“invisible rulers” (an idea from another older, and probably forgotten, book by Eward Bernays) in the form of niche social media influencers who create“bespoke realities” for audiences that platforms like X or Facebook juice through traffic algorithms into formidable crowds. Reality, or at least our perception of it, now yields to their power:“if you can make it trend, you make it true.”

And lordy, that's being put to work now.

Which isn't good, in my opinion, for ideas that depend on shared understanding, like democracy (or the rule of law, or even business, for that matter). And if you believe that public relations, at its best, functions in the service of informed, ethical decision-making and behavior by leaders and organizations, it's worth having a closer look at DiResta's work.

I have no doubt there are already PowerPoint decks in circulation with a slide or two borrowing heavily from Invisible Rulers, with references to rage farming and flooding the zone, and other questionable tactics, but I hope the vast majority of fellow practitioners will read DiResta (and Chomsky and Herman too, and even Bernays' Chrystalling Public Opinion, for the fullest picture) to understand how we got here and how we might move forward.

And that's the part I'm really interested in: discussing how we might move forward. I've been banging on about mis/disinformation for a while now, as have plenty of others, and I still think it's a threat to peace and prosperity worldwide - but also now see it as part of a bigger set of shifts in how public opinion is formed, and that seems like a priority for our industry / trade / profession.

And yes, it's a bit luxurious to contemplate the current situation theoretically when there is a growing number of people at real risk right now, so please don't let these considerations distract you from taking more direct democratic and/or communicative actions.

For those with the privilege of time, DiResta draws on lessons learned from past technological distributions to the public sphere, including the use of radio to mobilize massive audiences in frightening ways through early influencers, like the pro-Nazi Francis Coughlin in the 1930s, and details a number of potential interventions: policy and regulatory changes, new forms of content moderation, organized deterrence, and greater transparency from the platforms.

All very reasonable, in my opinion, but possibly a little naive, given the current rate of change. Gradual decline leaves room for intervention. Sudden collapse, not so much.

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